Helping the Church in Chad rescue orphans and widows,
train leaders, and share
the Gospel

Summer 2008

ESTES Update: Sad News, Then Back to Normal

By Scott Hafemann

The last three months at the Bible college (ESTES) have not been easy ones. Just as the school was recovering from the difficult aftermath of the rebel attack in February, the ESTES community was rocked with sadness by the sudden death of two beloved students. Saibou, who had graduated just last Spring, was killed in a car accident. Joel Allanaissem, who was looking forward to graduating this year, died in three short days from malaria. Both students left very large families, and Anne Allanaissem, pregnant at the time of Joel's death, just gave birth to their son. I remember both students well, having taught them several times over the past years.

 of why ESTES keeps going with the hard work of studying in the midst of such difficult circumstances. Is it really worth it to keep preparing for the future when life is so hard and death is so prevalent, when heaven and hell are in the balance in such real ways every day? 

This is the question C. S. Lewis asked and answered in his classic sermon, "Learning in War-Time," delivered October 22, 1939, forty-nine days after England declared war on Germany. One of his answers strikes me as I think of ESTES in Chad: war and untimely deaths suddenly make real what should be real to Christians all the time: eternity. And in light of this reality, all human endeavors to which God calls us, no matter what they might be, are both profoundly temporary and profoundly necessary. 

Mothers mother, students study, workers work, Christians give, not because we are certain our labors will be completed (no labor is ever complete this side of eternity!) but because God has called us to do what we do in the confidence that God, and God alone, can use it for eternal purposes in a temporal world. Doing what God has called us to do (and he has certainly called us to know and proclaim his Word!) is our declaration of confidence in his Word despite the consequences of sin, knowing that all such acts of faith count, now and for eternity!

Our support for ESTES in the midst of the war- and disease-torn country of Chad, like their own hard work, is a response to God's calling and faithfulness in the midst of our sin-torn world. So Lewis rightly answered the question of learning in war-time by quoting the apostle Paul's admonition about life in this evil age: "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God" (1 Cor. 10:31). Amen.

Continued Needs and Dreams for ESTES:

1. Support for Students: $2,000 for a full year (tuition and living expenses)
2. Transportation for Faculty: $1,500 for a motorcycle (two needed)
3. Four Laptops and Greek and Hebrew Text Books for the School ($8,000)
4. Sewing Machines and Supplies for the Women's Program ($170 per machine)
5. $10,000 to expand irrigation system to enable two growing seasons a year
6. $50,000 for an Ice-Making Machine to start the business that will support the school.
7. $100,000 for the repair and expansion of the buildings, which are in dire need!

...God has called us to do what we do in the confidence that God, and God alone, can use it for eternal purposes in a temporal world.