Spring 2007 Update
It has been a while since I have sent out an update about my time at Trinity and what is happening in my life and general and so the time to do that is now.
The Fall Semester was one in which I was challenged in many ways. I had a very hard course load at Trinity as well as having to face many personal challenges. These challenges included the death of my half-brother Tim and having to preside at the service for his burial.
The week that my half-brother died I had earlier been scheduled to travel down to Beaufort S.C. to the parish there which is supporting me in my seminary education. Both the trip down there and all that was included in it, meeting wonderful Christian people who both preach and live Grace filled lives and the opportunity to preach God’s word in their Church and share my life with them was wonderful.
While down there I met some wonderful people including the Curate there; a former Trinity student, Robert Batts and the Rector Jeffrey Miller; a former disciple of our Dean-President Paul Zahl, as well as the Associate Rector Mark Avera. The trip to Beaufort was a true blessing I was treated to nice dinners and even an afternoon at the pistol and rifle range. The new relationships with the people at the Church have been, as much if not, a greater blessing than their financial support.
Doing the graveside service for my half-brother Tim who died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 61 was both a very difficult thing for me as a family member and a blessing all at once. If you have more questions about this event please let me know.
Since the Fall Semester concluded I have been even busier than I was before; which pretty hard for me to comprehend. After the conclusion of the semester I traveled home to spend about five days with my family for Christmas which went by very quickly but was also very enjoyable. The day after Christmas I traveled back to Trinity in order to fly the next day and represent the seminary at the Urbana mission conference held this year in St. Louis. This was a great experience where I and Drew one of my seminary brother’s got to both be fed and network a little bit for the school. We were able to have some really good conversations with people interested in pursuing theological education and also do some investigation as to what would make recruiting at the next Urbana more effective. It was an additional blessing for me to be there because I was able to have a bit of a reunion with some of my former missionary friends from a previous life.
I returned from St. Louis to celebrate the New Year with my girlfriend Jess and her friends from college and then left about three days later on a mission trip to Kenya as a part of a team from Trinity.
The team from Trinity consisted of 5 students and one professor, Grant Lemarquand, who had lived in Kenya teaching at a seminary there in the late 1980’s. The members of the team, Andy Bracken, Ian McCarthy, Bill Starke and Elaine Storm are all students at Trinity who have taken classes with Grant and when the need was presented to form a team to go teach some theological classes at the Kakuma Refugee camp we took up the challenge. We traveled to Nairobi initially and then continued on to Kakuma which is located in northern Kenya. We were teaching classes for pastors and church leaders who are refugees from the Southern Sudan, some of whom who have lived without a country, an identity, and to some degree a weaker culture, for the last 15 years.
There are over 100,000 refugees in this camp including people from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Ethiopia, Uganda, and the Sudan. This trip was very powerful and I have still yet to complete an account of my time there so that will have to follow at a later date. But I have posted pictures at the three web addresses listed below and will hopefully write a further account of that trip in the near future.
The trip lasted 3 weeks and I have just been back in the US for four weeks trying to play catch up as we arrived back almost two weeks into the start of the Spring semester. Currently I am taking five classes as well as doing an internship at my field base parish in Oakland near the campuses of Carnegie Mellon and Pitt. This semester is pretty broken up with different activities for the school including the New Wineskins mission conference in North Carolina and the visitor’s weekend at the school during which I will be preaching in chapel.
I would covet your prayers at this time that the renewed desire the Lord gave me to pursue this theological sandstorm I am in the middle of would be something I have a passion and drive for that I have not yet had. Thank you for your friendship, your prayers and your support.
Just as a preparatory note, I would also like to let you know that I am going to be sending out a post-trip support letter for my time in Kenya. I have never done this before but was unable to get my letter out before departing and so have had to absorb a significant cost on a personal bank account that this trip depleted significantly. Please pray in preparation to consider giving when you receive this letter and hear about what was accomplished in Kakuma.
Your’s in the Fight,
Mathew
http://ohio.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2006445&l=f7950&id=12309851
http://ohio.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2101267&l=eea78&id=12309851
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fulani/
The Fall Semester was one in which I was challenged in many ways. I had a very hard course load at Trinity as well as having to face many personal challenges. These challenges included the death of my half-brother Tim and having to preside at the service for his burial.
The week that my half-brother died I had earlier been scheduled to travel down to Beaufort S.C. to the parish there which is supporting me in my seminary education. Both the trip down there and all that was included in it, meeting wonderful Christian people who both preach and live Grace filled lives and the opportunity to preach God’s word in their Church and share my life with them was wonderful.
While down there I met some wonderful people including the Curate there; a former Trinity student, Robert Batts and the Rector Jeffrey Miller; a former disciple of our Dean-President Paul Zahl, as well as the Associate Rector Mark Avera. The trip to Beaufort was a true blessing I was treated to nice dinners and even an afternoon at the pistol and rifle range. The new relationships with the people at the Church have been, as much if not, a greater blessing than their financial support.
Doing the graveside service for my half-brother Tim who died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 61 was both a very difficult thing for me as a family member and a blessing all at once. If you have more questions about this event please let me know.
Since the Fall Semester concluded I have been even busier than I was before; which pretty hard for me to comprehend. After the conclusion of the semester I traveled home to spend about five days with my family for Christmas which went by very quickly but was also very enjoyable. The day after Christmas I traveled back to Trinity in order to fly the next day and represent the seminary at the Urbana mission conference held this year in St. Louis. This was a great experience where I and Drew one of my seminary brother’s got to both be fed and network a little bit for the school. We were able to have some really good conversations with people interested in pursuing theological education and also do some investigation as to what would make recruiting at the next Urbana more effective. It was an additional blessing for me to be there because I was able to have a bit of a reunion with some of my former missionary friends from a previous life.
I returned from St. Louis to celebrate the New Year with my girlfriend Jess and her friends from college and then left about three days later on a mission trip to Kenya as a part of a team from Trinity.
The team from Trinity consisted of 5 students and one professor, Grant Lemarquand, who had lived in Kenya teaching at a seminary there in the late 1980’s. The members of the team, Andy Bracken, Ian McCarthy, Bill Starke and Elaine Storm are all students at Trinity who have taken classes with Grant and when the need was presented to form a team to go teach some theological classes at the Kakuma Refugee camp we took up the challenge. We traveled to Nairobi initially and then continued on to Kakuma which is located in northern Kenya. We were teaching classes for pastors and church leaders who are refugees from the Southern Sudan, some of whom who have lived without a country, an identity, and to some degree a weaker culture, for the last 15 years.
There are over 100,000 refugees in this camp including people from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Ethiopia, Uganda, and the Sudan. This trip was very powerful and I have still yet to complete an account of my time there so that will have to follow at a later date. But I have posted pictures at the three web addresses listed below and will hopefully write a further account of that trip in the near future.
The trip lasted 3 weeks and I have just been back in the US for four weeks trying to play catch up as we arrived back almost two weeks into the start of the Spring semester. Currently I am taking five classes as well as doing an internship at my field base parish in Oakland near the campuses of Carnegie Mellon and Pitt. This semester is pretty broken up with different activities for the school including the New Wineskins mission conference in North Carolina and the visitor’s weekend at the school during which I will be preaching in chapel.
I would covet your prayers at this time that the renewed desire the Lord gave me to pursue this theological sandstorm I am in the middle of would be something I have a passion and drive for that I have not yet had. Thank you for your friendship, your prayers and your support.
Just as a preparatory note, I would also like to let you know that I am going to be sending out a post-trip support letter for my time in Kenya. I have never done this before but was unable to get my letter out before departing and so have had to absorb a significant cost on a personal bank account that this trip depleted significantly. Please pray in preparation to consider giving when you receive this letter and hear about what was accomplished in Kakuma.
Your’s in the Fight,
Mathew
http://ohio.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2006445&l=f7950&id=12309851
http://ohio.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2101267&l=eea78&id=12309851
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fulani/
posted by Fulani at 10:37 AM
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