Well, PALCON 2022 at Northwest Nazarene University has ended and what a great experience. I attended PALCON in 2010 but wasn’t able to attend the one six years ago. The speakers and workshops at this one were wonderful and encouraging and the entire event was just what I needed. The past two years have been challenging for me as a pastor with ministry and pastoral changes and I returned home rejuvenated and recharged. I’m looking forward to listening to the plenary sessions again and am grateful NNU provided that opportunity.
As a relative new-comer to EDUF (almost two years), and the only member of the board who hasn’t been to Africa, hosting the EDUF table was very beneficial for me as I was able to share with many people the mission and purpose of EDUF and to help them understand the pastor shortage in Africa. In one way it was ‘on the job training’ but also was drawing on all that I’ve learned the past two years
Mathapelo Tebele, Academic Dean of Nazarene Theological College in South Africa, and I (Vice President of Research and Development for EDUF) represented EDUF at PALCON at Trevecca Nazarene University in June 2022. Rev. