Ground Broken For African Seminary in Bangui
Posted by Terry White on May 25, 2009
The long-awaited groundbreaking for the first facilities of an eventual 30-building seminary complex, named the James Gribble Leadership Training Center, took place this past Friday, May 22, in Bangui, the capital city of Central African Republic. The following report was edited from blogposts by Jason Carmean, pastor of the Lexington, Ohio, Grace Brethren Church, who is in CAR teaching and participating in the groundbreaking ceremonies. To read Jason’s blog, click here. (Jason Carmean photo)
Today (Friday) was a wonderful day to be a part of the groundbreaking ceremony that took place for the new seminary here. The only thing that made the day hard was that it poured down rain and was a muddy mess all over the grounds where we were. We had to drive back a “road” to get to where the seminary was and got stuck in a 4-wheel drive truck two different times.
It’s hard to put into words all that the groundbreaking meant for the leaders of the seminary and the churches here. In many ways it was a very solemn time as they realized the responsibility they have been given to train the next generations of leaders and pastors in the African churches.
The students and their wives arrived on the grounds at about 8 a.m. After that it was the pastors and their wives, beginning with those who would have been younger and may not have been ordained yet. Our group was set to leave when we got word that the Prime Minister was not going to be there until 10 a.m. so we waited until about 9:30 to leave so that we would arrive shortly before him.
We got there and the heavens opened and it poured and poured and poured. Thankfully we were under a canopy, but the other two groups had much more of a makeshift covering that would fill with water and they would have to dump out. We all made the best of it and managed.
Then we received word that the Prime Minister was called into another meeting and so he was not able to come but they were sending someone else. Protocol, however, would not allow one of the government officials to arrive at something in the rain so we thought we might end up waiting a long time.
Finally the rain began to let up and he arrived and the ceremony began. We finished and arrived back here at the guest house about 3:00 for lunch.
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