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Shenks enjoy teaching opportunity in Armenia
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Asatur and Jasmine Napetyan, with their children Leon and Margarita. Asatur is founder and director of the Baptist Theological Seminary of Armenia, where David and Grace Shenk spent a week teaching "Islam and the Gospel" in February. |
ASHTARAK, Armenia – At an international missions consultation last year in the Czech Republic, David and Grace Shenk met Asatur Napetyan, founder and director of a new Baptist Theological Seminary of Armenia. Eager to include Islamic studies in the curriculum, Napetyan had invited the Shenks to spend a week teaching at the seminary.
They accepted that call this year, traveling to the Armenian seminary nestled amid snow-capped mountains with a clear view of Mt. Ararat, 25 miles outside Yerevan in Ashtarak, enrolls 50 students in pastoral studies and Christian education programs.
Armenia was a new country for the Shenks, who have traveled and taught widely in Europe and Asia. But they treasure the growing acquaintance with this ancient Christian nation that accepted Christianity in 301 AD.
“Armenia is a wounded nation,” Grace commented. “It was very sobering to learn in a more first-hand way the pain and displacement many Armenians have suffered – 90 years ago when they fled Turkey and more recently in conflicts with Azerbaijan. One fifth of the population are recent refugees from Azerbaijan, and the economy is in shambles.”
Yet within the woundedness of the nation, the Shenks reported, the emerging Baptist congregations witness to new life and hope in Christ. Armenian believers feel that God has placed the church in Armenia for such a time as this. They are encouraged that as Turkey moves toward the European Union, there will be new possibilities for normalized relations. And in this new political climate, they want to learn how to become a more effective and winsome Christian presence.
“These students have little knowledge of Islam and are eager learners,” David commented after teaching on "Islam and the Gospel" through an interpreter. “We had lively discussions. Already they have good relations with Iran. Other Muslim neighbors include Turkey and Azerbaijan.”
In addition to the week in Armenia, the Shenks also spent two weeks teaching at another Baptist seminary in Eastern Europe. Most of the 32 students in David’s class on Islam and the gospel were Muslim-background believers from throughout Central Asia. He also taught an advanced class in Islam and modern culture.
One of David’s students came from the same home town as one of the Muslim terrorists that took hundreds of school children hostage in Beslan, Russia, last year. The student reported that his home villagers had killed the wife and children of the terrorist – in anger and revenge. The Baptist Church, in contrast, has been committed to forgiveness and peacemaking despite the fact that their large congregation in Beslan lost two-thirds of its Sunday school children in the attack.
As David again taught through translation, he said students expressed appreciation for the way their horizons were expanded and their eyes opened to positive ways of relating to Muslim neighbors.
David noted that the People of God correspondence course, which was developed by the Mennonite mission team in East Africa, is being translated into several Central Asian languages and is a much-appreciated tool for sensitive outreach to Muslims. He has also found several national groups that have interest in translating his most recent book, Journeys of the Muslim Nation and the Christian Church and the older classic, A Muslim and a Christian in Dialogue, into the local languages.
– Jewel Showalter
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