From time to time we will include a devotional thought from Stan Slade. Stan is one of our missionaries and is global consultant for theological education. He previously served as a visiting professor for leadership training ministries throughout Iberoamerica and now serves as a visiting professor and consultant globally.
Experience has shown that a midweek break really helps people renew their energies during an intensive Bible study seminar. So, we took an afternoon off to hit the beach and a small game park, just north of Mombasa, Kenya.We discovered that the folks who run Haller Park use giant tortoises to keep the lawns trimmed! I might not have believed this if I had seen only the tortoise in the water. But as I watched two others busily "chow down" on the grass, I saw how good the tortoises are at their job!
Discovering a tortoise lawnmower is interesting, even exciting, but the participants in this year's Berean Safari got much more excited about what they were discovering in Scripture. Seventy people from a dozen countries invested the week in Manuscript Bible Study--a highly participatory form of inductive Bible study that emphasizes personal and group discovery.
The group that I co-led with Kenyan university campus minister Lucas Owako journeyed through the second half of Mark's Gospel. We were profoundly challenged by the way Jesus' call to discipleship cuts across the grain of our human nature. At one point, a very gracious, loving and dedicated ministry leader from Rwanda exclaimed, "I wonder if I have ever truly followed this Jesus!" He alone said it, but we were all thinking it.
Even me, of course! For some 35 years, I've been helping groups to discover the treasures and challenges contained in Mark, but the experience never becomes stale for me. That is partly due to Mark's inspired work. It is also partly due to the excitement I feel whenever a member of the group discovers something she or he had never previously seen or, even more, hears a fresh word from God.
I also love to help others develop their teaching skills. It was fun to work with Lucas again this year, after we co-led a study in the first half of Mark last year. It was also a great pleasure to work with several of last year's participants, as we talked about how they had been using what they learned and as they shared in the leadership this year.
It is a great privilege to work with people who are already investing their lives in the work of Jesus' kingdom. They are eager to learn, and eager to put their learning at the service of others. I loved talking with our group's Kenyan missionary to Mozambique: as he studied Jesus' way of working with people, he immediately began to identify creative ways he could follow Jesus' example, rather than simply repeat missionary patterns of the past. He couldn't wait to try out his new ideas!
On behalf of the participants in Berean Safari 2009, and on behalf of all those who will be touched by their renewed and deepened commitment to the good news of Jesus, thank you for helping to make it possible!
Stan, on the way home from Kenya