DTS Update Dec 12

Van Minutes
Merry Christmas to you all! This newsletter does not have much in it. I have been slogging through the last of my course work. I reached the stage where I was dreaming of Mexico, or what we’ll do on Christmas, or what we will do in the future, or taking inordinate interest in my fingernails, etc. That’s when you know you are in the middle of final assignments and exams. My last exam is Wednesday morning at 8am and straight out of the exam room to the airport…

As many of you know, we will be coming home for Christmas! We are getting quite excited to see many of you again. Although Karin will be staying longer than me for some wedding planning with her sister, I am a sucker for punishment and will be heading back to a winter class on Eschatology. So yes, I am really looking forward to the rest for the 11 days of Christmas I will get. Then it’s the end of the world as we know it! As tired as I am, I can’t wait for more class!

We hope your Christmas preparations are going well and that you are preparing also in your homes, schools and churches to celebrate the reality of Immanuel: God with us!

Merry Christmas,

Dan and Karin

 

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DTS Update for last month of class

Hello again everyone, for the last time during school!

It’s once again a beautiful 22 degrees outside our window! I have noticed in the last week or so, with papers added to classes, tests, reading, reading and reading, that droopy eyelids grow numerous here. Since I had taken a winter course, I have gone the school year without more than four days off. The books! In 30 days I’m not even going to read the exit sign on my way out of my last exam!

Karin is looking forward to the S.W.I.M. (Seminary Wives in Ministry) weekend she just left for. She is also looking forward to getting her bag with $6000 worth of quilts back. And my passport. Good news! There is a 99% chance that the bag is in the “dead bag” room at DFW airport. This room is like Fort Knox. Only the chosen ones, highly vetted and special airport staff with no spot nor blemish, may go in there and look for lost bags. There are thousands and first lost, first served. By the way, the Canadian government really doesn’t like it when you lose your passport…

After stewing, we have decided that even though I did not get the on campus job, we are not moving to Canada for the summer. We are both happy and sad. One reason is that after 9 months here and proof of economic hardship, I can apply in May for permission to work off campus, maybe as early as June and if economic hardship continues, for the duration of my studies. Our ‘intent to sublease’ deadline for this apartment came up this week, and being worth our while we passed on that, sealing the deal to stay in Dallas. How would you like to move internationally twice in a summer? The decision to stay felt like a heavy burden had been lifted from the both of us.

This whole process was a step of faith. We gave up the quest for Canada and a few thousand dollars we could ‘control’ in the near term in the belief that yes, God really does want us here and is preparing us for some fantastic ministry. So far the first benefit will be that we will be around for the next membership class for our church in May. That will allow me to serve the church in leadership (someday), which is the whole point of my studies. I must tell you that I am actually excited to see how God will provide for us. If God can feed all Israel for nearly 40 years in the desert (which we discussed Wednesday), then he can take care of the two of us. That kind of God quite literally gets me up each morning.

Now, since manna no longer falls from heaven we need to do fund raising. We have sought expert advice on how to approach this and plan on rolling out next year’s strategy/needs next month when I have finished out the year. One bonus: no more raising every penny before starting class! We covet your prayers as we seek to faithfully follow God’s plan this summer.

Even though I wouldn’t call the next few weeks a thrill ride, really the year as a whole, the “much” that has been given me (Luke 12:48) is a special privilege and it really feels that way. I thank God literally each day for something amazing about being here, big or small – including those of you who read this – who through your faithfulness have kept us here all year!

Have a great Easter next weekend!

He is risen,
Dan and Karin

 

Thank You

We just wanted to take a moment on this American Thanksgiving to share a message with all of you, our supporters.

I am so thankful this morning for the great privilege that I have to study here at Dallas Theological Seminary. I went out for a morning walk around the very quiet streets and empty campus and thanked the Lord for all I had learned and all the people we have met as a result of being here. Then I came home and thanked Karin again for coming along with me to Texas to walk with me on this journey. I walked for as long as I had things to be thankful to God for. It took me nearly 20 minutes! You were on the list.

