Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth.
Psalm 67:4 esv
Alex Steddom
International Student Fund
at Bethlehem College and Seminary
GENEROSITY PROSPECTUS, SUMMER 2024
Newly Refocused on In-Country Seminary Education
Alex Steddom, longtime member of Bethlehem Baptist Church and son of Pastor Chuck Steddom and his wife Carol, was to have joined Bethlehem College and Seminary as a seminarian in 2015. The Lord called him home while on a mission trip to Northern Ireland, just weeks before school was to start. Alex embodied a real passion for God’s supremacy in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ, and he understood deeply that missions exists because worship doesn’t.
The Alex Steddom International Student Fund will now serve to support Bethlehem Seminary education in-country, causing a larger portion of generous gifts to go directly to the instruction of more students–on the ground, where they live.
Newly Refocused on In-Country Seminary Education
The Alex Steddom International Student Fund was originally conceived to support the financial needs of as many as four seminarians annually from theologically famished regions of the world at our Minneapolis campus.
We have entered a new phase of this endeavor. A sufficient number of prior years’ grantees have now returned or plan to return to their home countries soon such that the fund’s future use will support Bethlehem Seminary education in-country.
A larger portion of generous gifts will now go directly to the instruction of more students, on the ground, where they live, activating immediate gospel ministry where it’s needed, without gifts being diluted by the substantial expenses of international travel and U.S. costs-of-living.
The Alex Steddom International Student Fund is a temporarily restricted fund that permits Bethlehem College and Seminary to borrow from it for other purposes, if necessary, at a market rate of interest.
Bethlehem Seminary Yaoundé, Cameroon
Prayer and sacrifice are bearing much fruit.
Rev. Dr. Dieudonné Tamfu, the first grantee of the Alex Steddom International Student Fund, returned to his native Cameroon in 2018 to establish an additional location for Bethlehem Seminary in Yaoundé, the country’s capitol city of 2.8 million people. In 2020, he and a team of elders planted Église Baptiste Bethléem, a happy, Reformed-minded church, to minister to both English- and French-speaking peoples. Both the church and school are experiencing God’s favor.
Gifts to the Alex Steddom International Fund in 2024 will be used to help Pastor Dieudonné advance the ministry there with theologically trained teaching assistance and work-study apprenticeships in both the school and local church.
For the first time, 2024 gifts will also serve to provide a Steddom grant to an international student from elsewhere in Africa, to receive his seminary education in Africa at our location in Cameroon.
“God has blessed Cameroon with material resources, relative stability, and a diversity of peoples. Many significant leaders (professional, military, police, political) now follow Christ! This gives hope for change in a society infamous for corruption. Pray that those who steal from the nation would change their ways – or be caught and prevented from doing it any longer – and that people will no longer tolerate corruption, but rather will work together to eradicate it. The best solution to corruption is a transformation of hearts.” OPERATION WORLD, MARCH 2024
2018
Rev. Dr. Tamfu returns to Cameroon to plant a church and establish an extension site of Bethlehem Seminary.
Students and their teachers do their rigorous work in a make-shift classroom located behind Pastor and Mrs. Tamfu’s humble residence in an economically impoverished neighborhood of the city.
2002
Dieudonné Tamfu enters Cameroonian Baptist Theological Seminary in Ndu.
2007
Bethlehem global partners in Africa encourage Tamfu to come to the U.S. to study here as the fund’s first grantee.
The first cohort of five men graduate from Bethlehem Seminary as Masters of Divinity.
Richard Ngebi, M.Div. 24, becomes first graduate assistant.
Hernan Wu, M.Div. 23, receives grant to complete Th.M. studies in U.S. as he provides administrative support to Cameroon with an aim to join the team in Africa.
Bethlehem Seminary celebrated its second set of graduates on May 11, 2024, before a full house of guests in the chamber of L’Assemblée National du Cameroon, the nation’s lower house of Parliament.
Plans to Build a Home for the Yaoundé Church, School, and Publishing Ministry.
A separate fundraising effort is underway to build a permanent home for Église Baptiste Bethléem, Bethlehem Seminary-Yaoundé, and a small, on-demand publishing operation. For more information visit forthejoyofcameroon.com
The 2024 graduates are celebrated by the students coming up behind them.
The congregation of Église Baptiste Bethléem shares the Bethlehem mission of spreading a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples. It is quickly outgrowing the temporary space in which the saints
Dreaming of a Bethlehem Seminary, Mysore, India.
