Month: February 2017

This is Fat Tuesday, which means semla buns!

These sweet bread rolls filled with sweet almond paste and sweet whipped cream and dusted with powdered sugar used to only be eaten on Fat Tuesday before the “fasting” of Lent started. Now, they are served for months prior to Ash Wednesday. I have to see if they disappear during Lent, though I can’t imagine all of the decadent fika pastries disappearing until after Easter. I’ll keep you posted.

The rest of the day was spent with trying to figure out what exegetical theology (for some reason biblical studies is not vogue here) courses are offered in which formats. There are regular courses, but they are offered in both campus and distance forms (yes, the same course) and the distance forms can have lower requirements for the same credits. Then, there are reading courses, that have only readings, papers, and exams. This is a low form of learning in my book, as there is no Socratic dialogue or others to graciously challenge you to think differently. So, I’m trying to reduce these and increase campus courses with student interaction. Currently, Johannelund is paid a set amount based on the number of students in 2013. Now, there are double the students, but the same amout of pay. So, I figure that it doesn’t make sense to do courses for students who we never see and statistically have a significantly lower rate of completion. Let’s prioritize selection for campus students, blah, blah, blah. (Yes, life would be much easier if I didn’t have half an administrator’s brain. I would just teach the courses I was told to teach.)

With regard to a comment about the UK application being a model for Tanzania’s socialist placement by the computer into 1 slot–take it or leave it–based on national exam scores, there is a huge difference. While there is still one common application and a limit of places to apply, the big difference is that the institutions make their own choices, and it is very possible to get multiple offers to choose from, as well as some sort of waiting list placement.

I also helped a friend revise a draft abstract in English for her master’s thesis. Anya helped a classmate yesterday to revise some English as well. It is a gift being a native English speaker in today’s world where English is so prevalent in education and business. I know that my Swedish–spoken or written–will ever become as good as I would like it, so I have a lot of sympathy for those working in English.

Off to taxes and Swedish,

With blessings,

Beth

I preached yesterday, which brought new conversations. I’m not seeking admiration, I’m just encouraged when it sounds that something I said helps someone see God’s love and grace anew. That’s what really matters.

I took the rest of Sunday off for a Sabbath with emotional and physical rest after international travels and responsibilities. Later in the evening, I did start reviving my Swedish lessons. They often stop with international travel as it is hard to maintain any Duolingo streak without Internet access in Ethiopia (or timeline changes when going across 9 time zones), and that kills the little incentive to keep plugging away daily.

Today, I was back to work. There were 3.5 hours of tutoring 3 students who are writing essays. Their whole course grade comes down to 1 essay with defense of it. Students are writing in Swedish, so I projected their digital draft papers through the projector onto the screen. I surprised myself with being able to track with quite a bit of the papers, but there is a lot of new vocabulary. I will have them submit their papers in electronic format so I can cut and paste fairly quickly to define some new words.

After lunch, I spent 2 hours with the språk cafe’ at church. My new conversation partner, Ingrid, and I had a good conversation. I was a bit encouraged with being able to communicate on a basic level. However, there is SO much more to go! When I stop in the grocery store and see the newspaper and magazine headlines close to the check out counter, I am humbled. There are always more words!

I’m trying to shift my personal timezone to match Anya’s. She goes to bed at 8 pm and is up at 4 am! She finds her mornings to be very productive and likes it! However, we often seemed to pass like ships in the night. So last night, I headed to bed at 9 pm and was up at 5 am. I’m dragging now at 7 pm! But I hope to hang with Anya more.

There was on picture that I didn’t post from our time in London. We stopped into a few stores, and Anya wanted to pick up a few things without Sweden’s 25% sales tax. Here is a fragrance that we decided that we would not try.

One time years ago, a friend told me that I smell like fresh laundry. I guess that isn’t too bad!

With blessings,

Beth

Our last morning in London included Anya’s visit to the London School of Economics (LSE). I walked her there, but because this visit included a “shadowing” of a student to a class as well as a tour, I left her there to walk the 5 blocks back to our hotel afterwards.

The shadowing was well prepared and presented. Yet, perhaps her hopes were too high, as this was her favorite program on paper; she came back disappointed. The math lecture seemed very simple. The two other male prospective students seemed to dominate the questions, with little attention or time left over for her. The guy next to her in class was man-spreading and seemed inattentive to her personal space. Perhaps she was just a bit tired and more sensitive to everything.

