Valentin Siniy (Ukraine), Frew Tamrat (Ethiopia), and Pravin Kumar (India) discuss how our special COVID-19 relief fund is helping their seminaries endure the pandemic.
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“It is for love that we pay the price.” – Larry A. Smith, President, ScholarLeaders. First Things published a reflection by our President on how love can shape our present and our future even in COVID-19’s shadow.
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The challenge has been how to care for and support everyone. We need to get in touch with those who are not participating in online learning, to understand the reasons, and to give the support they need. Some have infected relatives or acquaintances, and we have been praying for them. We created a “Virtual Chapel,” so students can receive messages and share prayer requests.
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Havilah Dharamraj’s commentary on the book of Ruth is our May book of the month. In this season of loneliness, uncertainty, and scarcity, may you find encouragement in Havilah’s discussion of God’s steadfast love and provision. Havilah attends the Women’s PeerLeader Forum and wrote a beautiful meditation on it.
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The InSights Journal for Global Theological Education recently published a detailed analysis by Evan Hunter of what Majority World seminaries are facing during the pandemic and of how they may move forward.
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All faculty members are now working from home, and the government has ordered that teachers continue teaching from home. We are in a very desperate situation, since the vast majority of our faculty members do not have laptops. This is a very critical and acute need. We are also in need of teleconferencing equipment, so we can continue offering lectures.
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We have been working on contingencies for all our ministries in light of COVID-19. In India, we are currently under a nationwide lockdown, one of the most stringent in the world. This has caused difficulties for us in arranging food supplies for our campus, but the Lord has provided ways for us to get by. We have 70 students on our campus who were unable to leave before the shutdown. Daily wage workers, however, are facing a serious threat of starvation. We are currently working to supply 500 families with food for the next four weeks.
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In this short video, Evan Hunter describes some of the needs we’re seeing at Majority World seminaries and among Majority World scholars thanks to COVID-19.
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Seminaries are the Church’s “wells of salvation” (Is. 12:3) — groups of people into whom God has poured His gifts to guide His Church in crisis. They are Jesus’s hands and feet, helping COVID-19 refugees, the poor, and the elderly. Yet the pandemic endangers seminaries and those who serve at them. Some seminaries are housing …
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Before the pandemic and lockdown, I experienced an epiphany that I would like to share. It was during my recent study trip to the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies (OCMS). I was asked to speak in the chapel, so I chose a passage dear to my heart: Mark 9:14-29. This passage focuses on the desperation of a father whose child is demon-possessed. Jesus heals the child, but not before addressing the father’s doubt, through both rebuke and empathy. As someone who has struggled with doubt myself, this was a good reminder.
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The sudden shutdown of India, due to COVID-19, has taken all of us by surprise! This has led to massive confusion, as people do not know how to respond. Factories, shops, industries, offices, schools, and colleges have been shut down. Public and private transportation have completely ceased to function. People are prevented from going out of their homes, and those who venture out are beaten by the police. Heavy restrictions limit people’s movements. The shutdown has drastically affected people’s lives. While life at every level has been disturbed, the poorest of the poor are the ones most deeply affected by this shutdown.
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This Easter will be unlike any other, perhaps in the history of the Church. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, most church buildings will remain locked and empty on what is usually the best-attended Sunday service of the year.
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Maqsood Kamil, a graduated LeaderStudies recipient serving in Pakistan, shares the following message in the context of COVID-19 & Easter: As the world is under the grip of great anxiety and fear of possible death, I greet you with the shalom of Christ, our crucified and the risen Lord. In this very troublesome time, Christ …
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I have returned early to my home institution, Union Biblical Seminary (UBS) in Pune, India, and am pursuing my dissertation writing from here. I will resume my teaching ministry in April.
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Our April book of the month, Russian Baptist Mission Theology in Historical and Contemporary Perspective, is by Andrey Kravstev, a graduated LeaderStudies recipient. (From Langham Publishing, October 2019.) In this book, you can learn about how Russian Baptists developed a unique theology of evangelism while they were isolated by the Soviets. As we, too, are …
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