CDI History
Village Missions, a ministry devoted to sending pastors to rural areas, is launched on September 9, 1948. Rev. Walter Duff, Jr. is appointed the National Director and a Board of Directors is formed.
Ron Sallee begins teaching “How to the Study the Bible” and “Christian Doctrine” at Camano Chapel served by Village Missions on Camano Island, Washington. These courses form the foundation of Contenders Bible School (CDI).
Ron & Marilyn faithfully serve the field of Arago, Oregon, for 6 1/2 years.
They faithfully serve this field for 31 1/2 years.
Contenders Bible School begins at Machias Community Church. From this program, God calls people into full time ministry outside of Machias, many with Village Missions. This program eventually grows into today’s Contenders Discipleship Initiative (CDI).
First class of graduates begin serving as Village Missionaries in Tensed, ID.
Ron Sallee commutes to McKenna Community Church south of Tacoma, WA, and starts a Contenders Bible School there.
Village Missionary Raul Corona teaches a “Bibliology and How to Study the Bible” class using notes and PowerPoint Slides from Contenders that had been translated into Spanish. This marks the beginning of Escuela de Evangelistas Alberto Motessi.
Village Missionaries Russ Richardson and Rob Dore start Servants Bible School, which was modeled after Contenders Bible School.
Village Missions receives a generous estate gift, which proves an immense blessing to our ministry. Combined with Executive Director Brian Wechsler’s passionate vision and support to expand Contenders Bible School and make it accessible to people and churches across rural North America – and around the world! – this gift helps pave the way for the official formation of the Contenders Discipleship Initiative curriculum.
The groundwork begins for the creation of CDI. Videography: Jeff Haugen; Project Manager, Web designer & Guidebook production: Cindy Kitts; and a host of volunteers.
The Escuela de Evangelistas Alberto Motessi graduates its first class of 20 students in June of 2014. Graduates from this program have gone on to minister in Hispanic neighborhoods in California.
Contenders Discipleship Initiative (CDI) is launched as a two-year program offered by Village Missions to equip Christians for ministry within their local church and to prepare those who are called for full-time ministry as missionary pastors.
Servants Bible School sends out its first Village Missionaries, Mark & Karen Woolbright, to Helix, Oregon.
After 38 years of faithfully serving as a Village Missionary, Ron Sallee steps into leadership to oversee the development of the CDI program.
CDI guidebooks are being translated into Spanish for training pastors in Guatemala by Servants4Him.
Retired Village Missionaries Rob & Linda Dore take the CDI (loaded on Kindle Fire Tablets) to Malawi to train pastors.
Ken Ainsworth becomes the CDI Administrator, handling Help Desk and web inquires as well administering the CDI Leaning Management System.
After 4 years, the last class of CDI is finished, thus completing the program with 6 courses.
Rick & Stephanie Sherman, who completed the CDI program at a Village Missions church, are the first CDI graduates to attend Village Missions Candidate School. A few months later, they are placed on their first field of Lookingglass, Oregon.
Contenders graduate and Village Missionary David Carr works to assist those with hearing impairments. A generous group of volunteers begin close captioning all the videos into English.
After several months of hard work, the first course in the CDI program is available in closed captioning!
The ambitious work to translate CDI closed captioning into other languages – including Spanish, Portuguese and Farsi.