These devoted young men hail from economically distressed communities, without the local or personal means of support sufficient to travel, establish residence in the U.S., or pay tuition. The stipulations of their student visas preclude them from being employed anywhere other than here at the school, and while all are engaged in some manner of work-study while here, we still depend on the benevolence of saints like you to meet their modest needs during their tutelage. All of them have been magnetized toward the cause of Christian Hedonism (“God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him”) by the astounding global outreach of Chancellor John Piper’s ministry at desiringGod.org. By God’s grace, they will leave here equipped for the role of biblical eldership, competent and faithful in the handling of God’s word, and enflamed with hope for nations to which they will return.
Cameroon, El Salvador, Myanmar, Nigeria, Indonesia—where will God next direct this initiative? It is all up to him, but he will use us as his means.
Here is the objective essence of the one-and-only appeal that we will make in 2020, recognizing that we are in a season in which financial resources are strained and likely best deployed close to home:
By God’s grace, through your generosity, we have sufficient resources in hand
to support the seminarians to whom we have already made commitments for the current school year.
What hangs in the balance
is whether or not we can accept a new international student
for the coming year.
That’s why we’re writing. the process of a new student’s VISA application requirements, as well as preparatory Greek instruction which the student must complete before arriving, has caused us heretofore to make an admissions decision in July of the preceding year of matriculation. At this writing, we do not have a balance in the Alex Steddom International Fund to evidence good stewardship and financial responsibility in making such a commitment to a new student. Consequently, we’re extending our admissions decision date to September in the hope that sufficient generosity might still be expressed, even in this season of recession, so that we might yet add another international student in August 2021.