We are writing to make you aware of an exciting reframing of the work of the Alex Steddom International Student Fund at Bethlehem College and Seminary. By the grace of God manifested as your personal generosity, we are now able to focus on delivering Bethlehem’s Bible-saturated, academically rigorous seminary education in-country among the theologically famished peoples of the world whose joy in God has long been our mission.
You’ve been an integral part of all this. You helped us identify qualified men from elsewhere in the world to bring to the U.S. for their seminary education. As benefactors of the Steddom Fund, God has for years now used you to supply full tuition and living expenses to these men while they study here.
But now, we change gears. Going forward, we plan to direct the flow of these resources toward the regions of the world where we seek to spread and deliver the education there, as opposed to here in Minneapolis. We’ll start by teaching more seminarians at our Cameroon Extension Site in Yaoundé, the capital city of that West African nation. Two cohorts have already graduated, and two more are rising. We will build our faculty there from among our graduates, just as we did here. And this year we expect to admit our first “international” student, not here in Minneapolis, but rather there in Yaoundé—a student from another country in Africa.
And then we will cast our eyes and prayers toward India, now the world’s most populous nation. Steddom Fund grantees Edison DSouza and Boaz Prince, currently studying here in Minneapolis, are making near-term plans to return to India to re-enter church leadership there and to seek to replicate the Cameroon Seminary model, albeit differently contextualized, on the subcontinent.
There are Steddom grantees still here from El Salvador, Myanmar, Nigeria, and Indonesia, in various stages of ministry service and preparation, whom we’ve encouraged to submit proposals for returning to their homelands to undertake similar endeavors in the coming years.
I think Alex Steddom, looking down on us from Heaven, is exceedingly well-satisfied to see how the tragedy of his death at a young age has been used of God to yet minister to the nations in whose hope he was so invested while he was with us. Alex was to have entered Bethlehem Seminary in the year of his passing. Through your annual support of this fund, he, in a way, still enters each new seminary class. With this change of focus, Alex’s gospel ambition lives on among cohort brothers in Africa, India, and elsewhere.
The net of all this? We will require substantially less of your generosity this year to do what we hope to be substantially more for the Kingdom—in-country, where it matters most. This new approach will tie up fewer dollars in international transportation and high U.S. living expenses, and liberate generosity to teach and graduate seminarians in the regions where they live. Indeed, this year’s Steddom Fund appeal seeks 25% less than previous years in order to support almost four times as many active seminary students.
Please take the time to review the Generosity Prospectus and watch this short video that demonstrates the fruitfulness of your generosity—God’s glory—on display. You can see both here: bcsmn.edu/alex-steddom.
I’ve personally made four trips to Cameroon in the last ten years, and I have witnessed a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ burst into purifying flame there, radically transforming prosperity gospel devotees into true biblical Bereans seeing and savoring Christ in his word of truth. I’ve heard first-hand Eddie DSouza’s and Boaz Prince’s eagerness to get back to India right after graduation to initiate a seminary program there. God is certainly on the move…in, with, and through you.
So join again this annual Summer campaign to help fund the Alex Steddom International Student Fund at Bethlehem College and Seminary. Our immediate annual need is modest, only $138,700. The world however is immense, and the fields are white for harvest. We’ll do our best to keep pace with your global gospel ambitions. We promise to continue to steward God’s gifts faithfully, hold fast to doctrinal integrity in our teaching, and share your passion for spreading the truth that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.
To contribute, visit bcsmn.edu/steddom, or write me at Bethlehem College and Seminary, 720 13th Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55415. Please make checks payable to Bethlehem College and Seminary with “Steddom Fund” on the memo line.
It’s such a joy to co-labor with you in this work. We’re laying up treasure in Heaven, I for one look forward to sitting with you one day on some distant plain of eternity with brothers and sisters from every tribe and tongue reveling in all that God will have done with us through the Alex Steddom International Student Fund.
His servant and yours,
Rick Segal
Vice President of Advancement and Lecturer of History and Political Philosophy