NYC Youth Rally

Bethany Bible Training Center is excited to be a part of a special youth conference on Friday April 19th through Sunday, April 21st in New York City. Pastor Lionel Etwaru of Global Christian Ministries is hosting the event, worship will be led by the Bethany worship team, and Jack and Joanne Picataggi will be bringing a present Word from the heart of God. We feel that this will be a special time of the Lord calling and commissioning those who will be future leaders in the Body of Christ to a greater level of intimacy and devotion to Him in preparation for the days to come. Meetings will be held at Global Christian Ministries 86-02 115th St Richmond Hill, NY 11418. Service times: Friday 7:30pm, Saturday 6:30pm, Sunday 10:30am. For more information please contact Bethany Bible Training Center @ 315-429-8521.

A Letter To Our Alumni

Dear Friend,



By now, I am sure that you have heard the news of Bethany Bible Training Center’s move to Chesapeake, Virginia for the upcoming school year. Sometimes when news of this importance is announced, there can be some confusion added as the story is passed along, so I wanted to contact you so you could hear some of the details of this move from me personally.


I have included a link to the letter we recently sent to our mailing list regarding the move. If you have not already read it, please take a moment to read it here @ http://blog.bethanybtc.org/2013/01/there-is-excitement-filling-air-as-news.html before you continue with this e-mail.


As you know from the letter, this move has been four years in the making, and during that time, the Board and I have held the decision before the Lord in much prayer. Even though we are stepping out in faith and obedience in how we believe He is leading us, we do not want to be ahead of the Lord or behind Him, but right in the center of His will.


It can be hard to convey to you in writing, but I feel such a great sense of anticipation for what the Lord has in store for Bethany, and I have heard the same from so many of our friends, donors, staff, and students. Since the announcement has been made, I have been contacted by several seasoned men and women of God who have prophesied that God is in this move, and who, without knowing, answered questions that I personally have held before the Lord about how this move will affect the school. More and more each day, my confidence has grown that God is leading us step by step in this decision.


As far as what the future holds for Bethany, we are planning to start a full schedule of classes in late August at the New Life Providence Church Deep Creek Campus in Virginia. While the church has been generous enough to allow us the use of their building, which is the original church building attached to their larger sanctuary, the school will remain a separate entity from the church.


Regarding the campus here in Salisbury Center, at this time I do not feel we should sell the property. We are planning to hold graduation here in May and Youth Week in July, as well as a few other retreats. For the future, we are looking into opening the buildings for the summers for our conferences, possibly making the campus available to other churches to rent out for retreats, and continuing to have our Work Scholarship students work here in the summer months to help pay for their upcoming school expenses. Then, each winter, we will close up the buildings until the next summer. We do have several major repairs to tackle, including overhauling our water and sewage systems, and we are planning to replace the roofs this summer. I believe that the Lord is not finished with this property, and all that has been spoken over it may still have its fulfillment in the future. We are still seeking Him for exactly how it will come to fruition, but we know that our God is a big God, and He is able to accomplish great things.


As to finances, we will end this school year not owing our outside vendors anything, but we are still behind in our payroll. Our staff and faculty—many of whom you probably know—have been so faithful to serve in this ministry for without receiving a regular paycheck for many months. Bobbi Adkins approached me about starting a fund to help pay the faculty and staff, and if God puts it on your heart to contribute, please feel free to contact her at 315-429-8521, Ext. 46 or bobbi@bethanybtc.org. Beyond that, I believe we have a word from the Lord that He will fully provide for our staff pay and relocation expenses.


Today, I am going to ask you for four things: your prayers, your confidence, your faith, and yes—your financial support. I believe that God met you during your time here, and I ask you to stand with us now and in the future so that the students He sends our way will have the same opportunity you did to encounter Him through the ministry of this school. You can donate online @ http://www.bethanybtc.org/Donate.htm or contact Tico Rios in our Business Office at 315-429-8521, Ext. 12 or businessoffice@bethanybtc.org.


Please feel free to call me at 315-429-8521, Ext. 25 or e-mail me at jack@bethanybtc.org If I can answer any questions for you, or if you have any insight or encouragement for us as we take this step of faith into the future God has for Bethany Bible Training Center. Hope to see you for a visit either here or in Virginia.



May God bless you,


Jack Picataggi

President



If you are not on our mailing list, please send me an email with your address, phone number and any other contact info you would wish to share, also let me know if you wish to receive the Banner and we will be glad to add you to it. If you would prefer not to receive these email updates, send me back an email at jack@pinecrest.org asking to be removed and I will take care of it.

