bg真人 and Meserete Kristos Seminary celebrate milestone in MA partnership

Ben Parker Sutter on May 25, 2022

A group of Meserete Kristos Seminary students and professors are wearing commemorative t-shirts.

Published: May 25, 2022

ELKHART, Indiana (Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary) 鈥� After a delay of two years due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, Ethiopian students in Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary鈥檚 (bg真人) Master of Arts: Theology and Global Anabaptism (MATGA) program are finally able to gather for the in-person portion of the curriculum in Ethiopia.

Two photos are edited together, containing bg真人 employees (top) and MKS students and professors (bottom) wearing commemorative t-shirts.
Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary created special t-shirts to mark the occasion of bg真人 and Meserete Kristos Seminary reaching this milestone in their partnership: the beginning of the in-person portion of the MA: Theology and Global Anabaptism program curriculum in Ethiopia. Above are bg真人 employees (top) and MKS students and professors (bottom) wearing the new t-shirts. (Credits: Linsey Vandrick/bg真人 and Henok Tamirat/MKS)

The students are enrolled in a customized version of the 46-credit-hour program that bg真人 is providing in Ethiopia through a partnership with (MKS) in Debre Zeit/Bishoftu 鈥� with a special emphasis on peace studies.

Between May 16 and July 1, 2022, three bg真人 faculty members are traveling to MKS to teach intensive courses in person for the Ethiopian student cohorts. James R. Krabill, PhD, Core Adjunct Faculty, is currently teaching 鈥淕od鈥檚 Shalom and the Church鈥檚 Witness.鈥� Beginning June 1, David Boshart, PhD, President, will teach 鈥淐hristian Leadership in the 21st Century.鈥� Following Boshart, Drew Strait, PhD, Assistant Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins, will teach 鈥淏iblical Foundations for Peace and Justice.鈥�

The MKS-bg真人 partnership came into being when MKS leaders invited bg真人 to help them develop a graduate-level program to educate leaders for the Meserete Kristos Church (the Ethiopian Mennonite Church), expressing a need 鈥渇or trained leaders and other professionals capable of defending the faith and promoting peace by interfaith dialogue, human rights and interethnic peacebuilding.鈥� The program launched at the beginning of the 2019-20 academic year, right before COVID-19 began.

The students in the Ethiopian cohorts are MKS graduates who were recommended by seminary administrators. Their customized MA program calls for them to take a combination of contextualized courses that explicitly engage the content within the Ethiopian context, and regular online bg真人 courses in which they interact with bg真人 students from across the world. Until now, they have only been able to do the latter.

鈥淲e are grateful to all students who persevered through this time and continued with the courses bg真人 has been providing online,鈥� wrote Beverly Lapp, EdD, Vice President and Academic Dean, and Scott Janzen, MDiv, Assistant Dean and Registrar, in a May 11 letter to the Ethiopian MATGA students. 鈥淭he faculty, staff and students of bg真人 are praying for the professors and students of the MATGA Ethiopia program, that the [in-person] classes would be productive and fruitful, and for the safety of all who must travel.鈥�

Since the MATGA program launched, Henok Mekonin, MA 鈥� a graduate of both bg真人 and MKS who is from Nazreth, Oromiya region, Ethiopia 鈥� has played a key role in assisting bg真人 administrators and faculty with communication and intercultural consulting for the Ethiopian cohorts. As of May 1, he has formally joined bg真人鈥檚 staff as full-time Global Leadership Collaborative (GLC) Specialist, with funding for half of his position coming from Mennonite Mission Network. Boshart noted that in Mekonin鈥檚 new role, he will continue to provide specialized expertise for the MATGA Ethiopia partnership while also supporting the planning, implementation and evaluation of bg真人鈥檚 GLC initiatives more broadly.

鈥擜nnette Brill Bergstresser

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