Prison Ministry Empowers Churches in South Africa and Guatemala
Crossroad Bible Institute (CBI) announces the opening of new satellite campuses in South Africa and Guatemala. CBI has provided people in prison and their families with faith-based reentry education and mentoring for twenty-seven years. In the past decade, CBI has strategically expanded across all six continents. Fifteen satellite campuses now operate internationally.
The new campuses will follow CBI’s long-held model, proven effective worldwide, in which students are mentored by volunteer Instructors native to their countries. Indigenous campus directors oversee their activity. With these indigenous leaders guiding them throughout the program, CBI students worldwide are able to complete the same curriculum.
CBI South Africa was initiated by contacts established through CBI’s membership with the World Reformed Fellowship, an international organization linking likeminded evangelicals. The first students are incarcerated in a facility near Pretoria, South Africa’s executive capital. The campus director visits the students each week to present a message and distribute lessons. Backed by support from prison officials, the program will expand into additional facilities in 2012.
Director Alwyn Bezuidenhout said, “Due to the positive support of the staff of correctional services, local churches and, most of all, the inmates, we see the Lord’s blessing on our work.”
CBI Guatemala was launched in partnership with Christian Reformed World Missions and Estrategia de Transformación. The local pastors helping implement the program have established a strong foundation through their prior work with the new students. CBI International Program Coordinator Cynthia Williams, who visited Guatemala to assist in the campus launch, noted, “Through the changed hearts of prisoners, this country could become free from the ravaging violence now dominating the landscape. CBI Guatemala is poised to help bring about that change.”
Dr. H. David Schuringa, CBI President and CEO, stated, “Incarcerated people across the globe have been ignored and underserved. CBI’s unique discipleship and mentoring program responds to God’s call to remember them, and we plan to continue extending this response worldwide.”
With several new openings pending for 2012, CBI’s international expansion promises to continue, giving hope to prisoners and unifying diverse cultures with the Gospel message.
Crossroad Bible Institute is a nonprofit prison ministry with 40,000 students studying through satellite campuses on six continents. The program is provided at no cost to prisoners and their families.
(Source: Christian Newswire)
