At Missionary Training and Renewal, I met several different people who had some connection to the school I will be teaching at in Belgium, Continental Theological Seminary, so I got several different perspectives on it. One woman on the Europe leadership team had worked there for years some time ago and told me a lot of the practical things I wanted to know, like what the physical structure of the school is like (it is in an old chateau which was constructed out of the horse stables belonging to an ancient castle…). I had a lot of questions answered that people are always asking and I have no idea about since I have never been there. (Alas, I have no pictures that I have permission to use. But you can go here and see pictures for yourself.)

With Paul and Angela Trementozzi (on left) and Joseph Dimitrov (on right).

On the very last day, at the commissioning service, I got to meet two presidents of CTS. The last president, Roland Dudley, is now teaching at Trinity Bible College, my own alma mater, and I got to be introduced to him in passing there. The current president, Dr. Joseph Dimitrov, was also there. Dr. Dimitrov is Bulgarian and is the first non-American president of CTS. I’ve talked to him on Skype once, but I actually met him properly, and he prayed for me during the prayer service at the end.

But my first meeting was with Terry Hoggard, CTS’s Director of Development, and it answered my most important question: What on earth do you want me for? I have caught myself wondering, What have I got that someone else can’t provide for you? Am I really going to do something indispensable? Am I worth people supporting me when they could be supporting orphans in Africa?

Without knowing any of that, Terry told me about CTS’s goals for the future, and those goals are something I can contribute meaningfully to. The European model of theological education is totally academic and intellectual. Now, I adore the academic and intellectual, as anyone who knows me knows. But, he said, they need to learn how to integrate the intellectual with the spiritual. European students don’t expect their spiritual life to be enlivened by their theological education. The CTS leadership is making a concerted effort to move in the direction of community and spiritual life. Forty students were filled with the Spirit there last year! That’s nearly half the student body.

Davidson Hall at Trinity Bible College, my first dorm, now being refurbished for an academic building. Picture by Alyse Erbele.

Ever since I was at Trinity Bible College (I graduated in 2003), I have longed to help students make that connection. When you go to Bible college, you’re often warned to take extra great careful care for your spiritual life, because being in theological classes all the time can kill it. (Never mind that if you don’t take extra great careful care for your spiritual life, anything will kill it.) But I found the exact opposite to be the case. My spiritual life was enlivened and expanded by being at Bible college and in theology and missiology and Greek classes. When I learned something about, say, God’s purposes behind the sacrificial structure established in the Pentateuch in an Old Testament class, or about how Francis of Assisi became a Christian in a Christian history class, or about particular strategies for reaching a particular people group in a missions class, or about the significance behind Paul’s use of a participle in a particular passage in a Greek class…my mind expanded and with it my heart and my excitement about what God does and my enjoyment of who He is. Oh, I loved it.

That’s the teacher I want to be, not just one who says, “This is what a participle is,” but one who shows why the participle is important to the structure of Paul’s sentence and the overall goal of what he is trying to teach about God and the church. Or not just one who teaches the dates that Francis of Assisi lived and the structures he established in the Catholic Church, but one who can show how his life was transformed, how God used him to transform aspects of the Church of his era, how similar that is to what God did through John Wesley, how similar that is to what God wants to and can do in the Church in Europe…

CTS needs me. Isn’t that crazy? I need CTS, because I don’t have much teaching experience, and being there will give it to me. But they need me, too, because I have a perspective they are deeply wanting, and the very thing I have wanted to contribute to any school I am in is the very thing they want from me. Why, yes, I am actually worth people supporting. Because I’m called by God, for one thing, and because I’m going to go do something rather special He’s laid out for me.

My grandma

On Wednesday I drove to Butte, two hours away, picked up my grandma, who lives there, and went to her church. It was only about -20 degrees Fahrenheit out. Her church is small, especially on a Wednesday night, especially on a bitterly cold Wednesday night, but there was quite a large group of children, as well as a goodly number of teenagers.

Speaking to the children was delightful. They wiggled and asked questions and answered them. My questions to them involved making them think about God creating their minds and their interests and having a plan for their lives. Their questions to me were my age and whether I was married or dating. Ah, children.

After ten or fifteen minutes with them, I went on to the youth group. I was most nervous about that, since I have never identified well with teenagers, not even, or especially, when I was a teenager. But it turned out to be my favorite segment of the night. They were responsive and interested, and I think I made one girl cry. I do not consider that a bad thing, because I was speaking encouragement to them about who God made them to be.

Finally I spoke to the adults for half an hour or so. There were only about eight of them, including my grandmother and my aunt, but they were kind and encouraging, and I think I encouraged them as well. My grandmother, who went to each group with me, said later she enjoyed hearing how I adjusted what was basically the same message to each age group and situation. I’ve always been a fairly good contextualizer (once I wrote a missions paper about applying the Gospel to Vulcans and Klingons…but that’s another story).

The next afternoon, after spending the night at my grandma’s house, I was off to Dillon, about an hour south of Butte. It was such a beautiful drive that I wished it was longer. Dillon is a startlingly lovely little town with a startlingly grand campus of the University of Montana in it, and two of my friends from Trinity Bible College, Jason and Cindy Axt, are the Chi Alpha leaders there. (Chi Alpha is the Assemblies of God’s U.S. college missions arm.)

Jason and Cindy kindly let me stay at their house from Thursday to Sunday. Being missionaries themselves, they understand the difficulties of having to spend money on hotels while trying to fundraise. They have three children nine and under who are all rather adorable, and my stay with them ended up being unbelievably relaxing and low-key. That’s another thing about missionaries. They also understand how important it is to be able to relax between the whirlwind of speaking engagements.

On Thursday night I spoke at their Chi Alpha group, to fifteen or so college students, and on Friday, between hanging out with Jason and Cindy and their kids, exploring the town, reading, and writing in my journal and my latest Shakespearean science fiction book, I had a lovely meeting with the local Assembly of God pastor. We talked about missions, of course, and education, and Europe, and made a plan for me to come back in March to his church, but we also had a grand time talking about British television, because when two fans of “Sherlock” and other British mysteries get together, such subjects can’t be repressed.

Between Thursday and Sunday, it snowed about two feet, and oh how I wish I had brought my camera, because it was so lovely and Dillon was so lovely, and I’d love to show you pictures of it. In lieu of that, however, here’s a lovely picture I took about three years ago of snow in Missoula. On bicycles.

On Sunday we drove to Sheridan, about half an hour away, where the Axts go to church, and I spoke there for about half an hour. It was a marvelous church, quite small but very welcoming and encouraging. People came up and talked to me afterward and were terribly delightful and kind. I was even asked for advice and my expert opinion as regards missions in Europe and such things, which was a bit disconcerting. I’m The Missionary now. Weird.

All in all, it was most charming. My next marathon is the last weekend of this month.