Dow Update - Reflections on a Highly Significant Year at BFA

The months have raced by since our last family update, so we want to start this post with a brief overview there - before we dive into the busy but meaningful events that have taken place at the school this year. And, as we share, we want to invite you to let us know your news, too. Are there things that we can be praying for or celebrating along with you? We would love to hear from you if you have the time. The best email to use is: philandcatherine@gmail.com.

The Family

Sophie. It has been a really good year for Sophie (even with some disappointments). She has a group of friends who are active and intentional in encouraging and supporting each other - whether that is in school, faith, or friendships. The calibre of kids that Sophie has around her has been one of the greatest gifts of BFA to our family. She has also been working really hard in school and is seeing the fruit of that effort. Looking forward to next year, Sophie will be a Chrysalis leader (a senior discipleship leader for middle school girls), an officer of the BFA National Honor Society, and a manager for the girls Volleyball team (who will be defending the European championship they won this year). Then it is off to university (destination still unknown).

Emma. Emma’s year has also been encouraging. While she has taken a different route, she is wrapping up her high school work this summer and, next year, will likely be doing some volunteer work at BFA while investing more time in occupational therapy and counseling. It has been wonderful to watch a deep sense of peace and joy resurfacing in Emma and we are excited to see how God will use this next year in Emma’s life. Our prayer for Emma is that she will grow in her understanding of how God has gifted her and increasingly desire to use those gifts in ways to bless others.

Catherine. Catherine’s year has been the most quietly surprising of all. In addition to all she does to keep our family thriving, she continues to be involved among the women in our church. But the most unexpected and fulfilling piece of this year has been the relationships that have developed with several local ladies. Thanks in part to Catherine’s growing fluency in German, during the last year several non-believing neighbors have opened up in ways that are very “unGerman”. They see something in Catherine that they trust and the result is that she has been given the privilege of speaking into their lives at a level that is remarkable. One of our prayer requests for this year is that Catherine would have the chance to share the Gospel more deeply with these ladies and help them plug into a local church (and that requires continuing growth in German language fluency - another prayer request).

Phil. BFA’s 70th year coincided with the climax of the largest capital campaign in BFA’s history and, much less significantly, my 56th birthday. Most birthdays come and go for me, and the 56th isn’t a particularly noteworthy milestone, and yet, this one felt different. By normal standards, I have less than ten years before retirement. That means three-quarters of my adult work life is now in the rearview mirror. What has it all been for? Have I prioritized the things that really matter? Does anything I have done have significance beyond the here and now? It is good and normal to ask these questions, and the answers I have are generally satisfying - I have sought, however imperfectly, to honor Jesus and to live with eternity in mind. And yet, there has also been an awareness of waste and of misplaced priorities, and of time spent on things that won’t matter beyond today or this year. Our prayer for me is that this period of reflection would be the catalyst for an even greater sense of purpose, and an ever clearer sense of perspective for as long as God gives me.

An additional personal note. It has now been twelve years since Virtuous Minds came out. It is encouraging to see that the message of the book - how to love God with all our minds - continues to resonate. While it is not exactly a NY Times bestseller, the ongoing demand, and the approximately 20,000 copies that have been sold, prompted IVP Academic to approve a second edition. After several months of work, the updated and expanded edition of Virtuous Minds will be coming out in February of 2027 on Amazon. (I believe it is available for pre-order already.)

BFA 2025-26

As I alluded to above, this has been a highly significant year for BFA. Far more has happened even in the last six months than you likely have time to read, so here is a brief summary.

The conclusion of the Immeasurably More campaign. Three years ago we had a need that seemed well beyond our capacity. We needed to replace two mission-critical dorms immediately at an expected cost that dwarfed our annual income. Yet, on Friday May 1, thanks to God’s incredible provision through His people around the world, we celebrated the ribbon cutting for “Trinity Haus” - the new building that will not only replace the two old dorms but which will add a third, allowing us to serve another 20 pioneering missionary families. We prayed that God would allow BFA’s mission to continue, and He has made it grow!

