Coming to a close

This past Sunday afternoon, my Sunday school teachers invited all the seniors in our class to their house for a last fellowship dinner. Since it was Mother’s Day, one of the seniors couldn’t make it, but the rest of us went—and we treated our wonderful teachers to our cooking, for a change!

Yeah—that’s my great seven-layer salad (recipe courtesy of my mother). My friend made something called jalapeño chicken:

There were Doritos chips in it! But it tasted really good. So we ate our meal (complete with appetizer, salad, that main dish, a side dish, and dessert), then we simply sat a while talking and reminiscing a little.

I still can’t believe we’re graduating… but it’ll be good. We’ll be closing a chapter of our lives, but at the same time—the close of one chapter means the opening of another.

Sunday school with the Nielsons

This morning in Sunday School at Lakeholm Nazarene Church, the teacher didn’t show up—his wife (and our lovely provider of Sunday brunches!) had told him to stay home and get over his fever. (We Sunday Schoolers agreed with her advice.) So instead of talking with Steve, we got to hear some of his friends, Dr. John Nielson and his wife Jan Nielson, tell us their life story. It was the quickest Sunday School hour I’ve known—and the most inspiring—so I had to pass the story along.

Despite Dr. Nielson’s assurance at the start that their story wasn’t either interesting or cool, it’s both, and the two of them are good storytellers too. Immediately after they graduated from Eastern Nazarene U. out on the east coast (way back at the end of the sixties), someone called them up and asked if they would go to Germany for a little while to pastor an American congregation in Frankfurt. So off they went to Europe! Then John pastored a few churches in the States (including one in Syracuse, NY), but voilá, they got a call from Nazarene HQ asking for a pastor for a congregation in Denmark.

So back to Europe it was—despite never having felt a strong “call to missions,” Dr. Nielson emphasized. It was simply where they heard God leading them at that time. While there, he mentored some people studying to go into the ministry as part of the job.

After a few years out in Denmark (where the Nielsons picked up a good bit of Danish, which I heard Dr. Nielson using just a couple weeks ago in church), they came back to the U.S. to work at the Nazarene HQ in Kansas City, and from there went back to ENC, this time as part of the administration. There John got to see the inner workings of ministry education, and learned to manage and organize it as well. Jan got her Master’s degree in education while there—for no reason in particular, other than that it was free because John worked full-time there at the college.

God knew what he was doing when he gave them all those opportunities, though. The Nielsons got a call from the Philippines—in Asia!—that a new graduate ministry program there needed someone to set it up and run it.

John had experience training pastors for the ministry; he had organizational experience in ministry education; and he had cross-cultural experience overseas. Jan had her master’s in education, so she taught all the Christian Education of children classes when one of the professors had to leave—including piano and ESL teaching classes. Basically, they were perfectly positioned to launch a seminary in Manila. Crazy, huh?

And none of it was part of some grand plan the Nielsons had, nor was it a result of a lifelong call to missions God had given them. It was the Nielsons seeing one open door and following God through it, then seeing another open door and following God through that one too. One step at a time.

I had to leave a whole lot out of the Nielsons’ story (like the part about John’s ancestors having prayed for a descendant to preach the Gospel in Denmark, years before), but I hope I retold enough to give you a glimpse into why I think the Nielsons are so inspiring. Ask them someday, and they might tell you the whole story themselves—it’s worth it. Their life story makes me want to follow God in mine.

(P.S. You might understand a little more why their story was so inspiring to me when you read part of my story, which I didn’t plan either!)

T-minus 13

[tweetmeme style=”compact” only_single=”false”]

Just under two weeks from today, and I’ll be packing a lot of stuff into my mom’s van and unpacking it near my apartment at MVNU. I can’t wait!

Until then, here’s a summary of the interesting stuff my fall semester might include:

I’ll be playing guitar at Lakeholm Naz, the church right next to campus. My first Sunday this year will be that very first full weekend I’m on campus, a week after move-in.

Somebody might be reading my articles in the Lakeholm Viewer, the campus newspaper—because I’ll be the managing editor. We’re already hard at work writing articles and collecting data for our first issue, which comes out the third day of classes.

I’ll be keeping Joyce company in the communications department, helping her do the various office tasks that keep the department’s professors from pulling their hair out. I’m really looking forward to working with her! She’s the best staff member at MVNU, in my opinion. (And in the opinion of a lot of other people, I suppose—since she did get some sort of award.)

I’m planning to re-join the Goliards choir, under the direction of Mrs. Cameron, who is quite a character and my favorite music department person. I like that choir, particularly, because we do a lot of weird stuff—really old music (like from the 13th century) and spirituals. Mmmhmm I love me some spirituals.

And to close this post—I’ll pick the blogging back up. You know, since I’ll actually be on campus, it’ll be easier to blog about life as an MVNU student. 😛

A “Home Away from Home”

I walk to church each Sunday, to Lakeholm Nazarene right next to campus. (They’re so MVNU-friendly, they have this wonderful paved, lit path straight through the Grove over to the church parking lot.) I started going to Lakeholm my freshman year, mostly because I didn’t have a car, but also because, the first time I went to Sunday School, I was welcomed heartily into a class called “Home Away from Home.” The class was very fellowship-oriented, but the leader had a solid lesson (in addition to the homemade goodies he and his wife made).

So I kept going, and kept attending Sunday School. Over the weeks, I learned that the leader’s wife had been a missionary’s kid from the Philippines, and the reason for the Sunday School class’s name came from that. When she went to MVNU (back in the dark ages *grin*), she hardly knew how to act–she was very much a Filipino girl, adrift in middle America. Her husband (whom she met at MVNU) didn’t know it then, but he learned over time that what she had needed in those years was somewhere she could at least feel a little at home.

A lot of college students miss what they call home–the MKs aren’t alone in that. So what this Sunday School class endeavored to do was to create a place where we could feel more comfortable, more at home. There was food every Sunday, and about once a month the leader’s wife (who helped him out with the class) cooked a marvelous dinner for us after church, sometimes Filipino food, sometimes something more familiar.

I still go to this class, now that I’m back from being at home over the summer and in Costa Rica during the fall. I love the community I’ve become part of, there in that class.

That, I think, is a big part of why Christians are told to gather together, for worship, fellowship, and accountability. I strongly suggest that you, if you become a student here at MVNU, definitely find a “home” church here. Go every Sunday, get involved in a Sunday School class, do some volunteering in your church. There’s nothing that can replace it.