Without supporters like you we would not be here. We are thankful that God has moved many of you to give and pray. We are thankful at the continued interest and support in every way you show it. By this support I will someday, by God’s grace, become the motto we have at DTS to “Teach truth, love well” and inspire others to do the same: in my family, the church and to those who have not yet heard.

I will leave you with the words the apostle Paul used when he was thankful for the very same things to the very same kind of people as you – loving supporters:

“I have received full payment and even more; I am amply supplied, now that I have received…the gifts you sent. They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God. And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.

“To our God and Father be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

Love,

Dan and Karin

 

DTS Update November 8th

Greetings everyone – as Peter says, “May grace and peace be yours to the fullest measure.” I would like to thank you up front for continuing to read our updates and pray along with us who are here at DTS in the southern US training to become competent expositors of God’s word; to teach truth and live well. We think and pray for all of you guys, especially when we hear the ups and downs and how God is working in your lives.

As crunch time descends upon us students, we look forward to a two week stretch of rest and catch up, starting only one week from now. One week for reading break, one for American Thanksgiving, and then a mad dash for the finish line of first semester at Christmas! It is weird to have reading break so late (in contrast to Redeemer University), but nice to be two full weeks. Speaking of breaks, for those interested the exact times of seminary breaks throughout the year are as follows:

Friday November 14, 4:00pm – Sunday November 30.
Friday, December 19 – Sunday January 11.
Friday, March 13, 4:00pm – Sunday March 22.
Saturday May 9 – Commencement ceremony. Summer begins.

(We each plan on taking a class in the winter term, Dec 29- Jan 8. The Lord willing. Unfortunately, for financial reasons we do not intend to come home for Christmas or at other times before summer.)

It’s crunch time around here in more ways than one. Although we as students pay to attend DTS, we’ve been told that our tuition is less than half of what it should be, thanks to the many donors that give generously to the seminary. For example, there are a few hundred prominent businessmen in the Dallas area who love the Lord deeply and have given greatly; our president does a Bible study with them and he’s told us of their love and respect for DTS. And then the economy tanks. There’s a hiring freeze on campus (no new student jobs). Donors are re-thinking the amounts. People who work at this school are losing their savings. Chaplain joked last week in chapel that “our 401k’s are now our 201k’s” (for the Canucks that’s RRSPs). The board met and discussed the way forward. But God is faithful.

As the board was here meeting they also dedicated the new student dorm, Washington Tower – for single students. (It’s named for the street it’s on, not the president) “Prof” (Dr. Hendricks) remembers the great depression, WWII, Vietnam, the oil crisis, etc., and he reminds us that we men and women of God are going to graduate into one of the most fascinating times in history. He told us that we would be bringing the hope to the world that they need. He said the seminary has survived and has us convinced that these events are far bigger than money. And he asked us all to pray that the seminary as a whole along with it’s students would make it through crunch time. Prof was excited about our prospects because of the God we follow, and so am I!

Loving your neighbor has been sort of a theme of our last month that God has shown me especially. First, a neighbor loved us by inviting us to American Thanksgiving with them. Second, I am reading about it in 2 classes. Third, whites and blacks especially on campus, in the wake of a historic election, discussed the way forward in loving each other in America in a godly way. I am coming to appreciate the sensitivity of this issue even on campus. Even Dallas Theological Seminary was segregated! This ended within the lifetime of most of the older professors here. Make no mistake, Canadians, Obama is a big deal for political and social reasons bigger than Democrat, Republican, and even America. If you saw Obama’s acceptance speech you will have understood when afterwards Tom Brokaw remarked, “The magnitude of what has happened here tonight has not hit us yet.” And finally, we students were challenged in relation to that emerging global race and culture to have a heart for the world of Islam. What?

