Thank you for your prayers IBAC! While activities and businesses in the U.S. have opened up a bit, things in most of Latin America continue to be shut down because of COVID-19. While we are disappointed to have to postpone Bible institutes that we had planned, we are grateful for the opportunities that technology and time have allowed us. Since April, we have been meeting weekly in virtual meetings (Nicaraguan staff pictured above) with our latino pastor teachers in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Bolivia, and Ecuador to study hermeneutics together and improve in our observation, interpretation, and application of God’s Word to our lives. Francisco and Cecilia are one couple who have been participating each week. Here is what they have to say about the course:
“We consider IBAC to be an incredible blessing to us and the most recent studies we have been 
receiving have helped us a great deal. While in other occasions we have received similar teaching this course was different. We felt that the techniques that we were taught have really made the study of God’s Word clearer. This has directly helped our pastoral work in presenting a clearer and more biblical message to our congregation. This simple yet extraordinary teaching has resulted in a great blessing to them as well as us and we are grateful to IBAC and God for this opportunity.”
In addition to these meetings, many of our pastor teachers have been taking this time to help us revise, review, and improve our IBAC curriculum. Teachers are working on lesson enhancements and revisions. For example, one of our teachers is looking for quotes from Spanish theologians that better address the situation our material teaches in the contexts of our Latin American students. Another group of our teachers is developing an entirely new course on communication in leadership that we look forward to implementing in 2021. We’re looking forward to getting back to our normal routine of meeting in groups when it is safe, but are thankful for how God has provided opportunities for meaningful ministry development even as we wait.
