Shantytown Gleanings

Today, in email correspondence with a fellow blogger, I shared the story below. I don’t think I have blogged this one, which took place about 25 years ago:

During my first year at Eden Seminary I had a dear professor who was one of the kindest, gentlest, and giving people I have ever met. In one class he introduced us to the head of a seminary in Jamaica. He and a few others had started the seminary because too often Jamaican men and women who felt called to ministry would attend seminaries in Great Britain or Canada and never return to minister to folks in Jamaica.

During his talk to us about his Jamaican seminary, the president of the seminary said that a requirement for each student was that he or she spend time living in the shantytowns around Kingston, Jamaica, where the poorest of the poor dwell.

My dear professor said, "Yes! We must teach to poor to rise above their poverty!"

The president of the Jamaican seminary responded, "No! No! You don't understand. We do not send our students into the shantytowns to teach the poor; we send them into the shanty towns to learn from the poor." 

  

Those who have ears to hear, let them hear.