Fall 2004 began with an unusual sense of the presence of God and the spiritual vibrancy of 274 students responding to God’s call upon their life. They came from 9 provinces, 26 states and 3 countries overseas, include 196 Wesleyan students - 72% of our student body, from 24 districts. In total, our students represent 14 denominations. Serving our students are 12 full-time distinguished faculty, all Wesleyan, who along with a dedicated staff of 30 men and women, daily pour their lives into this new generation of spiritual leaders, helping shape them into the image of Christ.

The student body includes 180 students preparing for ordained ministry and 94 for other areas of service. Here’s a snapshot of numbers in all of the various major and minor programs:

What an outstanding corps of passionate servants of Jesus Christ preparing as workers for the harvest! That’s Bethany Bible College for fall 2004!

New Bachelor of Theology (ThB) Degree – Just Approved
Just last week, the Board of Trustees approved offering a new ThB degree in theology, effective next fall. Its purpose and focus is to prepare students who sense a calling into the teaching ministry of theological education. By nature, this will be a pre-seminary degree with an enriched course of study in Bible and theology including both Greek and Hebrew languages. Appropriate library resources will be added to support this new curriculum and in time, an additional member of the faculty with doctoral training will be secured to add strength to the program. The vision of this new degree is to raise up scholars and theologians who will shape the hearts and minds of a new generation preparing for ministry – at Bethany and at many other institutions across our land and around the world.

New On-Line Database Research – Major Library Upgrade
Thanks to a major gift from a member of Bethany’s Board of Trustees, students at the College now enjoy the incredible opportunity of accessing almost 5,000 periodical subscriptions in full text via the web. This includes the world’s largest on-line database of periodicals with 4,600 subscriptions and another specific database of 300 journals in the field of Bible & theology. By early January, Bethany’s own library collection will be converted to a web-based software making all of her current bibliographic information also available on Bethany’s web site. Both of these new services will be supported by a new state-of-the-art dedicated fileserver. This is our most significant expansion of library services and launches Bethany into a new era of technical library support. We praise God for this generous gift and major advancement!

New Executive Director of Admissions – Mrs. Kathy (Johnson) Shanks
October marked the arrival of a new chief administrator who will give dynamic direction to the admissions efforts of the College. Mrs. Shanks, a 1978 alumna of the College, is moving from Saint John where she has served for a number of years as the Manager of the downtown CIBC Bank. A native of Fredericton, she has been a very active member of the Olivet Wesleyan Church and most recently, Kings Valley Wesleyan. She brings an extraordinary background of management excellence, professional training and natural giftedness to her new role heading up the admissions team. Recently, she had sensed a definite stirring in her heart from God toward ministry. Now, her ministry is “to identify every person, humanly possible, in North America whom God is calling into the ministry and help them act on that call.” We extend our warmest welcome to Kathy and her husband, Randy, as they join the Bethany team.

New Director of Information Services – Mr. Dean Landry
This past summer, a vacancy in the information services department led to the securing of Mr. Dean Landry as our new Director. Mr. Landry, a native of Halifax, NS, attended Bethany from 1995 – 1998 and sensed that God’s direction for his life was in the field of computer science. He pursued this field of study at Dalhousie University in Halifax, graduating in 2002 with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. He has since served with Clear Picture Corporation as a Senior Systems Engineer and moved to Sussex with his wife, Brenda, a ’99 alumna of Bethany, and their two children, Kayleigh (4) and Kamryn (1). Dean’s keen mind and gentle “can-do” spirit enhance his excellent strengths in technical services as a major addition to the Bethany staff.

New Leadership in Chapel Ministry – Campus Pastor, Rev. John Symonds
“Powerful, incredible, awesome, anointed, inspiring, deeply moving . . .” Those are the words most likely to be heard about chapel services under the direction of our Campus Pastor, Rev. John Symonds. He leads the team with David Klob, who directs worship teams and Rev. David Higle, who gives overall direction to the spiritual life on campus. Highlights of the fall thus far include the effective ministry of Rev. Don Ingersoll, speaker for Spiritual Advancement Week, and a moving service with Rev. Rick Kavanaugh preaching on “A Passion for the Lost.” In response, dozens of students and staff hammered nails into a large wooden cross, nails representing people with whom they would share Christ. In every service since then, a candle has been burning, representing someone with whom Christ has been shared since the last service.

In September, the entire student body, staff and visiting Vision Tour guests gathered on the bank of the Kennebecasis River that runs along our campus border and celebrated the holy sacrament of baptism, rejoicing as 12 students/candidates entered the waters of baptism. What praise echoed across the hillside! What an image etched by God into the life of Bethany.

Students are being transformed by the grace of God and filled with his passion to serve. What blessed days of His favour.

New Vision for Campus Development
In our commitment to serve our students with excellence and with the pressures of a growing student body, plans are unfolding for the building of three major anchor point facilities so desperately needed – a new Chapel, Library and Gym/Athletic Fields. By God’s grace, announcements will be made this year for our first project ground-breaking and a clear vision of the master site plan for the entire campus.

God’s passion is white-hot for workers in the harvest, and by His strength we will be faithful to serve Him in finding and preparing workers for every province and state in North America as well as for many other countries around the world. That is our mission and the compelling cry from the heart of the Master, “Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest” (Matthew 9:38).