Meanwhile, I had finished packing, checked out, stored bags in the luggage storage, and was waiting in the lobby for her report. We talked over more of her LSE visit at dim sum, Cantonese brunch, which is special food for us.

A quick trip to Selfridges (which overwhelms me at this temple to materialism) filled the remaining time prior to retrieving our bags and heading to the airport.

We arrived at the Arlanda airport (between Stockholm and Uppsala) at 11:45 pm. The city bus is about 1/3 the price of the bullet train, which saves only 20 or 25 minutes in our transition to get back to our bicycles, which were parked at the bus/train station and waiting for us (no stolen bikes! The saying is that you haven’t lived in Uppsala long enough if you haven’t had a bike stolen). With a short wait for the bus and the biking back home, we were in bed at about 1:15 am. Yes, we were tired, but fortunately Anya felt we had a very good trip.

Today, we both slept in, but I awoke to work some more on my sermon. I’m preaching tomorrow–in English. My translator, Agne, came by at 10 am, to go over the translation, as he will be translating (consecutively, sentence by sentence). I really don’t like speaking like this, but my Swedish isn’t good enough yet to do it solo in Swedish. Agne is quite a theologian and Luther scholar, so we had some good conversations, and my theology was solid, though he made a suggestion on my introduction to strengthen it. It is stronger, but I did like my first introduction and had to spend another chunk of time rethinking how to pull things together. I’ll let you know how it goes!

With blessings,

Beth

Anya and I arrived in London on Tuesday. Fortunately, competition with commuter flights make airfare not very expensive. Unfortunately, the fiasco with my AirBnB reservation meant that I put my airfare savings into a hotel close to 2 of the universities that Anya is interested in. We are at the Strand Palace Hotel, right across the street from the Savoy Theatre and within a couple blocks from other West End theatres.

Yesterday (Thursday) afternoon, we had a student ambassador guided tour at Kings College London (KCL). This was a much better tour than yesterday’s with a demonstrable care of the content. If one cares about the little things, it is a good sign.

There was also a mention of a tutorial that also is provided for “pastoral care.” There is also a beautiful chapel in the center of the campus.

This institution has broader program offers, not mostly a heavy focus on science, medicine, and engineering. There is an optional one-hour a week theology, ethics, and philosophy course (in which Anya expressed interest) and optional evening language courses (even Swedish) that can easily balance out a narrow math program. (I am an advocate of the American liberal arts program to help one broaden understanding and have conversations and connections with people from other disciplines.) These highlighted options, in addition to the student clubs (sports, drama, arts, etc.), start to approach the benefits of a liberal arts education. Alumni include Desmond Tutu, Florence Nightingale, and Rosalind Franklin, who provided the images that Watson and Crick got credit for when they described the double helix structure of DNA.

In the evening, we walked three blocks to see the musical Mamma Mia. It was very well done. For the curtain call, they performed three ABBA songs (Dancing Queen, Mamma Mia, and Waterloo), and everyone was on their feet boogieing and clapping. It was really fun!

Shortly, Anya goes for a tour at the London School of Economics and to shadow a student at a course in mathematical analysis, but I won’t be able to join here on this one. I’ll walk her over the few blocks and take a picture of the campus for the next post with her impressions.

Unfortunately, plans to visit Oxford didn’t come together. Partially because there are so many colleges at Oxford, and it is overwhelming try to figure out which ones to even consider. Also, because of the afternoon only tours, it was prudent to maximize the visits here when we are in London. Oxford is still an option, but any visit will have to be later if it needed.

With blessings,

Beth

I am behind with telling the story, but the last two days in Ethiopia were meaningful. Here’s the overview.

On Saturday, we headed to EGST (Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology) to try to get WIFI access. I was still waiting to hear from the AirBnB host who asked me to cancel the reservation that she confirmed in order to protect her host rating at the expense of my loosing a cancellation fee. However, the WIFI was down. We heard that it was down throughout the city. One PhD student speculated that there was a big African Union meeting or something, as sometimes they shut down the Internet in the entire region to thwart any protest or terror attacks.

We then headed out for lunch and a bit of a tour. Staffan took me to a place at the top of a small mall. Because this is before Lent, there were lots of weddings (as they are not performed during Lent).

