Covenanter Witness Vol. 54 - Rparchives.org

out."
again and began to search for a place a building
which was to be used as a school. After some time
the Lord, in a marvelous way, led him to buy the
present building which is in a town in the suburbs of
Paris, a place easily accessible from the city itself.
Fortunately the E.B.I, faculty gives as great
importance to practical teachings as to theoretical.
Since the time when the E.B.I. began operating, stu
dents going out have founded about sixteen to twen
ty children's classes, where the Bible is taught by
means of flannelgraph. Schools here in France are
closed on Thursday afternoons and availing our
selves of this opportunity we have founded Thurs
day Clubs where we teach children about the Bread
of Life. In these clubs, from time to time, we have
the joy of seeing some of the children come forth
and give their lives to Christ.
Time and again I have been challenged
by the
great need that there is for the Gospel of Christ in
Europe and particularly by the great need in France.
Every Monday afternoon we make door-to-door calls
here in our own locality and many times we are sur
prised to see how little people know about the Bible ;
in some cases we even find people who do not know
what the Bible is. So -the need is indeed great, but
the labourers are few. It is for this purpose that the
E.B.I, stands today, namely, for preparing young
men and women who will go out and preach the Gos
pel without fear and without shame.
Dear Reader, does not this stir you to pray for
France I hope it does. If it does, then pray particu
larly for the E.B.I, whose goal is to prepare men and
women to meet this great need. Pray that God may
send more French students to E.B.I, and that those
of us who are already here may be used in a mighty
way for the Salvation of many a precious soul. Pray
particularly for a spirit of unity among the faculty
members and the students, for more moral integ
rity and sanctified lives before the Lord, for we real
ize that all our strength lies therein. We firmly
believe that unless the truth of Romans 12:1, 2 is
realized in the lives of each one of us we are abso
lutely helpless.
Thus far the information I have given is for the
purpose of laying a burden for prayer upon Christian
brothers and sisters who desire to see the advance
ment of His Kingdom on this earth, but in closing
I want to write a word or two to those of you who
have not yet decided what to do with your lives. Out
of eleven years of personal experience in the Chris
tian Life I can say with conviction that the
greatest investment a person can make is to give
himself or herself for the Service of the King of
kings and Lord of lords. But before yau can have a
desire to serve Him you must allow Him to come
into your life and fill you with His joy and peace and
reconcile you to God, for that is the first thing He
would like to do. You who have sought your joy and
peace in the pleasures of the world, the material
things, or even in a religion, but have not as yet
found them and you are still struggling desperately
and helplessly and you may be frustrated, won't you
at this moment try Him Jesus of whom you may
never have thought before I am sure He will not
disappoint you, for He has said in His Word, John
6:37b, "Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise
cast
344
Academy Herald, Larnaca, Cyprus
OBSTACLES: CHECKMATE OR CHALLENGE
By Chester T. Hutcheson
Our Boys' school here in Latakia is still carry
on with the usual classes, beginning with the
ing
First grade. The ninth class boys, take the second
official examination, and the larger per cent of them
do not go on to any school. This is considered a stand
ard of education here,
much as the popular con
ception of a High School education is considered in
U.S.A. A few students, however, take another year
with us, and in this way complete our High School
course, if they have taken the High School course,
and thus learned enough English to study mathe
matics, geography and sciences in this language.
Our attendance is all that we could wish for
with the room space we have at our disposal. We
even refuse some students in certain classes 'because
of lack of space, but do not refuse until we have
about 40 in a class. Most of our rooms are as big as
office rooms in schools in U.S.A. and not large like
classrooms there. If we had such rooms here we
would use them for assembly rooms. Our school is
considered one of the four Boys Schools of the town,
for secondary education, i.e. of High School level,
and one of several more for elementary education.
For a few years after the war, we were able to
expand our school some and put in a good High
School course, and add a class so that we could pre
pare students for the second government examina
tion, mentioned above. We were then visited by dep
utations from the American colleges of Syria and
Lebanon to see what our scholastic standing would
be considered in their eyes. We were told that they
would accept our graduates from High School in
their Freshman class without examination, for the
present. We were also told that we must improve
our laboratory and library, or would likely lose
standing with them. We improved these two some,
but not enough, so three years ago we lost this
standing with the American University of Bierut,
Lebanon; and last year with
Aleppo, Syria; and
American Junior college. We need a good large room
for both, then some equipment for the same. This
room does not seem available, unless we build.
Since the war we have spent a fair amount of
money in repairs of rooms and buildings but have
not built any new ones. Some of these repairs have
been rather extensive, as we put on new roofs, to
replace old clay ones. The new7 ones are flat,
re-inforced
concrete roofs, that should last forever. We
have a few more that may need replacing ere long
and some tile roofs also that may need replacing,
with concrete, as new tiles are practically impossible
to get.
Mr. and Mrs. Sanderson were able to carry on a
considerable youth program during the six months
they were here last year. When they went to the
youth conference in the spring, our students seemed
to be really touched spiritually. One proof of this
was the spiritual testimonies that Dr. Krikorian
wrote about in his letter to Mr. Hays last fall, ex
cerpts of which were published in the "Witness" last
winter ; (in December missionary number, I think it
was) and I hope you were all privileged to read. By
the way this Dr. Krikorian's wife is a daughter of
our beloved Dr. Badeer who worked with our mission
in Mersine.
COVENANTER WITNESS