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There's more to weaving a tapestry than just accumulating threads. There are looms, shuttles, spinning wheels, and, of course, the hand of a master weaver. Some things about this Bulgarian experiment seem more like spinning wheels or shuttles than they do tapestry threads.
One of those revolves around some mobile prayer meetings in 1992-93. That year, a Southern Nazarene University world missions organization organized "Joshua Walks" on campus. These were prayer meetings that took their name from the Israelites’ march around Jericho under Joshua’s leadership.
In this modern version, a group walked around the campus, stopping to pray at various locations. They paused in front of each building and prayed aloud. At the dormitories, they prayed that a passion for world evangelism would consume the students housed there. In front of classroom buildings, they prayed for professors and for the Lord's presence in classes. The last stop was the administration building, Bresee Hall. That campus focal point stands along Route 66, once known as “Main Street of America,” the historic Chicago-to-Los Angeles highway. There, facing SNU's oldest building, a group prayed earnestly for President Gresham. They prayed that he would sense God's vision and that he would be divinely empowered to carry out that vision.
Those Joshua Walk organizers had never been to Bulgaria. As it turned out, none of the Bulgarian volunteers were involved in those Joshua Walks. Thus, there is no direct physical connection. However, those prayer walks do loom as a backdrop to the Bulgaria experiment.
Who can say what influence those prayers had on the global vision that then president Loren Gresham began articulating so clearly only months later? Did those prayer walks prepare the college campus to rise to the challenge of the Bulgaria experiment? One cannot help but wonder if those prayers somehow fueled the zeal of those applying for the Bulgaria project. Surely, it was more than just a coincidence that these events occurred one after another.
Evangelist Chuck Milhuff represents others who have indirectly contributed to Bulgarian tapestry design. For years, Milhuff had encouraged Nazarene young people to emulate the volunteer service of young Mormons. He had been the evangelist for several annual college spiritual renewal weeks at Southern Nazarene University. In his visits to the campus, did he ever talk to Loren Gresham about his idea? Neither man remembered discussing the Mormon model of volunteer service with the other. Still, it is interesting that both men thought and talked a lot about it.
Several earlier volunteers served as pathfinders for the Bulgaria project. For example, after his 1991 graduation, Paul Springer left Oklahoma for Central America. There, he spent a year helping missionaries. In 1993, Cheryl and Jeff Crouch left for a two-year volunteer assignment in Papua New Guinea. There, they were "house parents" at a boarding school for missionaries’ children.
To go back even earlier, in 1966, SNU sponsored what is probably the denomination's first Nazarene Missions Team trip. That spring, students and faculty raised money for construction materials. Then a group of them spent their 10-day spring break in northern Mexico building a church.
Clearly, the ethos that challenged university graduates to devote a year to world evangelism arose from the efforts of more than one person. . . . [ continue reading ]
-- Howard Culbertson, hculbert@snu.edu
One of Bulgaria's most highly acclaimed novels is called Under the Yoke. It was written in 1894, long before communism came to power. Nonetheless, that title aptly symbolizes life under communism and how these people continue to struggle with its awful legacy. . . . [ more ]