An ESBS graduate doing awesome stuff!

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Sarah Murphy, ESBS 2009-10:  missionary in South Africa

I thought it would be fun to catch up with Sarah Murphy, who is currently doing amazing things with YWAM South Africa.  She's out there making disciples, training the church, and having a huge impact.  Here is an update from her recent newsletter:

Eastern Cape Outreach I spent July and August leading an outreach team from the School of Biblical Studies in the Eastern Cape (a province of South Africa).  We were a small team of 2 staff and 4 students teaching in various churches. Five of us squeezed into my little Toyota to drive 2 days up to Lusikisiki to our outreach location.  Our aim was to help people to see that the Word of God is accessible to them and that they can study for themselves without needing a pastor or serious study guides. We taught a Biblical Overview showing God’s plan of redemption from Genesis to Revelation in many different churches and also taught seminars on how to study through smaller books of the bible like Philemon, Titus and Ephesians.  We had a great response to our teaching with people seeing how they can study the Bible for themselves and giving testimonies such as “this is the first time I have really understood my Bible!” It is a wonderful privilege to see people getting to know God through his Word and realising that God is knowable.  Teaching the bible is an awesome blessing in my own life as I realise the truths about who God is continue to become more and more established and deeply rooted in my own life and heart. I was also greatly touched by the hospitality of the Xhosa and Zulu people.  We stayed in peoples homes and it was a great blessing to be so warmly accepted into these families and churches.  Yes we came to teach but I left with my heart deeply touched by peoples love, care and generosity.

School of Biblical Foundations and Leadership For years our mobile bible teaching team has been dreaming about offering more in-depth biblical training to Pastors and church members in the Cape Town area.  This dream is finally being realised as we are pioneering our first intensive bible seminar - School of Biblical Foundations and Leadership.  Normally we teach in churches across Cape Town however for this seminar we have invited Pastors and key leaders from churches we work with to join us for this five week seminar in Muizenberg. We have 10 participants who are coming Wednesday and Friday evenings and all day Saturdays. We are introducing our participants to the Inductive Bible Study Method we use in our Biblical Training Schools and teaching these principles through the books of Titus, 2 Timothy, James, Ephesians and Mark.  As we go step by step through these books we are looking deeper into the context, understanding the historical background and implementing application in all our lives.                         Sarah's full update and contact info