Tabor students travel to India, build connections with Bible college
Eleven Tabor College students, led by Dr. Lynn Jost, associate professor of biblical and religious studies, traveled to India Dec. 27 to Jan. 16 to build connections with Mennonite Brethren Centenary Bible College.
"The purpose of the trip was to learn to know the context of the largest Mennonite Brethren national church, a church of more than 100,000 baptized members," said Jost. "We lived with prospective pastors, visited churches, and met missionaries."
Donna Jost, Don Isaac, and Karl and Marilyn Jost, all of Hillsboro, also accompanied.
The first stop for the group was India's capital of Delhi, where MBMS International's newest church planting effort is targeting upper class Indians in northern India, said Jost. MBMSI is the global mission agency of the Mennonite Brethren church in Canada and the United States.
"There we did orientation, learning to know missionaries, and sightseeing," said Jost. "A day trip to Agra was taken to see the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort."
The majority of the trip was spent in Hyderabad and nearby Shamshabad where Jost taught a course on the Psalms at the MB Centenary Bible College. Tabor students served as teaching assistants in the class and were encouraged to build relationships with fellow Indian students.
For the administrators of MB Centenary Bible College in Shamshabad, the Tabor group's visit was historic.
"As interpreters of the biblical text from two very different contexts, Tabor students and Indian pastoral ministry students worked side-by-side in study of the Psalms," said Jost. "We reinforced the notion that the church is God's universal agency to proclaim the reign of God — a cosmic, international movement."
Many experiences were shared not only between students of MBCBC and Tabor but also within Tabor's students.
"The things that we went through together created a special bond between us, and we have memories that we can always share," said Ben J. Schmidt, a junior from Newton.
In Hyderabad, the team also visited the city church and outlying village churches.
"On Sunday, three separate teams visited churches, including a group of churches that are comprised mainly of people whose occupation is rolling cigarettes to pay off indebtedness that leaves them as virtual slaves," said Jost.
Concluding the trip was a visit at Mumbai, formerly Bombay, for local sightseeing.
"The most satisfying part of the trip for us as a whole was attending worship services, special meetings arranged for our benefit, and youth meetings in the India MB church," said Jost.
Throughout the trip, students were challenged, not only academically but also spiritually and culturally.
"Parts of the trip were very demanding," said Jost. "Sensory overload was a constant experience as our senses of taste, sight, sound, and smell were continuously challenged."
Faced with learning to understand each other as a new team and also the new culture that surrounded them was a process that was begun but not completed, said Jost.
"We did truly experience a bit of heaven as we met together," said Jost. "We became aware of areas of learning and growth as well as growth points that still lie ahead."
One of these areas the team struggled with throughout the trip was how to approach cultural poverty.
"The entire group really wrestled with how we should react to and treat the beggars that we encountered everywhere," said Schmidt. "This trip made me realize that my life here in the states is incredibly comfortable. I face challenges that seem big, but in the grand scheme of life, they are small."
Even in the midst of such struggles, however, the team saw the faith and hope of those they worked alongside.
"They had so much love to give and they needed to receive it back," said Ale Lopez, a senior from Tlalpizahuac, Mexico, of children she worked with. "I tried giving them as much as I could in the few minutes I spent with them."
"The most satisfying part of the trip for me was teaching future pastors as they were engaging our students and the Word of God," said Jost.
"The visit was a pilot project for future India-Tabor contacts. The future is bright. India is a land of almost limitless variety."