Host Your Event at Bethany

Are you or your church looking for a location to hold annual Conferences, Church Retreats, and/or Youth Events? Contact us here at Bethany and make your summer plans!  For more information call us at (315) 429-8521, or email at reservations@bethanybtc.org.

We are Now Accepting Students for the 2013-2014 School Year!

Would you like to be a part in making Pinecrest/Bethany history? Come join us as we step out into what the Lord has for us.


We are now accepting students for the 2013-2014 school year in Chesapeake, Virginia!

Applications are available at www.bethanybtc.org/school

There is Excitement Filling the Air as News of Significant Change is Upon Us!

Dear Friends,

I am writing to you with news of a significant and exciting change for Bethany Bible Training Center. I have a lot to try to communicate, and I know this letter is long, but I ask that you read it carefully, and I pray that God will witness to your heart the things I am about to share.

As a friend of Bethany, you probably know that we have struggled throughout our nearly 45-year history to meet our financial obligations. In the seven years I have been President, we have done all we can to live within our means, but the cost of constant repairs to hundred-year-old buildings, and even the expense of heating in upstate New York winters, just drains our finances. You would be amazed at the number of staff required to maintain the grounds and our 55,000 square feet of buildings.

In the past, I was never sure what we would do if we came to the place where the needs of the buildings required more than we had. I have gone before God again and again and questioned whether it was possible to carry on without the finances we needed to pay our staff and our bills. I had assumed that if we were not able to continue on in this property, then we would close our doors and the school would be finished. But while I was praying this past May, I felt the Lord begin to speak to me that He had different plans for the school’s future.

Let me take you back four years to one of our Board meetings. As we were seeking God for the school’s future, Joe Nieves gave a prophetic word that, just as God led the Israelites by a cloud in the wilderness, the cloud was beginning to move, and it was time to move on from this location. The Board of Directors (Dan Backens, Alan Bugos, Jack Buskey, Steve Chiyka, Donald Laughner, Joseph Nieves, Joanne Picataggi, Ed Szumowski, and Tom Worth) unanimously voted for me to begin to look for a new location for the school. At the time, nothing opened up, so I put the idea on a shelf.

But back in May, I felt the Lord speak to me that the time had come to move the location of the school. With the Board’s blessing, I contacted Board member Dan Backens, who pastors New Life Providence Church in Virginia Beach, and with whom Joanne and I have had a 15-year relationship. I met with Pastor Dan in October 2012 in a meeting I felt was very much orchestrated by the Lord. With the unanimous approval of Bethany’s Board of Directors and the consent of the elders at New Life Providence, we are making preparations to move Bethany Bible Training Center to begin the 2013-2014 school year at the New Life Deep Creek Campus in Chesapeake, Virginia.

The Deep Creek Campus, a church plant of New Life Providence Church, provides us with a chapel that seats about 200 and office and classroom space—even a cafeteria. We are also looking into renting houses on the same street as the church to use for men and women’s dormitories. We are taking things one step at a time and trusting that if God is leading us, He will open the right doors for us.

While we are still arranging all the details of the move, for many years I have sensed a connection in the Spirit between the school and the Virginia Beach area, which others have witnessed to. I did not necessarily expect to see that connection work itself out quite in this way, but I see the Lord’s hand in so many aspects of this move.

Not only will the school be relieved of the expenses of the buildings (which cannot be livable indefinitely without major repairs), but we can also pare down staff needs and operating expenses. From this position, we can concentrate on being a “School of the Spirit” instead of tending to school buildings. This location is also accessible to more students and will provide them with more job opportunities to support themselves, which will relieve the school of the number of scholarships we presently award at our own expense. Of course, we will continue to make the school available to those God sends our way. Our goal is not to become a profit-making organization, but by the grace of God, to be self supporting, and to faithfully continue in the purpose God has for this school.

Let me be clear: relocating the school has been discussed at different times throughout the school’s

history, but it is never—never—a decision we would make for purely logistical reasons. Moving to Chesapeake is not just a “Plan B” because finances are tight; I and the Board believe we are being obedient to the Lord’s direction for the school at this time. I know I speak for all of us when I say that we have approached this decision soberly, and we know that we answer to God for our stewardship of His school and ministry. It is a weighty responsibility, and one that none of us takes lightly.

