Showing posts with label Coordinator. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Coordinator. Show all posts

Monday, March 10, 2008

OTSAF Gathering on November 28, 2007

1st Session: By Sashi Jamir
Opening Prayer : Anne Swuro

“Purpose of OTSAF is to provide a platform to have fellowship and interact…help OTS (thought not obligated).”

Words from the Principal:
• Welcomed the OTSAF by explaining the significance of yellow ribbons!
• “…the world is being operated… (1) Fellowship…and (2) Partnership….to move together in partnership.”
• Quoted from the UNICEF: “all improvements in life are the outcome of partnership.”
• That OTSAF will bear fruits.
• Move ahead but never forget OTS.
• Then he commended having an OTSAF office in OTS, and to consider having part-time personnel.

Words for the Dean:
• Commented that it is the first time to have this kind of meeting.
• Shared on the importance of Relationship in ministry, and introduced the book Mentoring: The promise of Relational Leadership, by Walter Wright.
• That, mentoring not only helps the “mentoree” but helps the mentor to develop.
• That, mentoring is choosing the right people to mentor…sharing our lives.
• That, leadership potential is in everyone…but passing on the principles we believe to the next generation is what is important.
• Not to ignore the individual we come across everyday.
• To glorify God wherever we are placed.

Neiwete voiced his reflection:
• Colleges coming up…theological differences, churches splitting…relationship with other institutes.”
• How can we bring these colleges together?
• The danger of coming up with differences in theology.
• Suggested that only one seminary should have M.Th. or post-graduate, Doctoral level study programs.
Response from the Principal:
• Mentioned the presence of a Theological Fraternity, in which the Dean, Rev. Dr. Z. Keyho, is one of the office bearers….mentioned some schools such as OTS, TTT, Shalom, CTS, and BTC.
• Mentioned the presence of Nagaland Theological Association.
• Further mentioned on the importance of partnership saying that “highly competitive agenda taking up by individual is not advisable, specially in doctoral level”…to draw the best resources from all these institutions to bring out a Theological Cluster.

The Dean pronounced the closing prayer for the session.

Then we broke tea (tea-break), 10:00-10:15 a.m.


2nd Session: By Imli Jamir
• Mentioned how the OTSAF started through the initiation of James, Imli and others….
• Threw in a challenging thought worth mentioning: “How will this kind of fellowship contribute to the society in 25, 50 years from now?”

Time of Speech by Ma’am Alongla
• Read Acts 20:24…and encouraged us to finish the race, to complete the task…and mentioned that to ‘finish well’ is the core passion.
• How are we doing in this race we have all begun?
• Beginning with the end in view gives right perspective.
• Finishing the race kept him (Paul) in the right perspective.
• Mentioned about Victor Frank on how he was able to rise from misery.
• Encouraged us to:
 Keep the end in view: let eternal values draw us.
 Persevere in obedience: it has to be a long obedience in the same direction.
 Deepening life of prayer.
• Are you faithful long-term?
• God’s grace is sufficient to finish what He had begun in us.

Business Hour
1. Co-ordinator: (Outgoing) Sashi and ( Incoming) Anne
2. Treasurer: (Outgoing) Imli and (Incoming) Mathew Maram

Treasurer report by Imli Jamir.
Minutes considered during the business hour:
• Alumni office—coordinator in charge
• Blog
• Open account.
• Membership fee / contributions Rs. 100/-
• Entrust class representatives
• Pledge cards to raise funds.

3rd Session: Panel Discussion, on “Pastoral care”, consisting of 12 panelists:
Pastoral care as:
• Preaching / teaching
• Care & counseling
• Leadership / administration
What is pastoral care?

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Dear Friends

Greetings and trust you are doing well. I have a good news! Last December Kenesa (alumnus, 1996)donated Rs. 1000 for the OTSAF. Thank you so much for this gift. May God bless you, Ken. Kenesa, by the way, is married to Jim Hinen and now resides in the US.

Another information that I thought you guys should know is about the proposed OTSAF general gathering in March, 2007. As of now the build up to this gathering is not very positive. But very soon I will give the concrete information about whether we will be able to have this meeting.

I will sign off here. Blessings to you.

Sashi

OTSAF Co-ordinator, Dimapur

Wednesday, January 3, 2007

Blogsite for OTS Alumni

Greetings from OTS!

Trust you have had a wonderful and blessed Christmas. May you continue to cherish the peace of Jesus Christ as you look forward to the year 2007.

I also want to inform you all that James Longkumer has come up with an internet blog for the OTSAF. Thank you for your wholehearted contribution. This is what James had to say concerning this blog site:

“just created a blog site for OTS Alumni. I think this is much better than a website because it is accessible to everyone easily and at the same time one can also make comments and give feedbacks instantly. We can also upload photos too! Moreover, it is easier than maintaining a website and at no cost! Check this out: www.otsalumni.blogspot.com.”

Rush to this blog site and update about yourself! Don’t hesitate to write anything and everything which you think is fun, informative, and necessary.

Let’s try to enjoy this gift. Thank you James once again. Indeed this will make OSTAF world more connected and compact.

M. Sashi Jamir
Coordinator, Dimapur.

Saturday, December 9, 2006

Kohima Meeting October 26, 2006

Report on the latest OTSAF meeting held on 28th October, 2006 at Kohima

Dear Alumni Friends,

Warmest greetings to you from OTS! It is indeed a joy to write to you in spite of the incessant business that I have to attain. I am aware that a long winding write-up is usually burdensome to the reader, in fact, some get instantly turned off by it (I suppose, I am not falling into the pit!). Therefore, I will try to stick to the main points.

