As we woke on Tuesday morning, Tim and I were the late risers; Jim (Herrington) had been up after 6 hours and beginning to prepare for our late morning meeting with several Georgian pastors.
Sharing some orange juice together, I threatened to entitle my next blog “American Pastors Party with Co-Eds from Houston until 2:00 AM!” The threat evoked some hearty laughter. The truth is that the students were celebrating Masha’s conversion the previous evening, and “skyping” to home, letting parents know they are safe and on their way. The kids from the Houston church were truly a delight – great servants, good hearted, committed fully to Jesus and ministry. As of this writing, they are well on their way home.
By 11:00 AM, pastors began arriving at the apartment—three to be precise--along with a couple of other younger men. Beso (who pastors a church of 250 members in Gori – town of 100,000, 7 home groups, a lot of young people), whose educational training is in electrical engineering, Omari (pastors a church of 50-75 in Koga-aisi—a city of 300,000, groups meeting in several locations) is a former Ukranian Mafioso, and told some delightful stories of the difference Christ has made in his life, and Levan Akhalmosulishvlili [how’s that for a last name!] who pastors in Kakhetti. Levan speaks fairly good English, has a medical practice while running a couple of other businesses (including a vineyard), and is jovial one moment, and appropriately serious at other moments.
Christ has made a great difference in Omari’s life! He told this story: Recently, a young man came through his area riding a motorcycle, and looking for some food and a place to sleep. Omari offered to provide those things to him. The next morning, the young man noted how friendly the Georgian people were, and how wonderful it was to have met someone who was so gracious and provided such hospitality. Omari (former Ukraine Mafia, and KGB) smiled and said, “Yes, to be sure. With Christ in my heart, I have gladly provided you what you needed. Without Christ, you would have woken up and found everything you owned…gone!” Omari’s gift is evangelism; he rarely misses an opportunity to exalt and share Christ.
Here we finally arrived at the heart of our reason to come to Georgia – meeting with church leaders to explore the interest and commitment to a graduate level program [MA through Bakke Graduate University] here. The three men couldn’t have been different, in temperament, perspective, and presentation. Jim Herrington commenced by explaining that we were here in response to consistent interested expressed by Georgian (evangelical) church leaders for some serious, consistent training. That training could be provided through an MA course of study, originally crafted for Central Asia, then for use in Krasnodar, but now ready to be implemented in Georgia. He distributed a one-page which provided an overview of about 10 courses that would fill out a 3 year course of study toward an accredited M.A. degree, noting that Dr. David Staff would be the professor of record and oversee the program.
Jim then distributed copies of the syllabus I had prepared for the LDR 607 Servant Leadership, Character, and Ethics course, just one course offering from the program, and asked me to speak both to the way these courses would be taught, and how the study and writing requirements of the course would be handled. The men listened respectfully, with interest.
Since everything needed translation back and forth between English, Russian, and Georgian, everything shared took longer. Nonetheless, we made good progress, and took a break for lunch. Gia, Gogah served everyone well with bread, meat, cheese, and melon slices. After lunch, time was taken to ask and answer questions, and to discuss where these classes might be held. As I sat listening to the exchanges, I was receiving a graduate level course in nuances, European body-language and leveraging, and good natured humor.
By 3:00 PM, most relevant questions were exhausted, and the men, who traveled between 1-2 hours to come, needed to return home. We spent our final minutes in prayer – Georgian, English, Russian…men sometimes with great differences, even as Christian brothers, now bowing together and praying for God’s presence and blessing on the prospect of this training program, for the students God would draw into it, and for the flourishing of the Georgian church.
What a treasure to be here. I am learning so much from simply seeing how Jim H. and Tim S. handle what can be some complicated and nuanced discussions, yet all with Christ in view.
Tonight, dinner’s on me…[Could somebody let our church treasurer know!?]
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