Following a pause owing to lockdown, construction has restarted on building a new training centre that will help SIM workers in a South Asian country reach more people with the gospel and create disciples in a country where Christians are in the minority.
Managing a socially-distanced building site is a challenge according to one of our mission workers, but basement rooms have been built and work is ongoing on the ground floor of the new three-storey building.
restarted at the Project Centre site – with distancing and masks
“We began this project in faith and it looks like we are almost 90 per cent there with the money we need to raise, but that leaves us needing approximately £20,000 more,” explains the SIM worker. “Also, one of the grants we have been promised is time-limited and contingent on us raising the rest of the money soon.”
The ministry is upgrading its facilities in the southern town of where it offers both a practical and spiritual lifeline to young men from poor villages, as well as a school, where children from all backgrounds get access to education in a Christian environment.
The new building will allow SIM to expand its youth vocational project, where illiterate young men learn a trade, such as tailoring, as well as study the Bible and learn numeracy and literacy skills
“More than 70 per cent of our graduates become established in their new field of expertise,” adds the SIM worker. “Many of these lads choose to join our church-planting programme after they graduate and go on to lead churches back home in their villages.
“But they are learning in temporary facilities that are not adequate to the task and the motorcycle mechanic students have nowhere to learn except outside, whatever the weather.
The new centre will provide space for the students to live and study and we can expand what we offer to include mobile phone repairing.”
The new building will also free up space to open a girls’ section of the school, so girls from rural villages can study as long as boys – up to age 16 – and a flat for one of the SIM team families to live on site.
“They can be involved in mentoring, discipling and supporting the students and staff living here,” adds the SIM worker. “The time seems right for this kind of spiritual and infrastructural investment, which will by God’s grace enable us to expand the discipleship ministry of SIM in cooperation with SIM-related churches throughout this region.”
If you would like to donate to this Project Centre, please go to www.sim.co.uk/donate (Project Number 98175).
By Kerry Allan
Please pray
- Praise God that he remains faithful as the SIM team copes with many changes over the past several months.
- The Lord will provide the funds needed to complete the building project.
- That this SIM ministry will continue to bear fruit for years to come.