Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Over the past few years, a lot of people have asked me why I don't keep a blog of my travels. I really don't have an answer. I used to write reflectively a lot more about my travels. But then life happened. Four daughters happened. Professional responsibilities grew and grew. Doctoral studies commenced and consumed. Ay yay, somedays I feel like it's a success just to live life, without having time to reflect. This is an attempt to change that.

I write today from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where I arrived a few hours ago after a long-haul flight from Washington Dulles. I've learned to appreciate the little things in travel, which in this case included an empty seat next to my cozy little window-side perch. This is my fourth visit to Ethiopia, a country of nearly 80 million people in the Horn of Africa. There are few countries that so encapsulate the political, religious, demographic, and environmental challenges facing our society. Yet it is a fascinating culture, unique unto itself in Africa and beyond. It is a deeply proud nation, rooted deeply in its ancient Orthodox Christianity, although both Muslims and Protestant Christians compose a sizable part of society. In many ways, it has more in common with the Arab world of North Africa and the Middle East, although it also fits well into the East African sphere. Perhaps my favorite aspect of traveling to Ethiopia is the food (perhaps more on that later, or for those in Indy, Leah can give you enthralled descriptions of her much loved cuisine).

So why am I here? This week, Overseas Council is sponsoring an "Institute for Excellence" for about 45 seminaries across Africa. We expect well over 100 participants coming from east, west, central, and southern Africa. Although we facilitate Institutes every year in Africa, this is only the second time that we've brought the whole continent together. Each school will send between 3-4 members of their team for the week, covering a portion of their travel and lodging costs as an investment in their team. The topic for the week is "financial sustainability and change." This topic rose to the top of a survey we conducted in 2010 of seminaries worldwide. This is a critical time as theological education (and education more broadly) faces immense changes. The increasingly global nature of education and educational standards, economic uncertainties, changing student and church expectations, and a continued sense of need for "renewal" in theological education are raising some fundamental questions about how schools like those that will be represented here this week can do their work more effectively. This Institute isn't a "chalk and talk" workshop where a bunch of western experts share the "proper" way to do things. Rather, this is a big discussion, drawing on the decades of experience in the room and the real challenges that these men and women face. A lot of time will be devoted to group work among individual school teams, seeking to facilitate application exercises and creative thinking about individual situations.

My active, up-front role this week is minimal. My investment has been largely on the front end, through a lot of work with my African colleagues (Victor Nakah of Zimbabwe and Philippe Emedi of the DRC) and the director of our Institutes (Scott Cunningham, who himself lived and worked in Africa for more than 25 years). It is a privilege to work with a team like this. I'll also be focusing on a lot of individual conversations and preparing for an important meeting at week's end that will draw 10 people from around the world for planning of a major research project on theological education (more on that later).

It is our hope that this week will lead to:

• a sense of commonality and fellowship among participants (many look forward to this gathering every year)


• serious and practical reflection on the topic of sustainability of seminaries in Africa, including interaction with some leaders from other parts of the world (including Daniel Aleshire of the Association of Theological Schools in North America).


• reflection on what it means to lead change within communities. While some of this will be rather "nuts and bolts," utilizing John Kotter's materials, we are deliberately focusing more on the human element of change leadership, for it seems to us that this is the most critical, especially for Christian institutions.


• personally, I look forward to learning a lot and having good fellowship with African friends.

I'll try to share some updates throughout the week, along with some photos.

Don't hesitate to ask questions.

And bear with me as I learn to blog...