Subject: APTS China Initiatives (I have included most of the APTS students in the b.c.c. column. Feel free to translate and pass on this email to other friends who you think will be interested in this vision.) Just a summary of what will happen this year in terms of APTS China Initiatives. I am not sure how long I will be President of APTS. I believe this to be a window of opportunity for APTS to serve China. I hope we can all take advantage of this window and set in place these Initiatives so that they become a strong part of APTS ministry. 1. Exploratory Meeting for consortium Chinese D.Min. There will be a meeting of the Deans/Representatives of the major Chinese-based Bible colleges representing Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong during the Jubilee celebrations. It will begin on the evening of the 25th of March. The Deans of the school in Kuala Lumpur (Bible College of Malaysia), Singapore (Assemblies of God Bible College) and Taichung (Assemblies of God School of Theology) have confirmed coming. The President of the Hong Kong Bible college (Ecclesia Bible College) has expressed his full support although he has yet to confirm his participation in person. Two veteran missionaries (Bob Menzies and Don Parret) will be joining as well. We hope to have the Uncles (or their representatives) of the major House Church groups to attend. So far, only the Uncle from Lixing has indicated he will come. 2. Seminar on Theological Education & APTS Learning Centers inside China When we met in Shanghai with some of our friends, we discovered that many may not have fully understood what formal theological education requires. So, before we fully embark on our plan to start APTS Learning Centers (offering bridging programs for prospective APTS students at both B.A. and M.A. levels), we need to help our China friends understand what is required. That is why we will be planning to have a seminar on theological education around the end of October and the beginning of November in Shenzhen. The special teachers in this seminar will be Dr. Carter, Dr. Houger and other representatives from APTA (Asia Pacific Theological Association), and APEO (Asia Pacific Education Office from the US). I will of course be there to introduce APTS plan. We may need some of our graduates/students to be interpreters. Ezra Xing can hopefully help with the logistics for the hotel, etc. 3. Chinese M.A. and B.A. (or B.Th.) We have finished a couple of pilot classes for the Chinese M.A. Although it was not well attended, we learned important lessons. I will be going to Taiwan to discuss again with our partner school (Taichungs AOGST) what else we can do to improve this. We have also been thinking about starting a B.A. (or B.Th.) in Chinese Ministries. Dr. Kay seems to be open to the idea. If we can do this, our Chinese friends can come and study their B.A. level in Chinese. 4. July/August China Leaders/Workers Training We will do about 6 weeks this time. We already have about 10 students confirmed coming from Kunming. There are also 3 teachers from Malaysia who have indicated that they will be coming. We will try again to work with the APTS Registrars and Academic Deans offices to see if we can include the B.A. & M.A. courses within the training. This will be similar to the summer programs we have (e.g. MTI and IIS) where we also offer academic credits. 5. Regular Scholarshipped Students from China doing the M.Div. Another student from China (Stephen Yao) will be graduating with the M.Div. but we are not getting enough students from China doing their M.Div. Hopefully, the APTS Learning Center and the Chinese M.A. will help feed us with more students for our regular M.Div. program. I hope more students will take advantage of this scholarship arrangement. If the scholarship is not being taken advantage of, we may need to discontinue it. Please pray for wisdom as I talk with the Uncles who we hope will come for the Jubilee celebrations. 6. Chinese Faculty We are excited that Pastor Joe Liu is doing his Ph.D. in education at the University of Baguio. It is a big financial investment on his part with huge benefits for the Kingdom, especially for the mission towards China and Chinese. Pastor Joe is now the Coordinator of our Chinese programs. He is qualified now to teach if we have an undergraduate program in Chinese and he will of course be qualified teach later at the masteral level. (Actually, I think he is qualified to teach under supervision at the masters level already since he is on the faculty development program.) But, we need more faculty who can teach in Chinese (and perhaps in English as well). If you think the Lord has called you into the teaching and training ministry, please feel free to talk with me. 7. Chinese Library We are still in process of getting more books. We have 2,500 to 3,000 books now but the plan is to get 8,000 books in the next 3 years. Please pray for funding and for a Chinese librarian. (Carol Xiang is helping our temporarily now.) There is a full scholarship (covering school fees, textbooks, food, lodging, transport, etc.) for the Master in Information and Library Science (MILS) at a Filipino university available for anyone of you. But, you need to agree to serve APTS for a number of years as a missionary after you graduate. It will be nice if a Chinese takes this position. 8. Finances & Prayer In ministry, we will probably never have enough in terms of finances. We will always need to pray and trust in the Lord. However, we are encouraged by the huge amounts of money now in Chinese hands. Lets pray that Chinese who have been blessed will invest in the Kingdom of God. APTS is a good Kingdom investment. What can you do? You can pray. You can give . . . or encourage others to give. You can ask God if you fit somewhere in this for the long term . . . perhaps for faculty development, etc. You can encourage the Uncles and other leaders in China to partner with APTS. You can recommend more students to APTS. We can do a lot . . . but ultimately we have to trust God to grace our efforts. Yee Tham Wan & Ngoh Moon Tee Find us on Facebook! Asia Pacific Theological Seminary, Baguio
Posted on: Sat, 08 Feb 2014 13:31:38 +0000
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