The boys of HBR dorm (Haus Bad Riedlingen) and the girls of Storch (Storchenblick) marched together from the town of Holzen (home of Storch) to BFA and then onto their new homes in Trinity Haus (the new Triple Dorm) on May 1, 2026 to officially open the new dorm - a walk that symbolized more miracles that we can count!

The celebration of BFA’s 70th year. The conclusion of the Immeasurably More campaign providentially coincided with BFA’s 70th year celebrations. Appropriately, we chose Psalm 77:11 as our theme for the year (“I will remember the deeds of the Lord”) and God has used that verse in powerful ways across the global BFA community. For the entire year, our community has reflected on God’s faithfulness to BFA, sometimes in spite of ourselves, as we have sought to empower global missions by educating the children of missionaries working in some of the world’s most spiritually challenging regions. During the week of celebrations, we had over 100 staff and student alumni from every BFA generation make the flight across the ocean to celebrate with us. When we considered the humble beginnings of BFA in an apartment kitchen in Basel, we could only marvel at the approximately 3000 students, 1000 staff, and over 1500 missionary families whose ministries were able to continue in over 100 countries during BFA’s first 70 years. 

Phil had the opportunity to speak briefly at Suwon Central Baptist Church in Korea about BFA and its importance to global missions. (Billy Kim is in the background. His son, Joseph, translated for Phil).

Significant Travel. Travel is a necessary evil for many of us, but this year my work travel had tremendous value and significance. In December I was able to travel to Israel for the first time to engage with a number of key American church leaders and to visit biblical sites that I had read about my entire life - Shiloh, the Mt. of Olives, the Temple Mount, and the Western Wall, as well as seeing the site of the October 7 attacks in Southern Israel. In February, I had a chance to visit several key mission-supporting churches and schools in Korea - including a Sunday service at Billy Kim’s church (Korea’s equivalent of Billy Graham) where I had the chance to showcase BFA’s role in world missions. And finally, in March I was able to travel to Slovenia to take part in TeachBeyond’s Eurasia conference, where I gave a talk describing the key role BFA played in launching this thriving and 3,500 staff-strong educational mission organization which is now reaching the nations for Christ through over 600 projects in almost 90 nations.

The Core of our mission.  Celebrations and significant travel were unusually prominent this year but the core of our mission remained central. The student body was made up of 271 students from almost 30 nationalities whose missionary parents are serving in over 40 nations - many of which are “creative access” nations where educational options are extremely limited. While not every student comes to BFA sharing the faith of their parents (and a limited number come from non-Christian business/diplomat families), 96% were involved in voluntary discipleship groups and over 50% were involved in ministry outside of BFA, including mission trips and our regular outreach to refugees and immigrants to Germany. It was also encouraging to see a number of students make public commitments to Christ and take the step of baptism during the year. In fact, during the last three weeks alone, nine students were baptized in the river that weaves along the border of BFA’s campus. 

BFA's honors choir performed on Hungarian TV alongside other schools in the Spring of 2025 (including Sophie)

The year had a number of other highlights as well. BFA’s sports teams won two European championships (Girls volleyball and Girls soccer). Our students’ average AP score of 3.73 (compared to the global average of 2.9) demonstrated a continuing high level of academic rigor and achievement. And an abundance of music recitals and concerts, drama performances, and fine arts exhibits displayed an arts program that is giving our students a tremendous range of opportunities to grow and develop. 

I highlight these things not because they are impressive, but because many of our students come from regions that impose significant legal and cultural restrictions on activities outside the home (especially for girls). Opportunities that the typical teenager growing up in the US, Canada, or Korea can expect are rare or non-existent. As a result, the wealth of opportunities that BFA provides can be genuinely life-changing for many of our missionary kids. Few things bring us more joy than watching students discover and develop gifts and talents that they didn’t even know they had, and that they would not have been able to experience without BFA.

This summer, we have the chance to spend some time with my parents and to tour a few universities with Sophie, but we are already excited for the start of the 2026-27 school year and all that God will do in the lives of our students and through the work of their parents. Thank you for following us on this journey, for praying for us, and for sharing your lives with us.