Pentecostal Assembly gets theological books |07 July 2021
The handover
The Seychelles Bible Society (SBS) officially handed over some theological books to the Pentecostal Assembly of Seychelles yesterday at the Pentecostal Assembly Church at Riverside.
The event was attended by members of the SBS and the pastors.
The chairperson of the SBS, Reverend Daniel Kallee, said that this donation has been made possible through the Scholarly Editions Grant (SEG) of the German Bible Society (GBS).
He also announced that the SBS recently became a member of the United Bible Societies (UBS) fellowship and from them, they were able to receive the original Hebrew and Greek Scripture texts as well as the related dictionaries and lexica.
“We are fortunate to receive these books as the young people always ask for the original scriptures. This will encourage the future leaders and the young to deepen their knowledge of the Bible and share the words of God. This is the third donation the SBS is doing as last year we handed over some books to the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches. In the near future we will make a similar donation to the 7th Day Adventist,” noted Reverend Kallee.
Membership in the UBS Fellowship
Pastor Abel Ntep explained how important it is for Seychelles to be a member of the UBS. “To retain its full membership a society needs to continuously demonstrate, to the satisfaction of the UBS Fellowship, that it complies with these criteria: (1) Working effectively with other parts of the UBS Fellowship in a spirit consistent with the UBS Purpose, Mission; (2) Participating in the UBS decision making process by attending the World Assembly and other relevant meetings and by casting its vote.”
Locally a society has to work effectively in meeting needs for Scriptures and Scripture engagement in its local context; drawing up its own local priorities for Bible work, taking account of the World Assembly strategic direction and shared priorities and relating effectively with all the major Christian churches and church-related organisations in its local context.
Internationally the society has to offer different kinds of support to other Bible societies in the UBS, and in planning and implementing such services internationally.
Each Bible Society that has been duly admitted into Full Membership in the UBS has the following rights and benefit: (1) The right to propose candidates for UBS governing bodies and UBS President, in accordance with the UBS Regulations; (2) The right to cast their vote for the nominated candidates to UBS governing bodies and the UBS President; (3) The right to be represented in UBS governing bodies, if elected, and participate in UBS working groups and task forces as requested or agreed and (4) The right to send two delegates to the UBS World Assemblies, to cast its vote when called upon during its business sessions, and to contribute to the strategic discussions which set the priorities for the UBS Fellowship, and to celebrate with the rest of the UBS family.
The application for SBS Full membership was approved in April last year and this year they received our confirmation letter, noted Pastor Abel Ntep.
To recall, Bible societies are encouraged to seek funding from the GBS so that they can provide scholarly editions free of charge to theological education institutions and students unable to afford these editions.
Plan for Bible House ready
In March this year the SBS met with President Wavel Ramkalawan to talk about plans of having a Bible House which will cater for a meeting place, a storage, a conference room and prayer room. Pastor Abel noted that the sketch is ready and now they are waiting for another meeting with the President to confirm the site for the project. This Bible House will be managed by the different denominations among the Christians based Faith in Seychelles.
Vidya Gappy
Photos by Thomas Meriton
