BACK TO INDIA ROOTS

Some of you followed us in thought and prayer when we went to Burundi in January. Mary Ann and I are grateful!
Now, we are getting ready to teach the same classes in August, but this time at South India Biblical Seminary, near Bangalore. We leave August 1, returning back to Seattle on September 1.
South India Biblical Seminary is where my parents spent most of their India missionary career. They helped to launch the present campus outside of Bangarapet, which is about an hour from Bangalore, one of India's hi-tech centers. I started school in a small missionary-kid classroom there. After going to boarding school, this was the place to which I returned home. We have visited SIBS with a couple of mission teams there over the past years. This time, however, we expect to be the only westerners on the campus.
SIBS is a graduate level training center for pastors and missionaries, backed by the Church of the Nazarene and World Gospel Mission. Several of our own Free Methodist leaders are graduates of SIBS. We will spend a weekend in Bangalore meeting with Free Methodist pastors from the Bangalore District.
Mary Ann will teach a class in Child Development, I in Homiletics. These will be three week modules.
At the end of our teaching, we are attaching a side trip to Cochin in the southwestern state of Kerala, where Abraham and Anna Mathan trace their roots. We plan to spend a few days in this historic, picturesque city before returning to the US.
Your prayers will be appreciated.
Mark and Mary Ann Abbott