One of the great things about teaching at Nazarene Theological Seminary is that there are often students who have advanced degrees in a variety of areas. There are also students who have amazing life experience, as well as those who have just graduated from university who are progressing in their academic growth by pursuing a graduate degree. In a seminar class of 12-15 students, all of these are often represented.
A few years ago, Nancy and Mark Pitts who both had advanced degrees, and who had successful careers in counseling and education (Mark had been the academic dean at NNU) were part of classes at NTS. They had come to NTS for a semester to “refocus” the tools that they already had toward a cross cultural setting at the Nazarene University in Kenya. The seminar classes with people such as Nancy and Mark in which people brought their expertise to the discussions were amazing to say the least.
In just the past month, Mark has accepted the role of provost at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego. The following is an interesting and wise piece that I copied from their blog: http://www.africonnection.org/
SOME THINGS WE LEARNED
In conclusion, some insights and thoughts about our time in Kenya:
• If we had it to do over again, would we make the same decision to spend three years in training and serving, WOULD we do it all again? Our answer is an enthusiastic "yes." It was a real experience with some aggravations and disappointments and challenges in it, of course. Even so, our time at Nazarene Theological and at Africa Nazarene University has been a highlight of our experience-blessed lives.
• We’ve learned that twenty-first century missionary training is very different from training and philosophy of missions a century ago. As a result, it’s useful to us in a variety of situations: listen more than we talk, cultivate partnerships, accept and allow for cultural differences, suspend quick judgment, avoid authoritarian language, accept that understanding comes in several layers over an extended period of time.
• We are encouraged and blessed by the energy and growth of the church in Africa.
• We are constantly amazed at and instructed by the quality and the level of commitment of the denominational leaders in Africa. No one there told us, “Be more like us”, but how do we process the fact that two of the people in this book are training to go back into a creative access area where they may be estranged from their families and their lives will be in jeopardy for sharing the gospel, where one interviewee was part of a house church in which 80% of the members were martyred in 18 months, where several of those we have spoken for these interviews and in other contexts have left jobs or training in engineering, veterinary medicine, or government service to follow the call of the gospel? As we return to the US, what do we do with the example of sacrifice made by some of the people featured in this book?
• Our clear and easy “answers” to some of the challenges in Africa have melted away as we understand better the complexity of the circumstances. We recall the essayist who said, “There is a simple answer to every complex life question, and that simple answer is always wrong.”
• While it’s true that there is poverty and corruption and disease in Africa, it is also true that Africa is making progress in many areas and that the global church needs to see Africa as a real place—not all safaris or all slums, but a place with gleaming shopping centers and well-travelled and well-dressed people and well-educated people as well as those struggling with the well-documented challenges.
• Because we have heard African denominational leaders say such things repeatedly, we believe that Wesleyan-Holiness is a unique and effective resource in addressing some of the key challenges in Africa. The idea of “prevenient grace” is good news to people for whom fatalism about the future is a natural response to great hardship. The idea that Christians are “co-laborers” with Christ is a powerful response to dependency. Our interviewees point to holiness over and over as an antidote to corruption and nominal Christianity if we dedicate ourselves more to imperfectly living it rather than to perfectly defining it.
• For ourselves, we are praising the Lord for the new opportunities he is providing, but admit to being in “listening and abiding” mode for his will beyond new business cards and position description. It’s so easy to see missionaries as the front line in evangelism and the Western world as a de-militarized zone, and yet the newspapers provide painful evidence that darkness is at work in comfortable American neighborhoods as well. In a powerful NPR interview before her death, Mother Teresa pointed to spiritual poverty as a more debilitating condition than economic poverty and encouraged First World people to engage close to home as well as far from it. As we said in our deputation services, we do believe this is part of what the Lord is telling us.
Finally, faithful readers of Africonnection and friends and colleagues and "fellow-travelers" on this journey of faith, we thank you more than we can express for your engagement, for your notes and face to face comments telling us you were reading, and for your kindnesses to us in other ways. The Church of the Nazarene, like all organizations, is changing, but we have benefited from the tradition of strong prayer and emotional support for missionaries. Two suggestions for you to consider: first, please do look for other international missionaries to whom you could extend some of your prayer and emotional support.
We'd also ask this--there is a new wind blowing that encourages committed Christians to have missionary hearts in more familiar settings. We hear occasionally from some young people or people in transition who say--"I'm wanting to serve God in a deeper way. Is there some work I can do in Africa?" Now the answer to that question is always "yes," but we worry a bit that the reason it's phrased that way is because serving in Africa (or to some extent in China or in India) has been seen as kind of the "gold standard" for service and commitment.
Even some of our African friends, though, are saying to us--why don't your people serve closer to home? And of course Americans DO serve close to home--in all kinds of volunteer or service organizations, paid and upaid but it would be so wonderful if the church could extend its emotional and spiritual support in deeper, richer ways to those "local, tent-maker missionaries" and to see the work THEY do as part of a new "gold standard." Could you look for someone like that and give them the level of support and prayer you have given us? Many of you will say--I'm already doing that, and we thank you for, as usual, being way ahead of us in your insights and faithfulness, but one final thought--any chance the Lord is asking YOU to be that "new era, local, tent-making missionary"?
For ourselves, we believe this new kind of missionary service is what God is calling us to, but we are feeling our way and praying for God's daily guidance and insight. The path is not clear, the job description and parameters of this new chapter are not set. You won't be getting these blog posts anymore (somehow pictures of lions from the San Diego Zoo just don't have the same "zing" as pictures from Maasai Mara!). But we would covet your prayers and we will be praying for you that each of us can have insights about what God is calling us to do in this new era where ALL missionaries hearts are moved, but only SOME missionaries addresses change. Blessings on you, thank you again, and best wishes as you seek the Lord's will for your own area of service.
