Τώρα επιθυμεί να επιστρέψει στη Κένυα ως Ορθόδοξος
ιεραπόστολος ! From Protestantism to Orthodox Church.
Η
παρακάτω ιστορία προκαλεί «ανατριχίλα» για το σχέδιο του Θεού να
γνωρίσουν οι άνθρωποι την αρχαία, πρωτοχριστιανική, Ορθόδοξη Εκκλησία.
Πήγε στην Αιθιοπία και στη Κένυα ως ευαγγελικός προτεστάντης
ιεραπόστολος και γνώρισε την Ορθόδοξη Εκκλησία. Έγινε μέλος της
Ορθόδοξης Εκκλησίας το 2011 και τώρα επιθυμεί να επιστρέψει στη Κένυα ως
Ορθόδοξος Ιεραπόστολος.
Hi, my name is Bill (Dr. William Black ) . I am Orthodox and I am a missionary. I’ve been accepted by OCMC (Orthodox Christian Mission Center) as a missionary candidate and have been busy raising support for a ministry in Kenya since Thanksgiving 2014. That I would end up an Orthodox missionary was not an option on my event horizon when I first began to formulate a plan for my life.
First of all, I grew up in a Protestant
home – Presbyterian to be precise. While family interests biased me
towards medicine or the sciences, my fascination and training, however,
was in history which, however interesting, does not make for an easy
career path. And I was a musician to boot, playing the viola in
orchestras and ensembles. Unexpectedly, the missionary option intruded
itself on my list of possibilities for my life towards the end of my
college career. I was by then a sincere Evangelical involved in a campus
Christian fellowship. The summer before my senior year, I exchanged my
studies in Medieval and Renaissance History at Duke University for
living in the rural areas of Kenya with a Kenyan pastor and his family
as part of a short-term mission trip in 1980. Those three brief months
changed my life.
My experiences that summer convinced me
that I was called to be a missionary. I realized, however, that I was
woefully prepared for such a life, so I set myself to get the training
and experience that I needed. I got ministry experience by working as a
campus staff member for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at the College
of William and Mary. And then I also got my Masters of Divinity degree
from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary north of Boston, MA. I was
ordained as a Presbyterian Church (USA) pastor in 1989 and served
churches in North Carolina and Pennsylvania. I was accepted for PhD
studies at the University of Cambridge (UK) and moved there with my
family in 1996. After completing my studies, I was accepted as a
missionary and assigned to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where I taught at the
Ethiopian Graduate School of theology for 8 years. I also served as the
senior pastor of the International Evangelical Church in Addis Ababa for
4 years. In 2008, we moved to Nairobi, Kenya, where I taught at the
Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology. In 2011, I was relieved
from my position as a professor of theology and history and asked to
resign from my mission.
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In January of that year, I had been baptized and chrismated into the Orthodox Church of Kenya.
I met an Orthodox priest early on during my studies in Cambridge
and, during tea time breaks at the research library where we both were
studying, I began to hear the story of the Orthodox Church. I was
astonished, as I had never been exposed to the history or the theology,
and the more I learned, the more fascinated I became. The process of my
converting to Orthodoxy from having been an Evangelical, Reformed
pastor, scholar, and missionary took 14 years. Because of my subsequent
leadership positions in churches and ministries, I had not allowed
myself to question the theology or the history of my little corner of
Protestantism. But when I discovered that Orthodoxy was not just
different in emphasis but also different in kind from all Western forms
of Christianity, I was shaken to my foundations. I began to see the
development of Western theology in a new light, which led me also to see
how some of my own theological choices were creating inconsistencies in
my own faith and life. I deliberately began a process of taking onboard
those aspects of Orthodox thinking and practice that I could get away
with, given my responsibilities as a Protestant pastor and seminary
teacher. I wanted to become Orthodox, but I knew that to do so would be
very costly, and I feared that my life as I had known it would come to
an end. So for years I read Orthodox books, prayed Orthodox prayers and
straddled the fence between East and West.
A turning point occurred when we moved from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
to Nairobi, Kenya in 2008. I no longer had the responsibility of
pastoring a large church and of preaching every Sunday. This set me free
to participate in an Orthodox Church. I began attending Sts. Cosmas and
Damian Orthodox Church in Nairobi, the Church which served the
international Orthodox community there. I also got to know the priest,
Fr. Innocentios, a Ugandan archimandrite who also served as the
administrator of the Orthodox seminary in Nairobi. Attending the Divine
Liturgy every week made me increasingly familiar with both the liturgy
and the liturgical calendar. I started trying to keep the fasts and
participated in parish life. I discovered that Orthodox services were
held daily at the seminary, which was closer to where I lived, so I
began attending a service on Thursday mornings as well.