Our chapel speaker all week is Dr. Phil Parshall, a leading conservative evangelical thinker and missionary to Muslim peoples in Bangladesh for over 40 years. He has authored at least 10 books on the subject including: Lifting the Veil: The World of Muslim Women with his wife co-authoring. He was there in 1971 when Bangladesh was formed amid armed conflict. He challenged the students against racism and bigotry (but not to total acceptance) toward Muslim peoples and to get the audience to understand he spoke of his own racism growing up in Florida against blacks. The room was very quiet when he told of how mean he was to anyone black before becoming a Christian; you could have heard a pin drop. He was pushing us intentionally in this direction: okay so we are getting over segregation, who is our next target to love?

Dr. Parshall correctly pointed out that Muslims will be the biggest “Samaritan” on the radar in the 21st century. Many in the US hate them more than they hated blacks. (Consider the ‘Arab’ accusations some used to try and take down Obama.) Parshall was nearly shot by a Muslim who hated him for being Christian, yet he spent all week here very carefully trying to convince a Republican leaning seminary audience that we should join him, even to the extent of being the next to spend 40 years in Muslim countries, and to in fact love Muslims and share Jesus with them, not repeat the past. This is a room full of people that will influence large numbers of Christians all over the US and the world. What does that message of love and forgiveness really look like? Can we students handle it? Can you handle it? Who’s your Samaritan?

Behind all the thoughts about what world we are headed for is the ever-present training. Classes are still good. Even though I am finished one class already, I am falling behind in the others – thank God for reading break! I try hard. To study, and to grow up in the Lord. Karin is the biggest reason I have great marks instead of simply decent ones. She is taking care of me and finding her way more. There is always the sound of a sewing machine going now as she is taken on quilt production as a money maker/hobby. We are still looking for a church and we trust that God will bless our efforts. I am very happy Karin went through my mission class with me, and we are making friends with the mission prof Dr. Waters and his wife. They have already proved valuable mentors and very encouraging toward me and Karin as we consider what our future holds. God is faithful and good to us, no matter what. I believe it!

Good bye, everyone! We hope that this letter finds you in good health and in good spirits. Even if it does not, as Peter says, we are “protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice…” 1 Peter 1

Love,

Dan and Karin from Texas

 

DTS Update September 7th

Happy Fall Everyone! (Sorry there are no pictures now. Flickr is acting funny. Next time.)

Well, I should say happy fall Canada. It is more like a happy ‘cooling down’ here. It is only low 30s for a high ths coming week! We still need to hide out with the AC on for another few weeks or so. I am priming you for a long read, but first reports can get like that. Please have patience and enjoy!

Although we were on vacation in Canada only August 14th, it feels like a long time ago already. So much has happened here, so many people met, so much reading done and lots of new people have been met. It’s been exciting, stressful, challenging and fulfilling – sometimes too much of that at the same time! Here are some highlights of the past little while.

After travelling for two days, we finally arrived at a LaQuinta hotel and lived there for a week. Our apartment was ‘not ready’. What we found out was that it was empty, they just hadn’t cleaned it up and inspected it yet. A necessary technicality that caused us to live in a hotel for a week, but we had a fun time finding new little restaurants for dinner that we won’t be eating in again for a while! Now we finally live in Swiss Tower which the school owns and is right across from the class buildings on campus. We did not want to use the car so this is a blessing.

God is really taking care of our material needs. International students were allowed into the ‘back room’ of Luke’s Closet, the on-campus charity clothing and goods store to get first picks. We picked up the following for free thanks to the DTS support community (all new): kettle, toaster, two sets of dishes for 4, cups, a queen sheet set, a new Cuisinart coffee pot, and a 32inch TV with a Sony receiver, among some other small things. We rented a U-haul and drove around to pick up some stuff we bought: a couch ($100 new), mattress, table and chairs, and the free TV all in one go. We receive free food from Luke’s pantry every Wednesday and I must say that we’re impressed with all you can get. And someone donates so much bread to the school we will not buy bread, bagels, hot dog or hamburger buns until we graduate. Karin found a cheap Mexican grocery store nearby. The meat is quite cheap and barbecuing is free here downstairs so it’s cheaper to barbecue meat than to run our appliances and pay for them. We have access to Baylor Hospital’s Fitness Center for $55/year, which is around 5% of full price. There are two pools, indoor and outdoor tracks, hot tubs, steam room, saunas, weights, running, cycling, step machines, wooden lockers, etc. Doctors, nurses and professionals work out there so conversations in the steam room have been quite interesting. The campus is beautiful also. In many respects, we are well taken care of for less money than we thought.