We visited the other evangelical bachelor’s degree program at the school started by SIM (Serving in Mission).

We also visited the SIM headquarters and met a British couple who were described as people of “loving kindness.” What a great description.

We had a dinner planned at the Gihon Hotel and discovered many weddings gathering at the Gihon Park; both places used to be part of the royal palace under the Silassie era.

It was a good time to connect and talk more about the work of EGST.

Sunday started with a tour of some of the sights around the city. There is less traffic on a Sunday morning, so it is a good time for a tour.

The Addis Ababa University started as one of the palaces that Silassie gave to the university.

Then, off to the first Mekane Yesus church built by the Swedes. This was the church where the name was first used–before it became the church body.

It was a two-hour service, but it was never boring. The sermon given by an EGST faculty member was animated during the entire the 40-minute sermon.

The last part of the tour was seeing the first mission station farther up on a mountain slope. However, I only took pictures of the flowers.

I should have taken a picture of a view from the window toward a yellow house. That was the house where Gudina Tumsa was martyred (the one described to me as both the Bonhoeffer of Ethiopia and the Billy Graham of Ethiopia). His story moved me.

In the afternoon, I was able to use the Internet at a SEM missionary couple’s home. Good news! Anya is fine! I hadn’t heard from her in 5 days, which is a little more than my mother’s heart can take. And AirBnB management told me my money was being refunded! What a hassle, but finally resolved.

In the evening, we visited another young couple who are SEM missionaries working with a vulnerable population. We had lots of laughs as we drank tea and nibbled on cheese sandwiches. I’m not really considered to be funny, but there was something about their hospitality and easy-going ways that just made it a fun time.

Then it was off to the airport. Staffan drove me there and walked me to the entrance. He was a gracious host. I expressed how I not only appreciated learning so much about Ethiopia, but I was grateful for the opportunity to get to see him in his other home. I gained a deep appreciation for his years of service, practical wisdom, and deep commitment to the people of Ethiopia.

The flight left at 1:30 am, stopped in Vienna on the way back, and I arrived in Sweden with at least a bit of sleep overnight. I managed the public bus back to Uppsala and rolled my duffle bag for the 25-minute walk back to the apartment.

When I arrived, Anya was studying economics with her friend who lives in town and isn’t away for the sport holiday (skiing week, which would be “spring break” in the USA).

Time to do laundry and repack for tomorrow’s departure to London.

With blessings,

Beth

A vibrant faith is lived out at the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology (EGST). There is an optional prayer meeting for staff on Friday mornings. Staffan and I joined them. An 7^th month pregnancy, Staffan’s back, and some chrondomalagia in my left knee kept three of us seated while the rest kneeled in prayer.

Then it was off to email and posting my blogs written at the guest house (which doesn’t have WIFI). My AirBnB reservation request (for visiting universities in London that Anya wants to check out) that I sent last Friday was confirmed by the host, Ching, on Saturday before I left. On Monday, I received an email from Ching saying that she has to cancel, so I should cancel the reservation. I checked the website, and it clearly states that the host must cancel, but she wants to protect her host rating. If I cancel, I don’t get a full refund. Ching even lied saying that her website instructions state that I should cancel it. I keep telling her that she has to cancel it, so I get my full refund, as I had already cut and paste from my renter interface on the AirBnB website. Then, she offered to wire me money to my bank account for any cancellation fee I incur. I told her that I don’t trust her, after all she has already lied to me, and I don’t want the hassle of sending my bank account information (creepy) and having to check that she actually sends it. And what if she doesn’t? After 4 days of run around, she has still not cancelled the reservation. I have even pondered making a $360 dollar investment in serving justice by not cancelling. (I already had my sister make hotel reservations, because I do not have secure WIFI.) My INFJ temperament is similar to Gandhi (not that I claim to be of that caliber), but we have a righteous anger that gets stirred up against injustice. I won’t be able to leave a post relaying her behavior if I cancel, but if she cancels or if I do not cancel, then I can make a posting on her listing and hold her accountable for her actions and warn other people. Pray that she cancels. (As of the time of this posting, I was notified by AirBnB that my money was refunded. Wheh!)