The meeting was held on 28th October, 2006 at Kohima Ao Baptist Church through the courteous invitation of Tzuwainla (2003; 8th Batch) who is serving as the Youth Director (A big thanks to Aien!). It was such a pleasant day—cool and fresh air permeating us coupled with the excitement to gaze and marvel at the picturesque vista of Kohima from the meeting room! In all there were eleven of us who devotedly attended the meeting.

We first had a short and meaningful fellowship. Imli (class of 1996) led the fellowship and Neiwete (class of 1996) shared, basing on “friendship.” We took time to pray for all the alumni—our ministries and endeavors. After this time of fellowship we entered into the discussion of the agenda. Here are the highlights:

1. We discussed about the structure of OTSAF. The issue of the structure of OTSAF becomes imperative if we want to sustain our alumni fellowship. OTSAF grows in number exponentially every year and unless and until there is some sort of concrete structure it will be difficult to survive as an intentional and meaningful group. Of course, we cannot certainly draw a rigid and overpowering structure. This is because we all have our priorities. It is here that the aims and objectives of OTSAF become significant. Therefore, we discussed that OTSAF has to adopt a minimalist approach towards formulating our aims and objectives. Thus we came to a consensus that OTSAF should exist to provide a common place to meet one another and in the process deepen our friendship, share Jesus’ love with one another, and even enhance our theological and practical knowledge. Apart from this, OTSAF should exist to provide a helping hand to our alma mater in whatever ways we can possibly do whenever the need arises. Having these aims and objectives actually provide OTSAF some noble reasons to have a structure, a meaning to exist. We need that structure to get us together. And therefore, we came up with this basic structure:

First we will have an OTSAF website/internet link and for this we agreed to approach our dear James Longkumer (the first Coordinator) to create one since he has done before and since the networking will be faster and cheaper there in Singapore—we hope you will agree!

Second, we decided to have OTSAF centers in Kohima and Dimapur to carry out information about OTSAF. The centers in Kohima will be Ao Baptist Church (c/o Aien, Youth Director) and Archies’ Shop (c/o Akolo Mero class of 2004); and in Dimapur it will be Hallelujah Book Store (c/o Vizi, manager—class of 2002) and Adelphia (residence of sisterhood network, c/o Ayang, class of 2001).

Third, we agreed to have separate Coordinator and Assistant coordinator in Kohima. As such Thejonye (class of 2004) was selected as the Coordinator and Neno as the Assistant Coordinator for Kohima. It is our understanding that as of now these two centers will try to reach out to the other areas.

Fourth and the final, we decided to select class representatives. They are: Imli (1996), Asen (1997), Azungla Imsong-James (1998), Phomlee (1999), Sashi (2000), Ayang (2001), Titus (2002), Aien (2003), Awalo (2004), Longdapou (2005), and Apise (2006).

2. We discussed on the issue of Timothy Elementary School (TES). Here is a brief account of TES for those who have not yet heard about it. OTS has initiated this school, Timothy Elementary School. It has three classes— preparatory and two nursery classes, basically for children whose age range from 4 to 6. It is just a year and a half old school established to meet the need of the kids of the OTS teachers and staff. As you know OTS is situated away from the city (20 Km away from the nearest city), it is difficult for the parents to ply down their children to the city everyday because of time, money as well as inconvenient transportation. The alternative to this difficulty is that the whole family has to move down to the city and leave the OTS teaching staff in bizarre condition. This is one of the main reasons why TES was started in the first place. However, the need for this sort of primary school goes beyond the OTS’ endeavor. There are hardly any schools around leave alone the issue of choosing schools. OTS as a caring community could not just observe the need of the children inside the village. Therefore, this concern has equally become an important reason for the opening of TES. Last summer both Dr.Wati Aier as well as Dr. Keyho asked whether OTSAF could help TES. Keeping this in mind we brought this issue to the table and decided to focus on the “pledge card” which TES has already printed and circulated. If you get some of those pledge cards, please help this vision venture of OTS by earnestly promoting this school.

3. The last agenda was on the issue of the general gathering of the OTSAF. For almost two years this proposed meeting has been postponed and therefore we discussed about this and decided that we will try to have this “general gathering cum seminar” next year in the month of March during the week days—possibly from Wednesday to Friday. The Coordinators will be working on the schedule and inform you once it is done. We did decide that a sum of Rs.100 will be collected as registration fee. This is everything we discussed.

It will be great to hear your feedbacks. Also, your contribution will definitely strengthen our OTSAF family. Let us continue to pray for one another, for TES project, and for the proposed general gathering in March 2007.

By the way, one of our special members, Akokla (class of 1997) had a heart surgery. She is recuperating and looking forward to work with NMM. OTSAF had the privilege to give Rs. 500 from our fund as a token of our love and solidarity with her in her recovering stage. Let us continue to pray for her.

OTSAF indeed is growing exponentially! Imna (class of 2000) and Aola are parents to a wonderful baby boy, Atensanger; Cho-o (class of 1996) and Anung (class of 1998) had another member added to their family—a beautiful baby daughter, Anelu. Congratulations to both these families.

Well, the report has grown long; however, take time to go through as I have taken time to put this into writing! It is my hope and prayer that our God will continue to bless and keep us wherever we are and whatever we do.

Shalom,
M. Sashi Jamir
Coordinator, Dimapur.