The hard stuff that I signed up for has not been slow in coming. I have three short papers to write as we speak. This is on top of regular homework for classes: Greek grammar, pastoral ministries, systematic theology, bible study methods and hermeneutics, world missions, and spiritual formation – a not for credit two year program to insure Christian character development throughout seminary. Quickly, I find greek: challenging review (I’ve taken some years ago), pastoral ministries: a challenging reflection of the attributes of God. Systematic theology: an interesting overview of the school’s mission statement. Bible study methods: taught by an 84 year old man of God who wants nothing more than for us to dig deep into and love God’s Word and is one of the foremost educators in the country on how to get there (he’s a 25 year old trapped in an old man’s body). In Spiritual Formation: I learned that not only am I not crazy for having the ministry dreams and desires I have, but they’ve seen 50 of me before and they’ve got internships and full guidance and prayer support for all of it.

The highlight of my weekend academically was in World Missions. In World Missions we are not only learning about missions being at the center of God displaying His glory to the nations, but we had the option of turning the World mission course we are taking ourselves into an on-line course for Internet Biblical Seminary, a divsion of BEE World. BEE world specializes in pastoral training for Christians all over the world, especially in closed countries, with contacts on the ground in a lot of dangerous places.

The BEE guy who trained us started out in Eastern Europe in 1979, behind the Iron Curtain. He said that he saw God do amazing things there and they developed this vision to educate pastors and lay leaders on a wider scale – thus Internet Bible Seminary (among a number of other things). We received 5 hours of training on how to get started and the 7 of us formed a team. Two team leaders, Daniel Roeber and myself are heading it up and by the end we’ll have a course ready to go on World Missions that will be used by students through Internet Biblical Seminary (IBS) from free as well as closed countries such as China and Muslim countries in the Middle East. Website work, translation, and oversight come from the BEE world staff in Colorado Springs as well as foreign nationals – ‘guys on the ground’ in target countries getting the material working in languages we don’t even understand.

Just to let you know how dangerous studying can be, some of the students making use of IBS could be jailed or even killed for being students, or just owning a Bible. The technical priority of IBS is to be able to go on-line for only 30 seconds or less at a time if need be, to download class material, upload discussion threads, etc. This keeps the student off the internet so the communist or Islamic net police don’t arrest them. Think it’s an exaggeration? An IBS facilitator from China has to leave there because he was busted for helping people study God’s Word through IBS. In a number of the countries we’re targeting, this is the ONLY seminary they have, and some have more to fear for their survival than their graduation. Our team stepped up to help.

Due to our IBS involvement we are exempt from final exams in World Missions but I don’t care – what we are doing will equip pastors and layleaders around the world be able to teach God’s word effectively where they are. There are 1000 new pastors a day, every day in the world. Less than 1% of them get training even close to mine. BEE world is going to use IBS, and ‘insignificant’ us, to train 1,000,000 pastors by 2020. Our team is going to put a dent in that number for them, by God’s guidance and grace.

I must now wrap this up before it gets even longer. We are very pleased to keep our support community posted and in the loop and please send questions if you want more info on something I did not cover.

Please pray for us in our continuing needs:

Karin to receive work at the Canadian Embassy or somewhere God provides.

Me to stay focused.

For us to find a faithful, vital, mission minded church.

Money for the long haul (this year is okay).

Strengthened marriage through the changes.

We love all you guys from near and far.

With Love,

Dan and Karin

 

Christian the Lion

A little ‘foretaste’ of Heaven.