After the tea/coffee break (most drink coffee here in the country which claims the origin of coffee from the Kafe region), I explored the library. It is pretty well supplied, except I would like to see more on African biblical hermeneutics. They have a section of African books and Ethiopian books. I relayed to one bright young American on the faculty, Andrew, that it would be great to have 2 copies of the African texts and put the other one in the standard hermeneutics section to make the African voices more inclusive. Some might not even check the African section for African hermeneutics.

Staffan and I had pasta for lunch. Too much injira can cause an irritated stomach, as it is quite acidic, I’m told. Then after some more emails, I was able to listen into the faculty meeting (in English! In Sweden, the faculty meetings are not in English. How great to be able to really understand what is going on). Part of the conversation revolved around branding and recruitment, stimulated by Andrew, so I offered to talk with Andrew afterwards and share some things from my experience working in admissions and communications. He is a bright and energetic guy. Then Staffan joined us, and he shared more of his story coming out during the Marxist era with his young children. Andrew was obviously honoring of Staffan’s courage and faithful service.

There was an academic lecture in the evening. Friday night seems strange for an academic lecture, but it was quite well attended. The speaker was from the USA. He and the university he comes from shall remain nameless, because I was not impressed. He spoke about the text, which appears in Matthew, Mark, and John, “the poor will be with you always.” He did a survey of much the entire Bible (thus, surface depth without much context), quoting representative Bible verses that supported his thesis that social justice was part of the biblical message, not just evangelism. Here’s my critique… While it was obvious that he had a vast knowledge of the Bible, he did not even mention the Deut 15 passage and its context, from which Jesus is quoting!!! How can he miss this!?! This is so important! His methodology was a rather cherry-picked selection, almost proof-texting, and simply a survey. His thesis is quite late 20^th century evangelicalism, and not an issue in Africa, where African theologians are less influenced by the Enlightenment and interpretation is not separated from application (unless they simply follow a Western method very formally). His examples were totally unrelateable to this context, saying, “Well you might work for ‘whatever is right’ if you mow your grandmother’s lawn.” Lawns, much less mowing them, are not typical in Africa, except for the inordinately wealthy. He also asked, “What really does it mean to be poor?” He mentioned that people can be very wealthy and spiritually poor, so materially poor isn’t as bad a spiritually poor.  I thought this was very insensitive to state from a position of Western privilege after he was introduced with the statement that Ethiopia ranks way in the bottom of the development index, even below South Sudan! Then, he makes no comment upon how the biblical representations of poor relate to a deed/nexus consequence (a Deuteronomistic perspective). There are some prosperity gospel preachers who make the claim that poor are poor because of their sin, lack of faith, curses, etc. Scripture can be cherry picked to support this, but it can be strongly refuted with a broader biblical discussion. He doesn’t understand this context! At the discussion time, he talked about his teaching of interpretive methods (exegesis), and he includes looking at other perspectives. But it is a 1984 text written by a Western Caucasian representing other indigenous voices. “Speaking for others” is not a good way to go, especially when there are so many Majority World scholars with good articles. Ugh! My righteous anger was contained, but I did ask two pointed questions graciously. Ugh! I wonder why was he chosen for an academic lecture?

Once on the way back from teaching a course “Christianity in Tanzania” (with you, Jean), I was on the plane with an American who had just spent a week or two preaching for an international denomination with a small representation in Tanzania. I had not heard that this denomination was in Tz, so with my good “seeking to understand” Christianity in Tz, I started asking him questions. However, I soon discovered that he didn’t know how long the denomination had been in Tz, how many churches there were, what areas of Tz had representation of the denomination, what people groups were part of the local congregation where he preached, or other basic understandings about Tz. While he was seemingly trying to distance himself from the conversation with me, I heard a few comments from his wife about other travels and preaching in different countries. I started wondering if this was their tax-deduction travel plan: make connections with churches from the denomination in an exotic location, preach for a bit, go on safari or see the sights, and then claim the travel expenses as a business trip in order to qualify for a tax deduction. Well, I pray that they, and perhaps others like him, are learning from their experience and hopefully shaped by the indigenous expressions of Christianity where they travel. I would hope that every itinerant preacher to Ethiopia (or wherever) would learn the history of church where they are visiting. It is humbling. (There are also established best practices of short-term mission based on good missiological research.)

With deep thoughts and blessings,

Beth

Just a quick post to say that I have arrived back in Uppsala safely. I need to add some posts, but I will do it later. I’m on a quick turnaround to fly out tomorrow for London, as Anya will be checking out some universities.

More news later.

With blessings,

Beth

Staffan and I joined the morning prayer at the Mekane Yesus Seminary (MYS), which is about a half-a-kilometer away from the guest house. It was quite empty when we arrived at 8:00 am, but it was very full by the time it ended.

I visited Elias’ New Testament class (8 of the 26 students were women). Elias is a Swedish Evangelical Mission (SEM) missionary, who is here with his wife (a linguist who is continuing her studies here) and his 4 boys (2 sets of twins!!!!). Elias had a small digital projector, about the size of large paperback book, to show some maps and ancient inscriptions. There was some good discussion about the title “apostle” which Paul uses. Some of the Pentecostal and African independent churches are using the title “apostle” in their ministries. It was identified in the student comments that this is outside the witness of Scripture and the tradition of the church. They were concerned that this represented a seeking after a title and power rather than the calling to sacrificial service—even unto death—that was modeled by the apostles in the Bible. Interestingly, I heard yesterday from the 2 PhD women (who were also disapproving of the claim of apostle), that there was also a higher title of “super apostle” and then the highest being “man of God.” I asked if the super apostles get a cape. With the inflation of titles, yes, the next one would be “superman of God!”

After class, I had tea with Elias to hear a bit of his story. He had studied at Johannelund for his pastor’s training! I asked him what keeps him coming back to Ethiopia. He mentioned three things. First, he said he really enjoyed teaching with such eager students. At the beginning the English language capacity of most students is very low, so it is a challenge, but by the third year it is adequate to good, with some very good in English. It is national law that higher education is in English. (Elias is fluent in Amharic.) Secondly, he mentioned, “The Gospel joy is somehow more present here.” This isn’t romanticized, as he knows the struggles here, but there is something special here—and I have sensed it too. (I think I began to understand it a bit more after sitting in Staffan’s class in the afternoon. See below.) Third, he said there is something else that is both good and bad. The reality is that so many things don’t work, things are cheaply made and break, it is difficult to get repair people out to fix things after several contacts, BUT he likes to fix things! And he is pretty good at it. I told him my missions prof (Pat), said that a handyman on the mission field was worth 5 pastors, and you are both! How perfect! When I mentioned this to Staffan, he told of a time that a whole bunch of missionaries were forced to leave, and the only one that the locals asked about was the one who fixed cars.

Staffan arrived to fetch me, and we head over to EGST for lunch. We joined one of the Korean missionary teachers. They have been in Ethiopia since the mid 90’s but at EGST for two years. His partner in mission (outside of his EGST teaching) is a lay pastor who previously planted 15 churches! Yup, that is he alone planted 15 churches! One story, if I understood correctly, grew from a few meeting in a grass hut to 1,000 members in something like 1 year! This is Ethiopia. The Lutheran church, Mekane Yesus, grew 24% since 2013 to 7.9 million members today!!!

We grabbed some tea in the staff lounge after lunch (which is free). On my way out, a man came up to me and started asking about generational curses. He had heard that I had a class session on this topic. I was wondering if I was going to be referred to as “the curse lady.” We talked about the texts and a short summary of the message that centers on how generational curses in the Pentateuch are to be first a deterrent in order to keep the ancient Israelites in the blessings of the covenantal relationship. If they fail in prevention, then the curses are a wakeup call from God to repent and be reconciled back to a right relationship with God; the key understanding is that of stimulating reconciliation. So, I hope the message was relayed. I would much rather be the reconciliation lady than the curse lady! Generational curses are, indeed, a hot topic.

Then, I was off to Staffan’s class on theology of mission. Four students (male) were presenting their papers on a person who has been involved in mission or evangelism in Africa.

Three researched Ethiopians, and one researched Desmond Tutu. Not only did I hear the stories of three Ethiopians who were previously unknown to me, I learned more about some of the horrible challenges they faced in the recent history of Ethiopia. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. One faithful man in the midst of persecution, Gudina Tumsa, is called both the “Billy Graham of Ethiopia” and the “Bonhoeffer of Ethiopia.” He was killed in 1979 during the Marxist years.