I know I also speak for many of you when I say that I love these old buildings in Salisbury Center. As a student in the 1970s, I met God in Small Chapel services that lasted for hours and carried up through the tunnel and into pot-clanging singing sessions in the Cafeteria. As Dean, and now President, I have seen students on their faces at the altar or dancing for hours or just sitting and talking in the “Caf.” I have walked the grounds of this school and encountered God here in a way that has been unique to any other place I have ever been. I have spent 16 years of my life in the various positions God has called me to here, and I will profoundly miss this place, just as I know so many of you will. Whatever your experience here, and however God has impacted your life through Pinecrest/Bethany’s ministry, I know that for me, what God has done in my life here is tied up in this campus, and it is something I will always treasure.

When Peter, James, and John witnessed Jesus’ transfiguration on the mountain, Peter cried, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, let us make here three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” (Matthew 17:4). But Jesus did not even respond to Peter’s emotional proposal. His intention was not to build stationary monuments to God’s glory where man would begin to worship at the altar of past experience; it was to have a people who lived in such intimate communion with Him that they would carry His heart and His presence into the ends of the earth. We cannot remain stagnant, pitching our tents at the literal or figurative location of past revelations of God’s glory; we must be obedient to move with Him as He leads.

There is no substitute for God's presence, and as Moses prayed, so our hearts cry to the Lord, “Unless You go in the lead, do not make us leave this place. For how shall it be known that Your people have gained Your favor unless You go with us…?” (Exodus 33:13-16, JPS Tanakh, a modern Jewish translation of the Hebrew Bible).

As profoundly as God has moved here in Salisbury Center, I am convinced that His purpose for Bethany Bible Training Center is not confined to this campus; His intention goes beyond a location, and I believe He has a continuing, unique call for this school to fulfill. I have great anticipation for what He has in store for us and for the students He has yet to send our way. If He is leading us to a new place, then His plans for us there are greater than anything we could try to manufacture on our own.

You have been a faithful friend of this ministry, and I ask you to continue to stand with us in this next phase of Bethany Bible Training Center. We need your support now more than ever. Our financial situation has not changed since the last time I wrote you: our staff is now 44 weeks behind pay, and we have overdue bills, as well as the coming costs associated with moving an entire school across several states. Your donation, large or small, is so needed and appreciated at this time. I have also included an insert with some specific ways you can lift us up in prayer.

Please also mention Bethany to anyone you think might be interested in coming as a student. We believe God is going to continue building on the spiritual foundation that has been laid here in Salisbury Center and what He has been doing in the lives of our students, and we are expecting great things in the years to come.

Jack Picataggi, President

and Bethany Bible Training Center’s Board of Directors

God Is Returning

Before departing for Thanksgiving break, the Lord spoke His heart through various prophecies. "The Lord will have an army uniformed to His will. The world will be in confusion but His people will not be shaken."
"God is returning and what he is returning for is what we have of Him inside of us. We need to refute everything other than Him not because it's "bad", but because it's worthless and not lasting."  May we be in union with His heart.

First Quarter at Bethany

We are almost in our second quarter of school and I am pleased to report to you that this year has begun with some very exciting situations. First, we have gotten in about ten international students from almost as many different countries. Second and even dearer to my heart, our chapels have been absolutely outstanding. The very first morning as we began to worship, the Lord’s presence swept in, and it just got better and better with each song. What was really great was that the next day it happened again, and the next chapel, again. Into the second week He has just continued to sweep in by His presence, meeting, blessing and speaking to us prophetically. One aspect to His coming so far, is that it has been in such a gentle, sweet way, not in driving music or in war-like beats, but truly in a gentle worship, highlighted by the students’ voices. This year a young man, Samuel, who has been a missionary to China for several years, brought his violin. It has added a wonderful dimension to the worship and the Lord has at points really anointed Samuel’s playing.

Each year that I have been here at the school, which when added up equals sixteen years, I have heard it said or have said myself that “this year is unique because:” and we would give our reasoning for such a statement. Always the statement, to me, has been sincere and not just said for hype or any such reason. So I can genuinely tell you, for me this is different in that the Lord has come right in, despite our being unsettled and just getting started. You almost have the impression that He is eager to come and get going with what is in His heart for this year. Whatever His reason is, I say, “Lord, come.”

The level of hunger and desire for the Lord is high and that is always a good quality to measure by. The maturity level of the students is very well balanced as well, which strongly affects where we can and will go for the year.

Please pray and believe with us that the Lord will be blessed by us, and that we can receive all that He has for us this year. A year’s time at Bible school is always an amazing journey, full of possibilities and so much potential, yet we want His best!

- Jack Picataggi