The dream of Pastor Yakobe in Malawi

LEADERSHIP TRAINING PROJECT

Leadership Training Program (LTP) is a ministry which was established in 1998 in order to provide a 2-year Theological Training to church leaders in Evangelical Baptist Church. This is Theological Education by Extension (TEE). Over the years, these people were being given positions like deacons, elders and pastors but did not have a chance to attend any Bible college. LTP has provided theological training and refresher courses to many church leaders. I (Pastor Yakobe) am very encouraged to see most of LTP students have been ordained in various positions like deacons, elders, and pastors and are doing a very good job in their areas of ministry.

Achievements

Apart from training many church leaders, the Leadership Training Program has translated 61 Pastoral Training Booklets which are being used in refresher courses for the church leaders in our denomination (church) and other denominations in Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia. Called Project 66.

EVANGELIAL BAPTIST BIBLE COLLEGE

Upon seeing that a residential Bible college is very expensive and that our denomination was not able to send students to those Bible colleges, we in Leadership Training Program decided to establish a residential Bible College in 2008 which would be used by our denomination and other denominations in Malawi.  We were doing all these in order to equip the church leaders so that they can have the needed skills to preach the Gospel wherever they go and also to provide the needed care for believers in their churches.

PROJECT 66 IS STARTED (2021)

After working with church leaders for two decades now, I have found that most of the church leaders in Malawi do not speak English. For this reason, it pains me to see that these church leaders do not benefit from Bible commentaries we have in our libraries country wide since they are all written in English. Upon seeing this, I established the “Project 66” in which I am targeting to translate Bible commentaries for the 66 books of the Bible starting from the New Testament. Right now, I have translated James Gray’s Concise Bible Commentary (Old and New Testament) into Chichewa. I have also translated John MacArthur’s Bible commentary on the book of Titus and Romans. These Bible commentaries will not only help the church leaders but will also help all believers who will use them.

THE COMEPLETION UNDER PASTOR YAKOBE

The aim of Project 66 is to translate commentaries that encompass all 66 books of the old and new testaments. Pastor Yakobe is the main editor and translator, and the NT commentary has been completed after 2 1/2 years. The OT commentary can go to print. This resource is a priceless benefit to village pastors for whom English is not an option. Pray for Yakobe as he continues to produce helpful theological and discipleship materials for the village and provides leadership for the many training ministries he facilitates.