This article is from the EMU News Archive. The approximate date of publication was in October 2003. Current EMU news is available at www.emu.edu/news

TO EMU HEADLINE NEWS | CROSSROADS MAGAZINE

Flung to the World

by Richard Showalter for Crossroads

Sometimes one can hear him coming. A short burst of narrative, followed by a peal of laughter, and you know that David Shenk (C 59) is in the vicinity-reveling in memory, friendship, and the task at hand.

But not always. At other times, almost reminiscent of Jesus on the road to Emmaus, he just shows up, quietly, not intrusively-but absolutely there. And like Jesus, he teaches-in story, in the turn of a phrase which goes right to the heart of the matter, and in unexpected illuminations which catch us half unaware and leave us pondering. Few who know him will fail to remember at least one story, one sermon, one flash of insight which lingers on to shape a life.

I still remember the very first sermon I heard him preach. It might have been in an annual meeting of the "Eastern Board" in the 80s, though the memory of the specific occasion has long since faded. Not, however, the words.

The Distinguished Service Award is given annually to recognize alumni who have demonstrated in notable ways the Christian service and peacemaking emphases of Eastern Mennonite University. David W. Shenk (C 59), for his decades of service as a writer, mission leader, educator and interfaith conversation partner with Muslims, is recognized as the 2003 recipient of this award. David was born and grew up in Tanganyika (now Tanzania), the son of pioneering missionaries J. Clyde and Alta Barge Shenk serving under Eastern Mennonite Missions (EMM). During the East Africa Revival of the 1940s, he experienced the "joy of being captured by Jesus Christ." In the preface to his 1994 book God's Call to Mission, David lists these formative mileposts of his "pilgrimage in mission… as a child going with my brother to the home of a Tanzanian Zanaki blind man every Sunday and guiding him to church with his walking stick;…as a young adult preaching and pastoring in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia during my college days; working with young street people in New York City for two years…; teaching North American high school students for two years; instructing Somali students for ten years…; urban church planting and university teaching in Nairobi, Kenya; writing books on church history, religion, and culture; …pastoring and evangelistic outreach in Mountville (Pa.); and the joy of being husband to Grace (C 59) and father of Karen, Doris, Jonathan, and Timothy." Following almost four decades of service with EMM, David served as academic dean at Lithuania Christian College in Lithuania. His collaborative book with Badru Kateregga, A Muslim and a Christian in Dialogue quickly sold out after September 11. David's model for conversation with Muslims is taken from I Peter 3:15: "Always be prepared to give an answer for the hope that you have, but do this with gentleness and respect."

"There are no closed countries," he declared, "to the Holy Spirit. The Christian mission is not dependent on whether governments invite western missionaries to come. Wherever people live who have not yet met Jesus, there the Holy Spirit will find a way. We go with Jesus to the whole world." As a congregation, we were flung that night to the world. Yet David is more than a teacher and preacher. Like Joseph son of Jacob, he wears, as it were, a coat of many colors. A teacher, yes, but far more. He is an irrepressible visionary, a constant encourager, a persistent crusader, an able administrator, a faithful intercessor, a consummate communicator, and a passionate disciple of Jesus.

He has bequeathed to the Mennonite Church an enormous, treasured legacy. In one arena alone, his lifetime of intimate engagement in the work of Eastern Mennonite Missions spans nearly the entire history of its international work and is unique in its annals. But no organization or circle of churches could fully channel the flow of such a life.

Born in the rough terrain above the eastern shores of Lake Victoria in 1937, David did not see the United States until he was nine years old. Consequently, his faith and piety were shaped as much by fellowship with the East African brothers and sisters as by those in the U.S. This in itself has been a priceless bridge between east and west, north and south. When David speaks, we never know for sure whether it's the African or the North American Mennonite.

It was the "East African Revival Movement" into which David as a lad was born spiritually, a movement which itself was forged in the crucible of repentance and renewal among African and western Christians in the 1930s, beginning in Rwanda. Its twin watchwords were "the blood of Jesus" and "walking in the light", and it powerfully affected not only East Africa but also the whole Christian movement in the 20th century.

Yet David as a missionary kid from East Africa never shed his Mennonite identity. For African Christian leaders in the Tanzania Mennonite Church who were part of that revival movement told their congregations, "bloom where you are planted; don't leave your churches." So they stayed. Anglicans remained Anglican and Mennonites remained Mennonite. Thus when David returned to the United States as a teenager, it was as both an African Christian and a North American Mennonite believer.

It is this union of two radical Christian traditions, one out of Africa and the other out of 16th century Europe via North America, that both shaped David personally and through him has influenced the wider Mennonite church. For David has never accepted the "quiet in the land" as a paradigm for Christian witness, and for more than half a century he has flamed for God with that exquisite blend of what is arguably the best of both African and European/ American Christianity-ever and always the missionary.

In seminars, sermons, books, and testimony David has heralded the good news of reconciliation in earth and heaven for individuals, communities, and whole nations. As a radical Christian, he has insisted with scandalizing consistency that this good news is inherently transformative, winning critics, to be sure, in every community he addresses (including the Christian), but simultaneously challenging and inviting a multitude of serious inquirers after the truth.

It is characteristic of this man with life-springs formed on two continents and with a vibrant heart for all the others, that he will stay up late any day of the week to converse with the very sharpest critics of the faith he holds. Thus it is no accident thatmuch of his dialogue has been with Muslim friends, but it is equally revealing that he gravitates just as quickly to the Hindu, Buddhist, or secular westerner who is open to serious conversation about the truth.

He is a scholar, but more than a scholar; a leader, but more than a leader. Yes, he laughs, but just as readily he weeps. Weeps for the lost, the oppressed, the poor, the disenfranchised. There is an enormous reach in his spirit which has persistently called those of us who work closely with him to care about all that's on the heart of God.

Like his Lord, David is a man for all people, rejected by many, but so full of both humility and love in union with God that Jesus has touched a generation through him.

 

Richard Showalter (C 68), president of
Eastern Mennonite Missions, lives in Landisville, Pa.
Posted: October 13, 2003