OUT OF BOUNDS REPORT, OCTOBER, 2009

I am still teaching at The Bible Institute Eastern Cape. I am teaching three classes this semester: Intro to Biblical Ethics (3rd yr); NT and Social Identity 4th)’ Christ and Salvation (2nd).

I have stepped down from doing the mission week twice a year. It got to be that I was sick each time after I did this. There is usually the mission week and then another week break then school starts up again. Well I usually ended up in bed the week of the break. While the rest of the people were “resting” I was sick and then was expected to be all refreshed when school started again. Well this was not happening.

For your information Donna has been teaching and this semester she is teaching 3 courses but this semester is the last for her.

We have been in prayer and consultation with MTW and colleagues and have felt that it is time for me to end my teaching at BIEC as well. This will happen at the end of June which is the completion of the 1st semester. Our letters of resignation have already been submitted so the necessary people know about this decision.

However this does not mean that we will be coming back to the States. We have found out that the divorce rate here in Port Elizabeth is incredibly high. 70%!!! As we move more and more into 2010 we will be involved in preparing and implementing biblical marriage teaching and translating them into different languages of South Africa. This will be a huge project but if God be for us who can be against us?

This will start on the level of going back to the original languages and translating 4-6 foundational passages on marriage. Learn or relearn lessons and then find ways to teach these lessons to a particular tribe in their language. It will involve using illustrations that teach these biblical lessons. Of course these illustrations will vary according to language or even vary within the language group depending on the location of the group being taught. How long this will go will depend on how God blesses us in this endeavor. This is a new thing. We will have to find national speakers of the language who also can speak English and then we will have to test this out to find out its effectiveness.

I am not an expert in either Greek of Hebrew so I would be looking for some advisor in these areas to make sure I am getting the right translation and intent of the passage. So if you have any suggestions of someone who is willing and able to help I would appreciate. This won’t be until later next year, 2010.

Stan and Donna Armes