Bob's small group

Here are some pictures of Bob's small group. Brad Winslow, who I used to work with on the maintenance crew, helps me work with these young men. Together we are teaching the guys to work with wood and become familiar with wood working tools. We meet together on Wednesday nights in the maintenance shop. We have also been going through the Gospel of John focusing on the Person and works of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Son of God. He is God. Faith in who He is is the first step in following Him as a disciple. As God, He knows all about us and our every thought. His miracles show that He can be trusted, and that we can entrust our salvation and lives unto Him. Encouraging these boys on as disciples of Jesus Christ is our purpose.
There are five 9th grade guys in our group: Alexi, Ben, Evan, Jason, and Joseph.


Alexi and Brad

Some "Mumbai" figures the guys carved led to sharing about idolatry.

Making some walking sticks





Joseph plays for the BFA soccer and basketball teams



Jason is a good friend of Marshall's...

He joined the wrestling and track teams this year.


Ben and Evan are amazing violinists, and Ben is one of our schools best runners,.... and only a Freshman!

May Baptisms

One of the highlights of the Spring term at BFA is when students profess their faith in Jesus Christ through water baptism. It is an occasion for great joy and encouragement to see our students (and our own children) making this step of faith. The Black Forest Christian Fellowship which holds its services in our school auditorium offers this opportunity to students and the church community every year at this time. Due to the number of students desiring to profess their faith in Christ by being baptized required dedicating two Sunday services for this event. Each baptism was an exciting testimony of God’s working in the lives of our missionary kids. Some of them were of elementary and middle school age whose faith had come to fruition through the instruction of godly parents and through AWANA and Sunday school leaders. A few teens came to faith after having had to endure great hardships like the loss of a dad. Others came to faith after a period of rebellion. Most of these students were baptized by their dads, some by our pastor, and a few by those who have been mentors or someone close to their family. A few of our boarding student’s parents were not able to be present for their son or daughter’s baptism. These students chose to have their dorm parents and RAs (Resident Assistants) to take part in this significant event in their parents' place.






















Jesse Frank, the man in the black leather jacket, leads up the AWANA program that is an important ministry to our children.








Last, but not least, was a man from our German community. He was recently led to faith in the Lord through his step mom. She also led his dad to faith in Christ as well!




There were a few others not included in this list of photos who were also baptized!

International Christian Educators Conference

During our Spring Break the Black Forest Academy hosted the I.C.E. Conference. It was attended by 200 delegates from 25 international Christian schools (plus BFA's staff) from countries like: Russia, Madrid, Prague, Kazakhstan, Albania, Niger, Mali, Turkey, Tanzania... We had great speakers, training workshops, testimonies, and teaching materials made available to us. It was so exciting to hear how God has been working through the ministry of education around the world and it was such a privilege to be amongst such an elite and humble group of God's servants. As a new teacher I attended workshops that gave me creative teaching tips and some how-to's on class discipline. As a result of the conference I gained an even greater appreciation of the value of Christian education particularly as a means of discipling young people for Christ. We are training young people to think Biblically in every area of study, on every issue that we are confronted with, and in whatever culture we find ourselves in.






Three work teams from churches in the USA came to serve at this conference. They did an enormous amount of cleaning, set-up and take-down, waiting on tables, and running a childrens' program. They came at their own expense so that most of us on staff at BFA could attend this conference.



Marshall had the privilege of playing his drums with the team that led worship for the conference.