At the opening ceremony of the 2018-2019 academic year, held at the Bolosse Baptist Church on September 3, President Wadestrant Jean Baptiste invited members of the STEP family to start this new year counting on the goodness and faithfulness of God.
“It is perfectly normal,” he says, “for us to repeat at every opening ceremony that our God is good and faithful towards the Seminary. It is with this conviction that I invite you to begin the academic year 2018-2019. Certainly, we do not know what the future holds for us, but what we are sure of is that the hand of God is on the Seminary and it will continue to manifest its faithfulness towards us.”
The President also took the opportunity to make a brief assessment of the previous academic year, which was very special in several respects. He said:
The past academic year (2017-2018) has been a year of great victories and blessings for STEP. I remind you that this is the year in which we celebrated the 75th anniversary of STEP. God has allowed us to achieve extraordinary things: The construction of the academic building was completed and the building was inaugurated on the very threshold of the academic year, the launch of the English program, the organization of the 75th Anniversary Grand Conference. We have done all this to create a pleasant environment for the formation of men and women for Christian ministry and to better serve the Haitian evangelical community.”
The wish formulated by President Jean Baptiste at the end of his speech is inspired by Christ’s statement in Matthew 22:37-39, he said, “May this year be an opportunity for all of us to love the Lord with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength and all our thoughts. May it be an opportunity for us to love one another as the Lord asks us to do.”