Jordan Baptist schools fight odds to stay open

Jordan Baptist schools fight odds to stay open

What would you do if you had to choose between a business decision and a witnessing decision?

That is the position the Baptists of Jordan found themselves in recently concerning Ajloun Baptist School, the older of the two Baptist schools in that country.

In the 1960s and ’70s, the school had been the showplace of Baptists. There had been a Baptist hospital nearby, together with a campground. The local church had been strong, too. But all of that changed.

The then-Foreign Mission Board (now International Mission Board) sold the hospital to the government in the 1980s. A few years later, the campground, then the school, was turned over to Jordanian Baptists.

According to first-year principal Essar Mazahreh, the school averaged losing about $20,000 annually for several years. The school was cut back from K–12 to K–9. Jordan has compulsory education through the 9th grade.

The church fell from more than 100 members to about 20 today. School enrollment shrank. Jordanian Baptists had to decide what to do.

“This is the only evangelical witness in the whole community,” said Nabeeh Abbassi, president of the Jordan Baptist Convention. “We did not want to close the only light in the community and leave this area in darkness.”

Suha Jouaneh Shahin, principal of Jordan’s other Baptist school, Amman Baptist School, said, “I would have considered it a failure if we had to close the Ajloun school. It has made a difference in so many lives and its evangelical witness is needed.”

The result was an infusion of effort. Operation of the two Baptist schools was placed under one governing board for the first time. About $50,000 of reserves from the Amman school were redirected to the Ajloun school to fund needed renovations and more are needed.

The Amman school also provided a new science lab for the Ajloun school, something it had done without for the last few years.

Parents were withdrawing girls from the Ajloun school in the eighth and ninth grades, Mazahreh said. The school responded by establishing separate classes for girls. The approach seems to be working. Last year, there were no eighth-grade girls enrolled in the school. This year, there are seven.

Plans call for adding back a grade per year until the school once again offers instruction in grades K–12.

Today there are 286 students enrolled in the Ajloun school. About 50 percent come from historically Christian homes. The others come from Muslim-background homes. All participate in daily morning devotionals, Bible study, prayer times and chapel services.

Mazahreh said she is praying for volunteer teachers from America to come and strengthen the faculty. Efforts are underway to see if houses formerly used by hospital staff can be remodeled and used for housing. The IMB is also re-examining its relationship with the school.

The local Baptist church is also looking for a new pastor. “We believe that will help the Baptist witness in the area,” Abbassi observed.

“If we had gone just by business sense, we would have closed the school,” he continued. “But we cannot do that. This area needs the light of the gospel witness. We have to try and keep the school open and to strengthen the church.”