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April 4, 2007: Dr. Paul Wright, Executive
Director
The spring
semester is proceeding wonderfully. Classroom time is engaging;
field study experiences are productive and, well, revelatory;
on-campus meals are excellent (!); the campus looks great; weekly
vespers are worshipful and encouraging; and the mood throughout
quite good. Just this evening Joel Barrett, one of our MA students,
said “There are a million doors in Jerusalem and we get to walk
in the one that leads here.” For me, it’s a privilege to
serve.
Participants in
the spring Pastor-Parishioner program have just concluded an
enriching two weeks in the field, tracing Bible events through the
land of the Bible. Special thanks are owed to Rev. Dwight Kennedy,
pastor of Christ the Rock Community Church, Port Orchard, WA, who
was a group leader in the program. Dr. Carl Rasmussen (Bethel
University, MN) instructed the course. It is very good to have Carl
on campus for four months this spring (March-June) as visiting
professor and of course his lovely wife Mary. In addition to
assisting in our short-term programs (April, May and June) and
adding to the spirit and life of the campus community, Carl is
taking pictures and gathering information to augment his web site
www.holylandphotos.org. If you haven’t visited Carl’s site yet,
I invite you do to so. It is a wonderful resource for beautiful
downloadable photos of all Bible lands.
I am pleased to
announce the recipients of a special full scholarship that
has been provided for students who are able to attend both our June
and July courses this summer (The Geographical and Historical
Settings of the Bible and Jesus and His Times):
- Wai Leung
Lee, a full-time seminary student at Columbia International
University. Wai and his wife spent four years ministering in
Thailand with the Chinese Christian Mission (Hong Kong) and plan
to return to the mission field after completing their studies at
CIU.
- Cindy Lin
Chau, a full-time seminary student at Gordon-Conwell
Theological Seminary. Cindy and her husband have served as
missionaries in China and plan on returning to China for a
career in missions. Cindy hopes to develop children’s ministry
curriculum for Chinese house churches and assist in local
(Chinese) orphanages.
- A third
full scholarship will be awarded to a student who completed
both of these courses with distinction, at the end of the
program.
This is the
second year that this special scholarship program has been offered.
Funds are in place to award these scholarships again next year (June
and July 2008)—an announcement will be placed on the JUC web site
(under the “Spotlight” button on the home page) next fall. In
addition, for the first time we are were able to offer four
additional full scholarships for our June 2007 program only. The
recipients of these scholarships are Marie Mante, Adam Talsma,
Adaobi Ezeokoli and Aaron Cochrell. Congratulations to
all! We look forward to seeing you in June.
With the
exception of the July Jesus and His Times course our summer
programs are nearly full, with groups coming from Wheaton
College, Messiah College, Cedarville University, Columbia
International University, Northwest University and Northwestern
College. In May we will have five busses in the field at the
same time.
While the summer programs are an excellent way to expose many
students to the basics of the land of the Bible in a short time
(really, our programs are the best available), the heart and
soul of JUC remains the MA program.
Our MA program is unique in the world. No other institution of
higher learning offers such an academically intensive, hands-on
approach to studying the historical geography of the land of the
Bible. That we do so within the framework of Evangelical
Christianity is critically important, not just for the evangelical
community worldwide but to provide an academic framework for
students who take the Bible seriously to learn how to do credible
work within the larger world of scholarship. Similarly, we provide
an academically intensive, hands-on approach to studying the
Jewish-Arab, or Jewish-Muslim-Christian, mix of peoples living in
and around the land of Israel today. Again, that we do so within the
framework of Evangelical Christianity is critically important, for
the evangelical world needs leaders (and doers) who are first-hand
conversant with the issues of the modern Middle East, and the world
at large needs evangelicals who are involved in the processes of
providing leadership, education and understanding about the Middle
East. Moreover, in both of our curricular areas our students learn
from professors who are themselves part of the conversation.
In the end, it is our MA graduates who, as leaders and contributing
members of significant academic and faith communities worldwide, are
able to make significant contributions to academic and spiritual
life back home. It is also our MA
graduates who are best positioned to continue to aid the mission
here, on Mount Zion, either as being visiting instructors themselves
or by encouraging the best of their students to spend a semester (or
more) at JUC. Our short-term programs provide a taste; our MA
students sit down for a feast.