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On that fourth Sunday, I found myself
standing just to the side of the great canopied pulpit in the middle of
our nave. Along the sides were icons of the four Evangelists, and on the
front, just above eye level, was an icon of Christ holding an open
Gospel on which something was written in modern Greek. As the Orthodox
faithful were going up to receive the Mysteries, I once again felt
powerfully that I wanted to join them and that this was where I
belonged. And once more I tried to shove the feeling out of my being. To
distract myself, I remember looking up at the icon of Christ. I slowly
started to make out what the stylized script of the Bible verse was. ‘If
anyone… wants to be… my disciple,… let him deny himself,… take up his
cross… and follow Me.’ I suddenly realized that I wasn’t just reading
some inscription on an icon, but that the Lord Jesus Himself was
addressing me. It suddenly became clear that whatever the cost, the call
to follow Jesus was now taking me into the Orthodox Church. And once I
heard His call in these terms, my response was easy. I started taking
those steps which led me five months later to being baptized and
chrismated an Orthodox Christian by His Eminence Makarios, the
Archbishop of Kenya.
I think God knew that I needed to be
absolutely sure that becoming Orthodox was His call, because just as I
had feared there was fallout. I was terminated by the board of the
university where I taught. I was told to resign by my mission board. I
was adrift for some months, not knowing what I might do next, until I
was offered a position by another Christian university whose board and
faculty were happy to have an Orthodox faculty member. Another small
Protestant mission board accepted me and provided an interim means for
me to continue as a missionary, at least until my next furlough.
That next furlough was scheduled for
the summer of 2013. What I didn’t realize at the time was that the
originally intended 4 month ‘home assignment’ furlough had slowly become
a leave of absence that has lasted now nearly two years. There were
some family issues that I needed to address. Sadly, these were not
resolved in the way that I had hoped and I thought that my life in Kenya
and my career as a missionary serving the churches there had come to an
end. So, in February 2014, I traveled back to Nairobi for the purposes
of wrapping up my affairs and selling my possessions. It was a sad and
desolate time for me.
But on the weekend before my return to
the States, I had scheduled to meet with a friend who serves as the
deputy dean of the Patriarchal Orthodox Seminary. When he asked me why I
was leaving Kenya, I told him. Then he replied that in Christ there is
forgiveness and healing, and that they wanted me to come and teach at
the seminary and, that I could even live there on the campus. Not only
that, but the Dean – His Eminence Archbishop Makarios – also reiterated
the same message and invited me personally to return and join the
faculty there, but he wanted me first to return to American and be sent
by the local churches through OCMC. I was thunderstruck. And, I was
profoundly grateful.
When I returned to the States, I began
praying for God to open a way for me to become an Orthodox missionary.
My Protestant mission had been wonderful to me and they were willing to
keep me on, but I had a strong sense that, if I was going back, I wanted
to do so by Orthodox means. I reestablished contact with OCMC (Orthodox
Christian Mission Center) and began the application process with them. I
had been in contact with them since my conversion, so they were fully
aware of my circumstances and the challenges I had faced. The process
involved a lot of paperwork, essays, interviews, psychological testing,
references and lots of back and forth communication. The OCMC
Missionary Department needed to verify on behalf of all sending members,
parishes, clergy and hierarchs of Orthodox Churches in America that I
was candidate material, someone who could fulfill the set missionary
requirements and the appointed ministry in Kenya . I learned a new level
of patience during these months; but finally, the week before
Thanksgiving, I was given the good news that the OCMC Board of Directors
had accepted me as a missionary candidate.
What follows is the story of my getting
there from here, which is a post in itself. But for now, it’s enough to
brief you on how this unlikely convert has ended up preparing for fulltime Orthodox mission work under the Omophorion of His Eminence Makarios the Archbishop of Kenya. Kristo amefufuka! Kweli amefufuka!
If you or your parish would like to
support me in my upcoming ministry in Kenya, go to my page on the OCMC
website and click on the ‘Support’ button:
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«Hi, my name is Wesley. I’m 22 years old and I live in the small, mostly mennonite community of Winkler in Manitoba, Canada.
I converted to the Orthodox Church from the Mennonite faith in
September of last year after a year and a half of researching Orthodoxy.
I drive 2 hours North every weekend to attend the services of the
Church and thank God every day for bringing me to His Holy Church»
«Hello I am Sotir Kullau and this is my
icon corner. I have now been Orthodox for five years—before I was
Muslim. My mother will be baptized soon too. Glory to God! God bless all
Christians around the world!»
πηγή: https://ierapostoli.wordpress.com
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