It's Official!

Last Saturday night I found myself in Dearborn, Michigan, sitting in the home of a large Muslim family from Iraq, along with a bunch of smiling Presbyterians – all of us drinking tea with lots of sugar, eating sesame seed cookies still warm from the oven, and singing Christmas carols. As part of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church’s get-to-know-you weekend for new and prospective missionaries we went caroling in a neighborhood of predominantly Shiite immigrants. Just to say ‘we love you’ and ‘we’re glad you’re here.’ We newbies weren’t quite sure how we’d be received as our team wandered around in the dark singing as hopefully as we could. But then one young man came out to meet us on the sidewalk and invited us into his mother’s house. And from that point on it was just plain fun. At the end, after lots of conversation and prayer for the family, our new Muslim friend said, “This is like a small miracle. Today I was looking at social media and feeling bad about how terrible things are in the world. Then I heard your music and saw you outside. Thank you for coming.” Another team reported that an Arab woman in a fluffy blue bathroom invited them into her home, fed them and told them, “I’m so glad you weren’t afraid to come inside. We’re not all terrorists, you know.” As a newcomer to the EPC’s missionary family I’m delighted to discover that in EPC World Outreach this is how we roll.

Yes, it’s official! As of last Thursday I’m now a missionary appointee of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church’s World Outreach (epc.org/wo), in a cooperative appointment with Serge (serge.org) to serve as a traveling international theological education specialist based with Serge’s team in Dublin, Ireland. Whew! That sounds like a mouthful, doesn’t it? As many of you are well aware, this has been a long time coming, and I’m grateful that for the first time in several years the Lord's given me a clear picture of what happens next. We structured-type people really like this sort of definition.

My responsibility is to bring my international experience in theological education – all those years in the US, UK, Africa and India – to Serge’s fields of ministry around the world. I get the opportunity to serve the Kingdom of God by teaching in theological institutions alongside Serge’s church-planting efforts, helping Serge develop and strengthen partnerships in theological education, and inviting and equipping others to participate in theological training in cross-cultural settings. To be honest, I get to invent my job as we go along. Doesn’t that sound amazing?! Many of you know my passion to help train the emerging generation of Christian leaders worldwide who’ll shape global Christianity in the 21st century. In God’s economy none of my previous experience is wasted. Everything comes together in this new role.

You won’t be surprised to hear I’ll need partners in this work – give-ers, pray-ers, friends and encouragers. From January-May 2016 I’ll have a chance to reconnect with many of you who’ve been such faithful partners in the past and I’ll reach out to the new partners God’s bringing into this. You may be wondering how you can start helping right now. That would be great! You can give to Serge here or send a gift to the address in the sidebar. (You’ll also be able to give through EPC World Outreach, but there’s still some paperwork and committee approval needed before that’s available. Because, we’re Presbyterian.) Thank you so very much! Once all the financial support is raised I’ll be able to relocate to Dublin, hopefully by September 2016 in time for the new academic year.

Meanwhile, I finished teaching at the South Asian Institute of Advanced Christian Studies (SAIACS, saiacs.org) in Bangalore, India, and returned home just in time to head to South Carolina for Thanksgiving with extended family. People keep asking, “How was India?” and the answer is, I felt like I was totally in my sweet spot. The opportunity to teach biblical hermeneutics and Greek exegesis of Mark’s Gospel to these eager young Indian and Nepali leaders feeds my soul. God willing, I’ll return to SAIACS next July to repeat the hermeneutics course with a new crop of entering MA students.

Now I’m home in Charlottesville for a couple of weeks, then to Orlando for Christmas with Caroline and Will, then finally back to Virginia to stay for a while. I have much to celebrate this Christmas as I look back at the healing and renewal God has worked in me over this past year. I'm ever more grateful for the costliest gift of all – the birth of Jesus, God-with-us, born to offer us life and hope. Good news for each of us. Good news to share with the world.

My hard-working Greek exegesis students at the South Asian Institute of Advanced Christian Studies (SAIACS) in November

 

What Was I Thinking?!

