family and their age-old religious practices and dimmed their strong national identity. Persecution by the Roman authorities was increasing. Religion was a life and death affair. Believers were often poor or uneducated or displaced, without the life supports they had previously known. They did not need a school. They needed teaching, but in a family-type atmosphere where opportunity was provided for them to be strengthened in their belief so they could withstand the attacks to their faith. They needed