Toward a disproportionate impact on the world’s most populous nation.
BY EDISON DSOUZA (2021 GRANTEE) AND BOAZ PRINCE (2022 GRANTEE)
God is at work in India. People in India are getting saved, discipled, trained, and commissioned to serve, even as you read this. Godly men pour themselves into the lives of aspiring men, producing future pastors. With the limited training and resources available to the church, our unlimited God is at work. We ourselves are part of that story. While we served in India with the “rough and ready” training we had, God interrupted our ministry and brought us to Bethlehem College and Seminary, where the training we receive is biblical, rigorous, and well-rounded, to be trained and redeployed for his service. Boaz Prince, who will graduate in 2026, can testify that this training is already bearing fruit. He had the privilege of visiting his and his father’s church plant in India this summer, where he taught arcing a Bible study method that helps the reader see the logical relationships between propositions. The responses from the people were that of awe and wonder, as they realized that hidden treasures could be mined from Scripture when read the right way. God is using Bethlehem’s God-centered and Christ-exalting theological education to reach and impact the far ends of the earth.
We, who had no means to acquire a robust theological education, are grateful to God for the generous donors who made it possible for us to study at Bethlehem. Having come from the most populated country in the world and tasted solid training, our hearts ponder the vast and desperate need in India arising from the theological famine present there. We plead to God on behalf of our nation. How can this effort be multiplied and sustained for the sake of Jesus’ name and the joy of people in India?
Dr. Dieudonné Tamfu has modeled a pattern that makes us rejoice. He has demonstrated how God is working in Cameroon through a resolution to return, a decade-long preparation, and a gospel partnership that enabled the multiplication of the efforts at Bethlehem. A few years ago, the first fruits were seen when students matriculated. Two cohorts have graduated now.
Training current and future leaders passionate about significantly impacting the region with God’s word is necessary to improve theological education in India. Taking this Big God theology that we highly treasure to India is also key to countering the false hope offered by the prosperity gospel. Last year, we said, “A concerted effort toward developing reformed theological education in India is a dream, which, in God’s time, will slowly shape into a vision as it is prayed for and supported.” God has been moving hearts: God’s people are conversing, cogitating, and collaborating. God willing, Eddie DSouza will graduate in 2025. He plans to return to India, pursue a Ph.D., and begin the groundwork for establishing an extension site in Mysore, India. Boaz still has two more years to graduate and has similar ambitions. As we collaborate, we prayerfully seek the favor of God, who alone whispers a dream in our minds to imagine it, causes our eyes to envision it, and moves our hands to accomplish it, all by the strength that he supplies, all for his glory.
Edison DSouza
Boaz Prince
Generosity Prospectus Summer 2024
This 2024 appeal is 25% less than requested in prior years and aims to support almost four times as many seminary students.
Encouraging Growth at Bethlehem Seminary Yaoundé, Cameroon (Founded 2020)
Support Group Gift - Site Director Dr. Dieudonné Tamfu
$ 9,000.00
Qualified Teaching Assistant for Dr. Tamfu Richard Ngebi $ 8,400.00
1st Year Th.M. Coursework - Tuition Richard Ngebi $ 500.00
Work-Study Assignments 10 Seminary Apprentices $ 24,000.00
M.Div. Tuition and Living Expenses One student from elsewhere in Africa $ 10,000.00
Th.M. Coursework for Academic Assistant Hernan Wu* $ 3,300.00
Incubating Bethlehem Seminary—Mysore, India (Envisioned for 2028)
4th Year M.Div. Tuition and Living Expenses Edison DSouza* $ 48,000.00
3rd Year M.Div. Tuition and Living Expenses Boaz Prince* $ 35,500.00
Total 2024 Alex Steddom International Student Fund Goal $138,700.00
*Students now completing studies in Minneapolis
To contribute
Visit www.bcsmn.edu/steddom or write:
Alex Steddom International Student Fund c/ o Bethlehem College and Seminary, 720 13th Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN 55415.
Make checks payable to: Bethlehem College and Seminary, and indicate "Alex Steddom Fund" in the memo area.
Those interested in making larger transformational or legacy gifts of cash or securities may contact: Rick Segal, Vice President of Advancement, 612.455.3420 ext. 1122, or rick.segal@bcsmn.edu.
WWW.BCSMN.EDU
