Dear friends,

I wish you all a merry Christmas and a very happy New Year—new decade, and new millennium. Our semester has just concluded at the Nile Theological College (NTC), so this is a good time for me to write to you about the last year and to consider future prospects. Looking back, I think 1999 was a good year for NTC. We had some difficult moments, but altogether we did well, and we look forward to a successful new year. Let me share some of the things that have been going on with me and with the college, and then I'd like to discuss our future.

Perhaps the most important thing to note is that on December 4 of this year NTC graduated 39 students. Thirty-one of them were in the pastoral program, and 8 in the Christian education program. For each of them—except a few transfer students—this represents four long years of study. For many of them this was probably the longest period of uninterrupted study in their lives. It's probably difficult for people in the West to comprehend what an achievement this is for them. For the most part, they came to us with a rudimentary understanding of English and minimal skills as students, and often very little Bible knowledge. Their educations were often disrupted in the South because of the war, and what little education they had achieved—in the African style—did not emphasize creative or critical thinking, but generally just memorization. In their first months—if not years—at NTC they were bewildered by the library, confused by instructors asking them to think for themselves, and overwhelmed by the strange new subject matter of a seminary education. In many respects even studying the Bible was a difficult and demanding chore for them. To begin with, most had never even read the Old Testament, because it usually doesn't exist in their tribal languages. We gave them all the NIV Study Bible, and they nearly all struggled—even into their second year—to understand the use of its scholarly features: study notes, text notes, cross-reference system, concordance, maps, charts, and many indexes. Student skills that college-level teachers generally take for granted in the West simply cannot be taken for granted here. This is frustrating both for the teachers and for the students. Therefore, it is no small thing to say that 39 students managed to graduate from NTC this year. And, I should add, it represents not only the effort of the students and faculty, but also the willingness of a number of private individuals and churches (in the United States and Sudan) to provide the necessary financial support.

NTC opened in 1992, and since then we have learned a lot about the specific and often unique needs of our largely southern Sudanese students. Consequently, over the last year NTC faculty and administrators have met a number of times to discuss curriculum and various structural changes in the college program. The first thing that we have decided to do, which will be implemented in the first semester of 2000, is to add a preparatory year to the four-year program. In this year we will teach English and Bible knowledge, and at the end of the year the students must pass comprehensive exams in these subjects in order to qualify to continue. Students who come to us already well-prepared may skip the preparatory year if they can pass these entrance exams. All of this will add an additional burden of time and expense to an NTC education, but given the lack of basic skills we concluded that it is absolutely necessary. It is also hoped that by setting clear admission standards, we will encourage the local Bible colleges to do a better job in preparing their students. Other changes that we will implement in the near future are largely concerned with course matters: e.g. we will offer full-semester courses in African and Sudanese church history, courses that I've been teaching as half-semester courses until now. Two changes that our Board of Trustees has yet to approve include (1) an annual rather than semi-annual intake of new students, and (2) the inclusion of a series of Bible translation courses for students who want to make a career of translation work. The annual intake will greatly streamline the course program, and the translation courses are much needed in a country where the translation of the Bible into the many tribal languages is still decades short of completion. That the Board has not approved these ideas, which seem to me to be so needed and entirely uncontroversial, is a measure of the contrast between Western and African approaches to and understandings of education. It is not enough merely to have good ideas. The ideas must be compelling to the Sudanese. And so we struggle on—arguing, cajoling and trying to present a broader vision.

I have now been in Sudan for four years. During that time I've learned enough of the Arabic language to get by (NTC classes are taught in English), I've completed the writing of lecture courses in church history and a number of other subjects, and I've done some writing and editing. The latter work includes launching Nile Vision, a 48-page annual journal for NTC. I've put out two editions so far, and I'm now working on a third. I've also written several articles for the "Faith in Sudan" series, a collection of books and booklets about Christianity in Sudan. Also, I will have my own book about Sudan coming out early next year, a collection of short stories about Christian life in Sudan that will be the ninth volume in the "Faith in Sudan" series. And I have some other ideas for this series that, God willing, I will be able to complete in the near future. I have also been involved in teaching literature at various colleges in Khartoum, and I help in the ministry to the inmates of Kober Prison.

Once again I thank all of you who have been faithfully supporting me and the work of NTC with your prayers and financial contributions. I would like to ask that you pray especially for the ongoing curriculum changes that NTC is now implementing or considering for the near future. Also, the administration has been working for the last year on the possibility of relocating the school and of beginning a major new building program. So far this has been blocked by internal problems with the local churches, and by legal problems with the government. Pray that these obstacles may be overcome, so that the school may expand and develop to meet the growing needs of the Sudanese Christian community. Lastly, please pray for peace in this war-torn land.

Faithfully yours,

Rev. Dr. Michael Parker