FORT WORTH, Texas (BP)–Far from home, jobless and without transportation to search for work, Cameroon student Sammy Tabufor turned to his Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary classmates in his Foundations for Ministry course, asked for prayer and announced the possibility he would have to drop out of seminary.
But before the next class session, Tabufor’s classmate Ben Condray discovered a car for sale in his church family. Students collected enough money to purchase it.
“We had been learning that the ultimate test of being called into the ministry is ministry itself,” said Jerry Privette, professor of field education. “It is a principle gleaned from Scripture. I am deeply moved at their response.”
Tabufor, a first-semester student — and father of five — who has been in the United States for six years, said he found “hope, encouragement and strength” from such generosity. “My whole family is grateful that God moved,” Tabufor said.
The provision was shared in the newsletter he and his wife send to friends across the nation and in Africa. Four of the Tabufors’ children remain at home; the fifth is in college in New York.
“We are asking everyone to rejoice with us in what the Lord is doing,” Tabufor said. “It is a reflection of Psalm 120, ‘I call on the Lord in my distress, and he answers me.'”
The class even collected enough excess monies to pay for the license, tag, registration and at least one tank of gas. “Even when it looked as though we might have enough, some students gave again,” said Condray, a student from Midland, Texas. “I felt like Moses telling the Israelites to quit bringing stuff and find another need.”
Tabufor’s search for a part-time job, a task eased by transportation, continues. “I have made a commitment to avoid interrupting my studies for work,” he said. “I am confident in the Lord.”
“I am so thankful to be part of a school where professors get involved in students’ lives instead of addressing needs at arm’s length,” said Michelle Curtis, a student from Texas. “I walked out of class that day knowing I had been in God’s presence.”
