"Why do I have to take this class?": A Nigerian Seminary Student and the Question of Calling

In 2018 I had the honor of teaching thirty plus Nigerian students on Muslim-Christian Relations. Many of the students were young seminarians, between twenty and twenty-five. Others were mothers, pastors, and Christians of Muslim background.

The younger students came mostly from communities and villages where Christians coalesced, and often kept others, including Muslims in their country, on the other side of the river.

Much of the course was taking historical narratives and looking at them not from a Christian perspective, but from inductive ethno-cultural understandings. In other words, how would any historical event be understood from Muslim, and their own ethnic, viewpoints.

About the third day, one student introduced himself, and immediately began discussing his call to ministry. He longed to serve his community, become a children’s pastor, and live a peaceful life. Then he asked me, “Why would I need this course?”

How often do instructors hear that question? Probably a little less often than the many times a student thinks it.

But, thankfully, I had something to discuss from his question and frustrations. I began my personal journey in ministry through being called to Hong Kong. There I expected to do mainly local evangelism and engage students coming from universities in mainland China. I loved Chinese culture, and loved my friends from there, both atheists and Christians. But then there was Wa’el, an international student from Greece, who was Muslim. We struck up a conversation after a class on Chinese Society which explained the ramifications of the PRC’s “one child policy”. At that time, there was not much discussion on how it was unbalancing the demographics of gender, but more the emotional toll of abortion, forced and voluntary, on Chinese women. Wa’el, being Muslim, lamented at the devastation, and began to explain his feelings of bitterness towards Chinese from the mainland (who lived in the same dorm as us). We discussed many topics of 'loving your enemy’, the sermon on the Mount, and whether the disciples were crazy or just mistaken that Christ rose again. My relationship with Wa’el, and our talks, was an aberration among a sea of ministry to East Asians. However, it affected much of my ministry in the future.

Because I had a relationship with Wa’el, though I wanted to return overseas to work among Chinese, when other conversations came with other Muslim co-workers, and friends, I was able to understand and dive in. Eventually, I even ended up living in a region that was part of China, and had a high number of Muslims: Xinjiang.

Though I had spent much of my time preparing for ministry in East Asia, I found that part of that would significantly be among Muslims, and I had been prepared for that over the years. Then I even ended up teaching a course in Nigeria.

In telling my student this, I mentioned that “you never really know what the Lord will do with the small outlying experiences in your life. If I had not paid attention, I would not have ended up here, talking with you.”

There were beautiful moments in my short time in Nigeria, most of them were because of the sacredness of so many professors and students there. The tensions, and sometimes terrors, of Muslim-Christian relationships there cannot be overstated, yet there are faithful men and women, for whom “the world is not worthy”, ministering and sharing Christ to their Muslim neighbors.

see: http://www.bpnews.net/54363/boko-haram-attacks-predominantly-christian-community-in-nigeria