by Laurie Lind
When your load is heavy and you feel alone in the carrying, it’s refreshing to have someone come alongside you. Someone who can say, “I understand. I’ve carried a similar load,” and, “Let me help.”
Angela knows.
Her family is rare in her country: passionate, active Christians in an Asian nation where most people follow a different faith. Her grandparents were well-known Christian leaders. Her father planted 10 churches and launched a Bible college that has trained hundreds of men and women in theology and ministry.
Angela graduated from that Bible college, then received grad level training overseas. She now serves as dean of students back at home at the college. She also teaches; currently, Old and New Testament survey, major and minor prophets and Christian ministry. A heavy course load for anyone.
Add to that course load the violent civic unrest in her country in recent years. Indiscriminate arrests, fighting, killing. Increasing government pressure against Christians.
Food shortages.
Amid it all, Angela presses on, teaching the few students still able to study at the Bible college. (Increasing numbers are pressed into military service or fleeing the country). She would love help with her teaching load, but her country lacks qualified Bible teachers.
Enter Entrust’s Greg and Marsha. Angela loves their visits.
For one thing, Greg and Marsha know something about hardship. They lived several years under a brutal Soviet regime in Europe. They felt intense government pressure, saw Christian friends suffer. They, too, wondered where food might come from. When they tell Angela they understand, she knows they really do.
Plus, they are always ready to provide Bible teaching on requested topics for pastors, other church leaders and eager young Christians, including the Bible college students. Angela enjoys a reprieve from her teaching load while the students learn from Greg and Marsha.
Angela translates their talks, benefiting from both the content and the delivery.
One example. Someone asks Greg about the nature of the Trinity. Angela observes and later employs Greg’s example of listening well to the question, answering with another thought-inspiring question, or answering thoughtfully with Scripture, gentleness and humility.
Asked how Entrust could be even more helpful to her, Angela’s quick reply is, “Keep sending Greg and Marsha.”
Her country needs more people willing to learn the culture and teach Christians in order to increase the number of qualified national Bible teachers. More people ready to come alongside Christian leaders like Angela, to help carry the load.
By God’s grace, Entrust will do just that.
Entrust in Asia
Entrust is at work in various ways in various places across Asia, assisting Christian leaders and schools.
One example: Greg and Marsha, who travel from their home country in Asia to nearby countries to research and network.
They’re learning about ministries already doing a great job of training Asian leaders, discovering where training gaps might exist, exploring how Entrust might best partner with local Christians or international groups in developing additional leadership tools.
On those travels, when asked, Greg and Marsha offer seminars for pastors and other church leaders. Inevitably, whether the topic is marriage, or perseverance under persecution, or how to study the Bible, both the content and delivery seem to have great impact.
Angela’s story demonstrates that impact.