It is important to mention that the growth of the church in Ethiopia is hugely due to the indigenous Christian leaders, even from the early years. Onesimos made a Bible translation (from Swedish and German texts) into the Oromo language in 1899. (Onesimos learned Swedish at Johannelund, though an earlier campus!) Because Haile Sailasse privileged the Eastern Orthodox, no other Bible translation other than the one in the Amharic language was allowed by law. It was in 1974 that a new Oromo Bible translation was made from the Hebrew and Greek.

My first awareness of the country of Ethiopia was from 1973, during the Sailasse years, when there was a devastating famine. There was another terrible famine in 1983-84, where over 1 million people died in the norther areas. The Marxist regime forbid people from traveling up there, in order to try to not let it be known how bad things were. It was also under the Marxist regime that there was great oppression of Christianity. Many were imprisoned. Many were killed, like Gudina. In spite of this, the church grew and developed a church foundation that understood the cost of discipleship. There is indeed a “Gospel joy” here, after having lived through such dark times just a short while ago.

Staffan’s research indicates that the denominational boundaries increased after the missionaries returned after the fall of communism. Prior to that, Christians were persecuted together. Staffan told of a time he saw an evangelical pastor and an Orthodox priest greet each other with a warm hug, which is quite unusual. When he asked the pastor, Staffan heard, “We were together in prison for three years.”

The evening closed with dinner next door at Teshoma’s house. Teshoma is a part-time PhD student at the School of Mission and Theology (now VID Specialized University) in Stavanger, Norway. So, we met in Norway! It was wonderful to meet his family, with his lovely wife and three girls (including a set of twins).

Teshoma was a full-time PhD student, but he was elected the general secretary (I think this is accurate) of the Mekane Yesus church (yes, overseeing 7.9 million members). I learned tonight that his father was killed during the Marxist time. Again, a reminder of the Gospel joy now, because it is grounded in the hope-filled promise of the resurrection.

With blessings,

Beth

The power still wasn’t on in the morning, so tea water was boiled on the gas burner. Yup, I’m glad I took my shower yesterday!

Staffan and I headed over to EGST (Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology) where he had a morning class with a 2-hour time frame. After the first hour he came to the office (where I’m checking email and working on my presentation), and he stated that he had chills and felt like he had a fever. He was going to dismiss his class for the second half, but the students prayed for him before he left. Staffan also arranged a driver to take me home after my class presentation in the evening.

I stayed in the office with Internet access (emails, news, etc.) and continued some tweaks to the presentation and lots of reading.

At lunch time, I asked if I could go to lunch with the 2 women prospective PhD candidates. The cafeteria menu is in Amharic, so there is no way for me to understand what is on it! So, they were gracious and changed their lunch plans to take me to the cafeteria, and they wouldn’t let me pay. “This is our culture,” overrides any offers I can make.

We had a wonderful conversation, and I listened to their stories. They feel wonderfully supported as women in theological studies and have been able to access scholarships for women’s development in their graduate studies at EGST. (Note, this is distinctly different from the bachelor’s and master’s program scholarships for women at the Mekane Yesus Seminary [MYS], because the LCMS partners only provide scholarships for women. However, the principal at MYS is eager to find scholarships for women from other sources.)

In the late afternoon, Staffan shows up a new man! He looks refreshed after a nap, but without any recurring fever (and no fever-reducer meds; the fever did not return later or the next day), this is a witness to the power of prayer!

The evening presentation was in a full classroom, as several other students had joined the class. There were 22 students (instead of 12 or so expected, because “generational curses” is a draw!). Of the 22, 5 were women. One of the women is Sarah, who has exceptional English! She is a bright light and an excellent student, according to Staffan. I’ll come back to a bit of her story below.

My presentation started with a summary of my PhD research on generational curses in the Pentateuch. It was significantly shorter than yesterday morning, but I explained the circumstances. However, I also wanted to stimulate some conversation in pairs and in a large group. I wanted to find out if the Maasai lens of “reconciliation” resonated with their context. (Someday, I would like to repeat this research in another context to see what results are generated in a different people group.) I understood that the lens and my summary was meaningful for their contexts, but this was a basic discussion at this time. (And also, what else are you going to tell the guest?)

