Catherine and I met through our
involvement in this student Christian
fellowship. Not only did Campus
House give us the gift of each other,
but helped set a pattern to our life
together in Christ that continues to
this day.
Catherine and I met through our
involvement in this student Christian
fellowship. Not only did Campus
House give us the gift of each other,
but helped set a pattern to our life
together in Christ that continues to
this day.
By 1979 the Jesus Revolution, filled with the fresh new wine of the Spirit at work among a generation who yearned for a cultural expression of faith unique and meaningful to our lives, had burst forth from the old wine skins of institutional Christianity with fellowship groups and community, charismatic renewal, expressions of the gifts of the Spirit, non-denominationalism, freedom in worship. There was also another stream which took root in Campus House and affected many of our lives, the call to Radical Christianity.
In the those days we at Campus House learned about the call of obedience which was named Radical Christianity by reading Bonhoeffer, John Alexander, Ron Sider, Jim Wallis and Francis Schaeffer. Magazines such as the Open Door and Sojourners made us aware of God's passion for justice and righteousness. We began to understand that obedience to the Son of God was not, could not be, confined to just our personal life. If "Christ - Lord of the Universe, Hope of the World" was a meaningful statement then it must have expression in Economics, in Politics, in race relations, in our prioritization of the poor over the rich, in combating the injustices of hunger, and in stopping the waste and madness of war and its preparations.
Most simply stated, Catherine and I found the admonition of those who have should share with those who have not, as expressed in II Cor. 8 & 9, to be particularly compelling. Having just finished graduate school and working part-time, we certainly didn't have a lot of filthy lucre to divest. So we began to consider in what other areas we might be rich in. A little background concerning Catherine and myself would be in order right now. Catherine, the youngest daughter of a career Army officer, had, as a result of her father's postings, lived in a variety of places. At this time in her life she had already been to Europe twice. So the great wide world was not particularly terrifying to her. As for myself, I found Jesus in a Southern Baptist church. It was there I first heard the call to go to all the world and make disciples. My earliest experiences with obedience to God was door-to-door visitation.
Thus primed we considered what God would have us do with our young lives. It was obvious after a little thought that though we were not rich in material things we were rich in education. Perhaps we could share our education with those who need it. Enter Urbana '79, the triennial missions conference supreme by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. There we made contact with the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC). We had become somewhat familiar with MCC through the rather disparate means of a cookbook and a radical Evangelical magazine. We were drawn to their message of living simply, the desire for shalom and Christian service. At Urbana we found that they placed volunteer Christian teachers for three year terms into developing world schools and provided a modest support. Now will and way was resolved for us, but a lot happened between the time we decided to enlist and to the time we actually arrived wide-eyed, and scared in Chikankata, Zambia. But that's another story.