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All Things New!

"Behold," God says, "I am making all things new!" As we celebrate the New Year, we remember that God is in the business of renewal. He continues to do new things in very old places. Exhibit A for us is a cold and ancient city that first received the gospel just over 100 years ago. The pastor of a very large church network based in this city has watched many trainings come and go, from both within and outside the country. But because of his excitement for our practical approach, we...

Training for the Future in Nepal

Imagine a chaotic maze of muddy, trash-strewn streets and air so thick with dust and vehicle exhaust it almost hurts to breathe. Imagine maroon-clad monks and backpack-toting foreigners making a slow circuit around Asia's largest Buddhist stupa, all searching for spiritual insight. Imagine thick black smoke rising from bodies burning in open cremation on the banks of the Bagmati River. This is the Kathmandu that most people see. But there is another, less obvious side: the strong presence of the Nepali church, its rapid growth despite persecution, and the need...

BSS 2 Field Test . . . at last!

Five to six years ago, David noticed a changing demand among national church leaders. Our old course, Bible Study Methods 1 & 2, was not being effectively used. As a seminary graduate himself, he knew the critical value of using Bible study skills for effective preaching. He was determined to find a better way to develop this skill among national pastors. Thus began the effort to revise the old courses under the new name, Bible Study Skills 1 & 2 (BSS 1 & 2). Yet the challenge remained - would the new...

Stepping Up

When Joseph stepped into the leadership role in January 2018, he and the team were facing two immediate problems: *The "weather" across the country would soon turn bad. How much would this hinder communication, travel and personal safety?   *Our training resources were stretched. There were not enough trainers to respond to all the training requests. We had a bottleneck problem. No one doubted Joseph's loyalty and dedication. For years he managed our printing, warehouse and distribution efforts at great personal risk. But leading people is dramatically different...

With God all Things are Possible

2019 has been a turning point for SALT. We significantly altered our training strategy with a new training program and officially commissioned a new core team to lead this new effort. In spite of daunting circumstances, the team has discovered, "Your strength will equal your days" (Deuteronomy 33:25). Joseph and Philip stopped by our office last month and reported the weather continues to be harsh, thus impacting our team efforts. In the first half of the year, at least three training sites were put on hold. It was discouraging. At the time, both Joseph and...

God is our Strength and Salvation

Increasingly harsh and unpredictable weather conditions have become the norm in 2019. Again and again local weather storms have flared up interrupting our national team efforts. Thankfully there have been no injuries. Constant vigilance is now the norm. In about a half dozen different regions, we have had to shut down scheduled training and wait until the storm passes before starting up again. A few months ago, a new joint-venture site, which had adopted our new 3-year certificate program, was suddenly shut down. This was so disappointing because the potential...

Wonderful Students

Ringo has been part of our curriculum team for more than 10 years. Rarely does our curriculum staff serve as a trainer. Volunteering to co-teach a SALT course was a big challenge and risk for him. He would have to teach in a second language. Would the students understand him? As an editor, he had not worked on this material. It was all new to him as no one had taught it to him before. It would require a LOT of preparation. He had never been to this training site....

No Place for Slackers!

Good students come from rigorous teachers - a Chinese proverb  Here is a glimpse of what "rigorous" SALT training looks like. Joseph, one of our senior teachers, maintains a very high standard for his students, expecting to see real change in students’ lives and teaching methods after each course. He recently finished teaching the SALT course on 1 Corinthians and will follow up with these students at the next teaching in July. As a follow up to the 3 full days of training, Joseph sent the following message to the class monitor: All testimonies must...

100 Steps

Here in Hong Kong God is opening doors for us to contribute to local church spiritual growth programs. In the coming months our staff will be teaching more classes in local HK churches.  In some instances, we discover people who have taken our courses before. When this happens, it's a dream come true. The dream? To teach others to teach. Take Debbie for example. Because Debbie took Old Testament 100 Steps a few years ago, she will join us as a helper in the upcoming class. She says this about her experience: Although...

A Teacher’s Dream: Teachable Attitudes

I was more than a bit nervous. I'm not normally a teacher. My primary work is editing and sometimes contributing as a writer. To make it worse, the "students" were very different than me. The majority were low-educated farmers who minister voluntarily. After observing their diligence and tenacity to learn how to better pastor their flocks, I was really impressed. Though I was far more educated than them, I could not help but declare, "All of you are my teachers in terms of having such a great teachable attitude." It...

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