EAST Mission Hub Update

• • Mission Hub Update
  • A Word from the President
  • Funding Needs of EAST Mission Hub

 

Mission Hub Update

We have moved into EAST Mission Hub since the end-2020! Praise God and we welcome you to visit us at our new Joo Chiat campus. Do contact us for prior appointment if you do plan to drop by and visit us. 

We want to thank so many of you who have given sacrificially toward the cost of the purchase and renovation of EAST Mission Hub. Purchased at cost of $18 millions including renovations, God has blessed us with donations of $7.5 millions. Cru Sg has kindly taken up 60% of the building so that we can raise the rest of $10.5m at “our own time.”

We have launched in faith and are trusting God to move you and others He will lead to give generously and sacrificially to service the loan, and help us buy up the rest of the building. Once again, thank you for being our treasured partners in ministry and in our journey of faith. May the Lord bless you richly for your special part to EAST.

 

A Word from the President

Dear Friends and Partners of EAST,

Warmest greetings in the wonderful name of our Lord Jesus Christ!  Today, I am writing to you about a new faith development for East Asia School of Theology (EAST).

EAST began in 1992 with the vision of raising biblically trained leaders for the region, particularly for the predicted growth explosion of the Chinese church. To date, close to 500 pastors and leaders have graduated from the residential school. While keeping our hearts close to Asia, God has also used us to train pastors and leaders from as far away as the USA, Mauritius, the Seychelles, Ethiopia, Fiji, Nigeria, and Europe.

Meanwhile, the call to be a mission hub continued to flesh out through our theological-education-by-extension program. This is where we go out into the field where the action is to provide formal and non-formal training for the workers. Before COVID hit us, our faculty was travelling to India, Myanmar, Mongolia, Vietnam, Medan, Cambodia, China, and Korea to teach, mentor, and train. During the COVID period, we used online means to continue the equipping. Now, with the reopening of borders, we utilize hybrid modes with a mixture of online teaching and in-person visits. Just imagine. Our audience, all of whom are mission and NGO workers, in turn influence tens of thousands others within their house churches, communities, and ministries!

Yes, it involves much labour, cost and sacrifice. But whenever we hear of how God is multiplying our head, heart and hands on the field, we are deeply encouraged. We have alumni baptizing and teaching Bible studies to nomads in Mongolia, war-torn refugees in the Middle East, humanitarian aid workers in the slums of Manila, and the most needy across Cambodia; our students from the extension centres in creative access parts of Asia are winning, building and baptizing amidst very challenging situations!  Indeed, unprecedented opportunities stand before us every day. Our challenge is how to respond to all of them adequately?  Even as I am writing to you, my team feels the urgent need to integrate sound biblical teaching with digital technology to capture the digital masses and net-generation.

Towards the end of 2018, EAST moved out of Dorset Road, where we had been located for 27 years. For the first time, we face the challenge of having to operate from three different locations. And increasingly, the burden for a permanent base grew.  

It was during a time of much searching and seeking of God’s will that one of our board members chanced upon a property at Joo Chiat Road. The freehold four-storey commercial building costs S$17.5 million; but the gross floor area of 18,571 square feet provides the basic space we need for classrooms, administrative offices, library, teaching & ministry e-resource center, worship and communal areas.  After much discussion with the board and EAST family, we felt we should, by faith, step into the waters and trust the Lord for the funds to purchase and use the place together with Singapore Cru.

As you read this letter, my humble prayer is that the Holy Spirit will impress upon your heart to give – not to a building, but to the vision of building a missionary training hub where theologically trained leaders may be raised. Our faculty, who are all support-raising for their own financial needs, and our mission-minded staff team, have just one dream: keep going and making disciples who in turn preach the gospel and teach God’s Word faithfully until the Lord’s Return.

Warmly in partnership with you for the Great Commission

Rev Dr Chan Chong Hiok
President
East Asia School of Theology
July 2019

 

Funding Needs for EAST Mission Hub

Target amount to be raised: S$8 million.

Amount raised as of August 2023: S$7.5 million.

Balance amount to be raised: S$500,000.

As the Lord leads you to give to this venture of faith, you may make an internet bank transfer to DBS Bank, Account Name: East Asia School of Theology, Account No. 028-008663-6, indicate gift is “for EAST Mission Hub” and email finance@east.edu.sg with your contact and transaction details. For gifts using PayNow or originating from outside Singapore, please see EAST giving page for more information. Thank you.