The second, and larger part of my session was about “other ways of knowing” for this Gospel and Culture course. In summary, I distinguished between the basics of epistemological and ontological knowing, laying out a theoretical rational as to why we need to engage other epistemologies or “ways of knowing.” It was quite theoretical at the beginning, but then I became practical. How do we go beyond theological education in a cross-cultural context (traditional Western theories, methodologies, and pedagogies) to develop cross-cultural theological education. What would it look like to also integrate (not either-or but both-and) ontological ways of knowing and pedagogies for perhaps 30% of the course points? I gave examples from my experience with integrating student-determined projects (that match the course learning objectives and integrate cognitive, attitudinal, and behavioral objectives) that can incorporate indigenous art, music, drama, storytelling, dance, family, and other relationally-connected learning. They were enthusiastic about these ideas. I told the students that I would work on trying to support these developments at EGST, and that please be patient, because there needs to be time for the development of this pedagogy, as faculty have to be convinced and equipped and help to shape it. There is some good educational research on the improved outcomes, but I need to write some of this up. (Hmm, I wonder if I can connect at the Church House [see yesterday’s post] to try to get some funding for ontological pedagogy development for the faculty at EGST?)

(Charlie and Pam, I thought of my skit in American church history and my Psalms Bible studies I prepared for an exegetical Psalms course, which I have used over and over! Thank you for these models.)

Sara, the bright light, thanked me. She had written a paper comparing the epistemology of Jürgen Moltmann with the ontology of someone who was new to me. She said she didn’t know how to develop this, but this is her main theological interest; she was stuck. But now with considering ontologically-oriented pedagogies (she also has read Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed), she has had a breakthrough of how to take this and run with it! How cool!

Staffan attended the session (still no recurring fever!), and he was very encouraging about the session. While I knew that I had some good connections, the conversation wasn’t as lively as Tuesday’s morning’s class. One student commented that they, as students, are so engrained in a traditional, passive style of learning that they aren’t even prepared to engage more actively or creatively in the class, though they are eager to develop some of this. I said that I sensed that a seed was planted, and we need to be patient as we water and weed the soil. We can tend the garden and hope for good fruit, but it will take time.

Staffan and I stopped at a grocery store on the way back. In addition to fruit, eggs, bread, and other staples, I picked up some ground cloves. Spices are fresh and inexpensive here. The cloves are now my air freshener in my room. I like it!

At home, our neighbor, Teshoma, stopped over to invite us over for dinner tomorrow. I know Teshoma from Norway! Yes, he was at the School of Mission and Theology when I was visiting during one of my PhD study trips. He and another Ethiopian student invited me to Ethiopian tea and snacks. There is a culture of hospitality here. Perhaps ontological ways of knowing is the cradle of hospitality.

With blessings,

Beth

I wasn’t originally scheduled to give a presentation in the Pentateuch course, but when the professor, who is also the principal, heard I was and Old Testament teacher with a dissertation on generational curses, he welcomed me to his class. The 22 people in the room were engaged. I’ve discovered that generational curses are a hot topic in the church here. To put it in perspective, I asked Staffan how much of the evangelical Ethiopian church (everything that isn’t Eastern Orthodox) is charismatic or Pentecostal. He replied, “100 percent.” There were many insightful questions that thoughtfully engaged my presentation, such as clarifying the Maasai words for curse and how they related to the biblical text. The discussion was lively for the second half of the 2-hour time frame. Generational curses are of theological importance for the life of the church! (I’ll have more on this in Thursday’s posting.)

We joined in the weekly lunch for employees and guests.

The Swede from Uppsala, Erik, was there also, the one we had lunch with on Sunday. Erik and I had a great conversation about cross-cultural theological education not just theological education done cross-culturally. He said we should continue the conversation in Uppsala and invited me to lunch at the Church House. (Cool!)

I spent the afternoon with email, checking the reality TV-show of American political news, preparing for my Wednesday evening presentation—the one originally scheduled for me to present my PhD research and a second part on “other ways of knowing.” Because people were invited to hear my PhD research, I had to figure out how to not just repeat the previous presentation for the students who would be in both classes or decide to join the other session (due to some references I mentioned in the morning class which would be addressed in the Wednesday evening session).

Staffan dropped me off at the guest house, and he went back for his evening class sessions. The power went out, so I read by candlelight and prepared dinner with the basics in the kitchen. I also decided to take a shower while there was still hot water in the water heater, as one never knows when the power will come back on. It is important to strategize around access to electricity and warm water.

With blessings,

Beth