The Joy of Being at TEKU

April 11, 2013 Teofilo Kisanji University in Mbeya, Tanzania
Yesterday I discovered that the TEKU library has wireless access and I can get back to blogging. Thanks to those of you who have been following this journal. Ruth, I want to send my regards to Meza for you but he is on his way to Leipzig, Germany to enroll in a PhD program. This is great news, but I was unable to see him, unfortunately. I also discovered yesterday in my email that one of Moravian Theological Seminary's own, John Egerton, has made it into the Biblical Archaeological Review. I have been digging for many years and have never graced those pages and John makes it on the first try!! Way to go John.
I sit here on a comfortable couch, listening to the pounding rain, in a guest house right next to the house that Meredith and I occupied while we were at TEKU in 2006. Walking through the door brought back so many memories, especially since faithful friends lived in it while we were here and we spent many a night in this space eating and talking. Nancy and I have been so kindly welcomed by TEKU and its leadership, faculty and students. We spent a wonderful evening at Vice Chancellor Kassimoto's home and shared fellowship with leaders from the management team--an amazing and welcoming group of scholars.  Fellow Moravian alumni, Dean of the Theology Faculty The Reverend Dr. Mwenisengole Tuntufye and The Reverend Mary Katigile, who holds a new role as an administrator in addition to her full time teaching load, continue to make us feel at home along with the rest of TEKU's faculty and staff.
Nancy and I have come to TEKU to work jointly with the TEKU theology faculty on a project dealing with the Moravian Unity's 2009 Resolutions 1 and 8 that call all Moravian Seminaries, schools, and pastors to create pastoral resources to eradicate violence against women in the church and society. Our first order of business was for Nancy and I to lead a four day workshop with the theology students on the ways that the Bible can be used as a resource for talking about sexual violence and for empowering women. Our first day served as an introduction to the Unity resolutions, a discussion on what values Moravians bring to the conversation concerning healthy human relationships, and biblical texts that affirm these values. Day two we focused on Genesis 1-3 and issues around creation and gender mutuality. We concentrated on the difficult topic of rape on the third day and read Genesis 34 (the rape of Dinah) and 2 Samuel 13 (the rape of Tamar) as texts that can open up safe spaces to talk about sexual violence in the church and society. We completed the program with a focus on the importance of women's leadership in the church with a  focus on Romans 16:1-16 and the Gospel texts that recount the stories of the woman who stood before the cross and who proclaimed the resurrection. The conversations with the group were outstanding. I think that we all learned a great deal from each other about how we read and interpret texts and how the Bible can be used to open up space for difficult conversations around violence against women. The next step is to work towards co-creating a resource to be used with churches and seminaries around these issues. Tomorrow we begin three days of meeting with other Tanzanian Moravians in the Southwestern and Ruanda Provinces among other places. Until then...