"The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.
Isaiah 58:11 NRSV
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FACULTY HIGHLIGHTS: Summer 2009 Trip to Uganda Academic Dean, Dr. LeAnn Flesher, and Associate Professor of Preaching and Director of D. Min. Program, Dr. Sangyil Park, participated earlier this month in the 2009 African-Korean Women’s Conference held at the Miracle Centre Cathedral in Kampala, Uganda. With the theme, “Rise-up, Africa!” the conference hoped to be a “movement to awaken all women in Africa for helping to build their families and churches on the rock of the Word of God,” according to Paul Kim, Chairman of Christian Life World Missions Frontiers, one of the conference organizing bodies, along with Torch WOGA Korea. Our ABSW professors led workshops for hundreds of women leaders alongside other pastors, professors and speakers from the US, Korea and African countries. Flesher and Park were joined by ABSW Board Member, Kristen Preston, and ABSW students, Sil Choi-Jung and Cheryl Dawson, to also research and develop partnering opportunities between ABSW and theological training centers in Africa. GTU and ABSW Student highlighted in Beliefnet blog entry Beliefnet.com hosted a news article written by G. Jeffrey MacDonald entitled, "Economic Squeeze Produces a New Kind of Seminarian." Within this article ABSW Student, Tammie Denyse, and GTU Dean, Arthur Holder, are quoted, speaking to the trend that students are going beyond traditional seminary training, seeking for ways to get equipped for dynamic and relevant ministries for the 21st century. Denyse is a 3rd year student doing a joint Master of Divinty and Master of Arts in Community Leadership degree. Her experience has so far strengthened her ministry as founding director of Carrie's Touch, which is an advocacy and support organization for women affected by breast cancer. Denyse is one of several current students who have decided to supplement the traditional MDiv degree, which already provides a breadth of biblical, theological and practical skills education and training needed for ordained church ministry, with the newly offered MACL degree, which allows students to go deeper in a particular area of ministry that may or may not be local-church based. ABSW recognizes that to be committed to the justice demands of the gospel means that as a educational institution we must prepare our students for the types of ministries that God is calling them to and that the broader faith community needs to remain effective and relevant. We must respond to the "new kind of seminarian" that is emerging among us. To read the full beliefnet.com blog entry, click here. To read more about ABSW's degree programs, click here.