April 29, 2022
Ken Walker started EDUF and Ted became the VP.
The concern was how to get scholarship money effectively to the African schools. Many problems existed. Dr. Richard Zaner (Regional Director, German) changed the whole picture. (Ted mentions he was the best financial manager the CotN ever had.) The goal was to get the African university funds into a system better than what was happening through World Missions. Ted was the initiator of getting the Nazarene Foundation started in order to get scholarship money into the Foundation and then disburse it to the universities.
Ted grew up in Africa and was born in Swaziland to his missionary parents. When he went to the African field with his own family as a missionary, not one black pastor was qualified to attend college. They primarily had a 7th or 8th grade education. Ted said, “God showed me the necessity of educating well-qualified African pastors when I was 18 years old living in South Africa.” He knew that if they were going to function as leaders in their countries then they would need an education, and in turn, their education would qualify them as leaders in their local churches and communities, as well as in the Church of the Nazarene.
Ted obtained his education in the US: a bachelor’s degree from Eastern Nazarene College, a master’s from Nazarene Theological Seminary and his PhD from Yale University. At the time, the Yale administrators were looking for black African leaders to attend their school, and since Ted had been born in Swaziland, they automatically thought he was black and awarded him a full scholarship. With his education completed, he went back to Africa to be a driving force to set systems in place for Nazarene pastors to acquire their education in pastoral ministry not only in southern Africa, but eventually all across the continent.
One of the ways that the opportunity for education spread was that Dr. Zaner advised that funds from America be put in local currencies unless the local currency was unstable. Because of Dr. Zaner’s recommendation, the money coming in multiplied 3-fold. Rather than the missionaries keeping the windfall personally for their salaries, they used the excess to invest in other areas. This investment caused the work to explode into Western and Central Africa.
The continent of Africa was re-structured. It became a region, which united the continent, and the missionaries came to recognize they were part of a region rather than being individuals serving in their own independent locations.
“What is currently happening in Africa is due to God opening all these doors,” Ted remarked.
Dr. Esselstyn served as the first Regional Education Director (now called REC) for Africa in 1982 and served in this position until his retirement in 2002. His work included revamping the Course of Study for Africa, which eventually led to the revamping of the COS worldwide.
Certainly today, because of Ted’s dedication and passion, many more than one black African pastor has his or her education and many serve in leadership not only in Africa but also at the top of our denomination’s hierarchical structure.