Remember back in August when I told you I’d applied to Serge (serge.org, formerly World Harvest Mission) to work in global theological education and would be attending their ‘assessment & orientation’ week in Philadelphia in mid-September? And also I was planning to go to Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) headquarters in Michigan the week before that to interview for a co-operative missionary appointment between Serge and EPC World Outreach? And then I said something perky and optimistic like “Hopefully all this mission admin stuff will be sorted before I leave on Sept 23rd for India”? Really – what was I thinking?!! Any experienced missionary should have known the process was NEVER going to move that smoothly. The past few months have been filled with all sorts of back and forth, ups and downs trying to sort out how to make this happen – and not knowing for sure whether it would happen at all, or whether the Lord was shutting those doors and I needed to search out a completely different one. I’ve worked my way through the psalms of lament: “How long, O Lord?” and “Why?” At this point in life, do I really need this sort of drama?

But God is good, as always, and just this week things have been coming together. Serge has designed a position to match their needs with my gifts and we all agree that for the foreseeable future I should live in (drumroll)… Dublin, Ireland. The goal is to become a theological education specialist based with Serge’s team in Ireland but “primarily serving the needs of the developing world through online teaching and extensive travel to consult and teach” (says Serge). As part of the team in Dublin I'll also help support Irish churches and church planting efforts, primarily by teaching in an Irish theological college for part of each year. I never did make it to Michigan in September, but now I’m scheduled to interview with EPC World Outreach on December 2nd & 3rd, with the hope of emerging from that as an EPC missionary serving with Serge in the Republic of Ireland – which some say is the least-evangelized English-speaking country in the world.

If anyone interested in cross-cultural ministry wants to know what it looks and feels like to ‘get there from here,’ this is it. Twists and turns and confusion and creativity – and tears and trust – are part of the package, at least in my experience. What happens next is that I begin looking for the pray-ers and givers God’s putting in place to make this ministry possible.

Meanwhile, in His goodness I’m in Bangalore for two months teaching at the South Asian Institute of Advanced Christian Studies (saiacs.org), one of my favorite places anywhere. A wonderful ethos at SAIACS, thoughtful colleagues, a strategic role in South Asia's small Christian context, and very eager and able students from India, Nepal, and beyond, engaged in reaching out to their Hindu and Muslim neighbors. For the month of October I had sixteen first-year MA students for their foundational course in biblical hermeneutics – the beliefs, approaches and methods we bring to studying the Bible. This month eight upper-level MDiv students and I are reading through the first third of Mark’s Gospel in Greek, focusing on improving their Greek and their skills in New Testament interpretation. Since I'm here for eight weeks this time instead of the usual four, I’ve also had more opportunity than ever before to get to know people beyond SAIACS, attending a local church (Bangalore New City Fellowship, newcityfellowship.in) along with a weekly home group that’s part of the church. Plus I get to eat great Indian food every day and wear beautiful Indian clothes!

At the same time that I’m teaching here in India I’ve been teaching a very similar hermeneutics course online for Fuller Theological Seminary, with students in Hawaii, various parts of the continental US, and Barbados. The good news is that a week or two ago Fuller gave me a small promotion, which means more teaching and a higher rate of pay – which should be just about enough to cover my basic living expenses for the first half of 2016 while I’m raising missionary support. (Deep sigh of relief and gratitude…)

Only two more weeks here in India and then back to the US in time to celebrate Thanksgiving with family. And then to EPC World Outreach interviews… And then? I guess we’ll see what God does next…

MA Hermeneutics class at SAIACS 

 

 

 

 

Celebrating the end of a successful course!

 

At SAIACS faculty members, students, and support staff eat together every day

 

Thursdays are my favorite - egg curry and pumpkin

 

Continuing the food theme... lunch last week at a church friend's house -

including an amazing cooking lesson in her kitchen

 

  

Back to work: Greek Exegesis of Mark class,

with some very intense and hard working students!