History of BTC
It had been my vision since 1984 when I first went to the French speaking nation of Togo to work for the establishment of a Bible training school for native French speaking Africans. At that time there was to my knowledge only one person, Paul Gbedemah, a Togolese who we knew had received some training as a preacher of the gospel while living in Ghana. He was then working in Lome, Togo under severe restrictions.
I worked with Paul from 1984 to 1990, with the then underground Church of Christ. For political reasons, freedom of association was restrained as several religious organizations were banned, including the Churches of Christ.
Within that period, we made several converts. I traveled with two of my converts to Nigeria in 1988 with the hope of getting them enrolled in the Nigerian Christian Bible College. Both men could barely speak English. Both of them failed the written test designed for English speaking Nigerians but after a lot of persuasion from myself, the then Director of the school, brother John Berkloff agree to accept one person while the other return to study English for one year at the American Cultural Center in Lome, Togo. Both men graduated successfully from their training in Nigeria.
n 1991, the plans were still a distant dream. I had no one to share it with except the Lord. I was the only believer in this dream. By the grace of God, I got into contact with the Benton Church of Christ through circumstances that we can only describe as providential, all of which brought my family and I to Cotonou, Benin in 1992. During a visit of two Elders from the Benton church to visit the newly established work in Benin, we discussed plans to establish a preacher training school for French speaking brethren in Cotonou, Benin. Both Elders shared this dream. We rented a first floor uncompleted house comprising two apartments with 6 bedrooms and two sitting rooms. In August 1995, two Elders came again from Benton for us to inaugurate the Benin Bible Training Center. We had 18 students from Togo, Chad, Benin, Cameroon and Burkina Faso to share in one apartment of 3 rooms while the administration used the other apartment for offices and the sitting room for the classroom.
Acts 13:47 and its context had been a verse of motivation and direction. �For so the Lord has commanded us: 'I have set you as a light to the Gentiles, that you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth.'� (NKJV) I made these words that the Holy Spirit had spoken my own and believed that we should be a lighthouse, shining, carrying the good news of salvation to the ends of the earth.