Minute for Mission: McCormick Theological Seminary
How does one do practical theology in these circumstances?” This is the urgent question that Dr. Robert Barasa found himself asking as pastor of a village church in the district of Funyula, Kenya. The community has been devastated by AIDS as the middle generation diminishes by the day. Amid their own grief, poverty, and ill health, the elderly are left to care for orphaned or abandoned grandchildren until exhaustion and despair render them unable.
Born in Kenya and ordained in the Anglican Church, Barasa sought out theological and pastoral training at McCormick Theological Seminary to better serve his congregation in Kenya. After earning a master’s degree at McCormick and a doctorate at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, he received seed money from his home church, Northminster Presbyterian in Evanston, Illinois.
In Funyula, Barasa trained volunteers and employees to create a support network. Elders were asked what they needed and what they were prepared to do to help their neighbors. Slowly, the combination of support and the offer of hope began to make profound changes in the lives of these grandparents. Once the elders recognized what they could do for themselves and their grandchildren, they moved beyond their own problems to help alleviate the suffering of others.
After a year back in Kenya, Barasa sought McCormick’s resources to help his congregation develop a desperately needed source of revenue. In response, McCormick’s Language Resource and Writing Center, faculty, and international students held a fund-raiser to benefit his ministry, the Ember Kenya Grandparent Empowerment Program. The event raised enough money to fund small peanut crops and to purchase two peanut butter processing machines, a modest contribution that has made a tremendous impact.
“The church has a duty to the world outside its doors,” Barasa insists. Funyula still grieves a lost generation, but today its grief is tempered with hope and compassion.
—Patricia Locke (M.Div., Class of 2007) and Geoff Ashmun, director of communications, McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago, Illinois
O God, you remind us that to give kindness and do justice requires us to also offer hope.
Help us to ask ourselves how our beliefs can be made visible by our actions, and how we may embody your message of Christian hope to the world beyond our doors, through the example of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
2 Sam. 5:1–5, 9–10
We Bow Down
LUYH 57
Ps. 48
Great Is the Lord
LUYH 30
Many and Great, O God, Are Thy Things
PH 271
2 Cor. 12:2–10
Give Thanks
STF 2036
Mark 6:1–13
The Summons
STF 2130
Today We All Are Called to Be Disciples
PH 434
Daily Lectionary
Ps. 108, 150 Ps. 66, 23
1 Sam. 14:36–45
Rom. 5:1–11; Matt. 22:1–14 |
