Praise Notes

1. September was a great month at WATS. Masters modules led by Dr. Gary Maxey, Dr. David Seiver, Pastor Sola Ajibulu and David Adeleke ended on September 4. By September 14 thirty top church leaders arrived for a special one-week MA in Christian Leadership module postponed from July: Discipleship for the Twenty-First Century, led by Dr. U. Obed, senior pastor of Glory Tabernacle in Ibadan, Nigeria. Dr. Gwen Dewey (Bakke Graduate University) also made a great contribution by providing an unplanned all-day presentation of the BGU Theology of Work teaching to these church leaders.
   
   
2. By September 22 Jacqueline Hoover (Beirut, Lebanon), Dr. Keith Norman (Memphis, Tennessee), and Frederick Luogon (WATS lecturer from Liberia) began teaching modules respectively in History of Christian-Muslim Relationships, Hermeneutics, and Survey of Church History. Only those who come to campus can appreciate the excitement many of us feel to see what is happening through our Masters modules!
   
   
3. September 18 was a special day at WATS, with the combined annual matriculation of undergraduate students and our fourth Founder´s Day celebration. Sixty-five new students pledged their loyalty to WATS, and several speeches marked our trip down memory lane to the founding of WATS twenty years ago.
   
   
4. The biggest campus event of the month was certainly our annual Missions and Evangelism Conference. September 23 – 25 we celebrated the return of more than thirty Springboard short-term missionaries, who travelled far and wide in June and July and returned with exciting stories of heaven´s help. On the final day the largest WATS pledge offering ever (over N950,000) was raised for sending out more missionaries for Springboard 2010. Our guest speaker was enthusiastically received as he spoke four times: Dr. William E. Flippin, senior pastor of Greater Piney Grove Baptist Church in Atlanta. With him were his son, Rev. Joseph Flippin, his executive pastor, Dr. James McWhorter, and missions personnel Ernestine Wade and Muriel Palmer. Relationships were formed that will last a lifetime. (Another "bonus" was a short visit during that week of a representative from Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta — Victor Bell — who was in Lagos to survey opportunities for Peachtree and WATS to impact the local business community.)
   
   
5. GOOD NEWS: An increasing number of WATS alumni are beginning to join the Gideon´s Army being raised to support WATS on an annual basis. We are asking God to give us at least 300 alumni who will give N10,000 or more on an ongoing annual basis. In September alumni began signing on, and many of them are giving far more than the suggested minimum. Hallelujah!! We believe this alumni goal can be met FULLY over the coming months.
   
   
6. And, finally, to the REALLY IMPORTANT NEWS (please once again pardon my crazy sense of humor here): Emma Lou and I were blessed on September 15 with our seventh grandchild: Isabella Maxey, born to Andrew and Lori Maxey, in Alabama! Congratulations!!!!!