On a related note, we are pleased to announce the creation of
a new scholarship fund in the memory of Philip Berg,
a graduate of the JUC MA program and long-time and well beloved
member of our staff. As all of our alumni and friends recall, Phil
went home to be with the Lord a year ago January, leaving his wife
Martha and their five young children, Asher, Adam, Nathan, Sara and
Anna. Martha and her children are living in Jerusalem where she
works for Shevet Achim
www.shevet.org an organization that facilitates
life-saving heart surgery in Israeli hospitals for babies and
children living in Arab countries, including Iraq. With Martha’s
encouragement and full support, we are seeking your generous
financial giving in the memory of Phil Berg to help these worthy MA
students. Many of our MA students have a difficult time sustaining
themselves in Jerusalem for four consecutive semesters of study, and
especially those who have families. We hope to begin granting
scholarships in the upcoming fall semester. Many of them need as
much as $3,000 each semester to continue. Phil Berg was so loved,
his memory so dear, and his work at JUC and Shevet Achim so
significant, that I am confident that the circle of friends of JUC
and of Phil will respond generously to this important initiative.
We would also like to eventually establish a larger endowment in
Phil’s name that allows us to make these memorial awards. Special
letters will be sent in the next few weeks. In the meantime, I
would encourage you to prayerfully and courageously consider this
ongoing way to honor Phil and help expand his interests, and the
vision of JUC. Send your gifts to the Rockford office marked for
Phil’s Memorial Scholarship Fund.
Visitors to
campus in the last few weeks included former JUC president George
Giacumakis and his wife Joan, Rev. Akio Hashimoto,
President of Kobe Lutheran Theological Seminary, and JUC board
member Dianne Benton.
Jerusalem campus
staff member and instructor Cyndi Parker spent two weeks in the US
in March visiting some of JUC’s associated schools. She had
wonderful visits throughout (thanks to all who hosted Cyndi in your
homes and schools!) and reports strong interest for our upcoming
fall (07) and spring (08) semesters. I am monitoring the application
process for next academic year and am quite impressed with the
excellent caliber of students (MA, graduate and undergraduate) who
have been accepted into our fall program. As instructors, we will
have to stay on our toes!
Many of our
students will be attending Easter sunrise services in Jerusalem on
Sunday, at the Garden Tomb or on the Mount of Olives. We will be
hosting a Bar-b-que in the campus gardens on Sunday afternoon for
students, with an egg hunt following. I offer special blessings from
Jerusalem to each and every one this Easter season, “that [you] may
know Him and the power of His resurrection” (Phil 3:10). The tomb is
indeed empty. Resurrection Day is here!
Please scroll down for some comments about Easter
in Jerusalem. |
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Easter in Jerusalem
The streets of
Jerusalem are filled with pilgrims as Easter (both Western and
Orthodox) and Passover all coincide the same week in the calendar
this year. There’s a certain holy chaos to it all, with energy that
infuses like nowhere else but in Jerusalem, a holiday cheer with a
bit more intensity than the merriness of Christmas. It’s also
Reading Week (i.e., “travel week”) for JUC students, and many are
taking advantage of time away from the regular schedule of classes
to get out and about. Most of those in town last Sunday afternoon
joined a throng of thousands marching down the Mount of Olives—from
the Church of the Ascension into Lion’s Gate, the eastern gate of
Jerusalem—in a reenactment of the Triumphal Entry. Well, sort of a
reenactment. The parade (for such it is called) began with police
motorcycles and jeeps, then came rank after rank of scouts—Arab
Christians, boys and girls, from across Israel and the West Bank in
all matter of colorful uniforms—then a banner promoting the
unification of North and South Korea, then some Polish flags . . .
That much reminded me of a Memorial Day parade back home in the US.
Mostly it was people just walking. Interspersed were groups of
pilgrims holding aloft branches from palm trees and olive trees,
singing praise songs in several languages. But maybe it’s not so far
off what the first Entry was. When Jesus rode over the Mount of
Olives many folks surely joined the excitement not really knowing
what was going on but anxious to be a part of something (like
chasing a fire truck?), others greeted him “with flags flying”
wanting to hasten one political aim or another, or walked because it
felt good to show signs of solidarity, while some (certainly the
minority) sensed the glory of God. We haven’t changed so much,
really. But Easter is coming, and a reminder of Resurrection
Life. |
