CMFi News of Friends Honored and how Past Difficulties Produced Present Opportunities

Two friends of CMF were honored with distinguished service awards at Milligan College’s commencement services held last weekend in Johnson City, Tenn.

CMF International Consultant Dr. E. LeRoy Lawson and Dr. J. Lee Magness, husband of long-time CMF board member Pat Magness, each received Milligan’s highest acknowledgment of service, the Fide et Amore award, in appreciation for their loving and faithful service to the college.

In addition to his work with CMF, Dr. Lawson currently serves as distinguished professor of Christian ministries at Emmanuel Christian Seminary in Johnson City, Tennessee. He previously served Milligan as a faculty member and vice president, served in ministries in Indiana and Arizona, and was president of Hope International University for 13 years before returning to Milligan in 2010.

Dr. Magness served Milligan as the chair/professor of Bible since 1983, retiring in 2013 after 30 years in the classroom. He was cited as a prolific scholarly writer, beloved professor and mentor.

To learn more about this award and the careers of both Dr. Lawson and Dr. Magness, please go here. 

Missionaries love to share good news, but most will admit they are understandably hesitant to share their discouragements and struggles. Here CMF missionary Joshua Barron shares some past difficulties that have now led to some very good news.

A number of years ago, before we arrived in Kenya in January 2007, CMF founded Narok Bible Training Institute as a venue to train elders, pastors, and other leaders in the churches we were planting among the Maasai. This venture was not a success, but while it was quietly fading away, a CMF colleague of ours was laboring with some Maasai church leaders to establish Mission Institute East Africa. This had a top-notch curriculum and a wonderful missions emphasis, but unfortunately, this venture failed also. All of this was as frustrating and as discouraging as you might think. The only good news at the time was that in the far northern deserts, the Turkana Bible Training Institute was still going strong.

Eventually, the resulting dearth of ministerial training opportunities for the Maasai believers began to finally be felt. Maasai churches and church leaders began to recognize the need for their church leaders, elders, pastors, and teachers to receive quality training and discipleship to equip them for their ministries, and began to push CMF to help them renew this type of ministry. For our part, we pretty much refused to start something new, but we let them know that we would joyfully assist them in whatever ways possible in anything that they began.

So steam began to build. In 2012, Community Christian Church leaders sitting in a meeting with two CMF missionaries demonstrated a desire and a willingness to step forward. In that meeting, they requested that I should be the one to lead in helping with that task. The CCC churches formed a committee and appointed me to chair it.  (While we were on furlough, our teammate Joe Cluff took over for me.) A uniform curriculum for the new training institute was set and the Community Christian Bible Training Institute (CCBTI) is in the process of being born.

Turkana Bible Training Institute is the first campus for the new school. The church leaders on the steering committee of the Kajiado Training Center in Ng’atataek contacted the CCBTI committee and asked for help to establish another branch campus, Kajiado Bible Training Institute. Classes will begin there in January 2015. The best news is that the Kajiado Bible Training Institute budget is (at least on paper) self-sustaining, and will not require the large financial subsidies needed by the previous schools.

Seven of the Kajiado Training Center committee members have said they will be among the first KBTI students, and they are willing to pay the higher fees necessary for the budget to be met. Pray with us that in January 2015 a bright morning really will dawn for the new Community Christian Bible Training Institute and all of the CCC churches.