Diary of a ministry trainee: April

Three mornings a week at 8am I stumble through the gate into the churchyard and walk into the Johannesburg Bible College.  It’s become just a normal part of my life in this city far from home, and sometimes I’m so bleary-eyed I forget just what an amazing place it is.

Each day I sit with people from just about everywhere: there’s Godwin the artist and Samuel, refugees from the Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, respectively. There’s Dennis from Uganda and Frans from Mozambique. Then just across the table are mums from Johannesburg’s heavily-forested Northern suburbs and ministry workers from the newly-built gated developments of Midrand who battle the sluggish flow of the city’s only river, the M1, to get here.

Sitting to my right is Leonard, a youth pastor from Hillbrow, the troubled inner-city suburb a couple of kilometres away. It is described by Lonely Planet as a “no-go zone at any time of day”.

The room is full of people young and old, male and female, black and white, and we’ve come together to study the Scriptures.

On Mondays it’s just the full-timer: the hardcore, serious students. Like me. Our mornings start with a fresh and often painful 8am call to evangelism as Christian leaders, followed by the ins-and-outs of New Testament hermeneutics.

Then comes the preaching workshop. The college students split into small groups to preach to one another and then critique each others’ work. The workshop constantly brings the unexpected.

On my turn, I’d thought that I’d mostly hit the mark – notwithstanding my largely small-hours-of-the-night preparation effort. Nevertheless, Nat – the college’s principal – gently reassured me that despite neatly explaining some key concepts, all-in-all I’d missed the real essence of the passage.

Shame, as they say over here.

But amazing things happen too. I still remember my shock when Samuel told us, quite seriously, that he had spent more of his sermon preparation time on his knees in prayer than in researching or actually writing. I gaped wider still when he preached in impeccable English despite his own public doubts about his language skills.

And so my days go: Jo’burg is cold in the mornings, but once I’m in college, as I wrestle with the Bible or whisper the meanings of English words into my classmates’ ear, I marvel at the breadth and diversity of God’s kingdom.

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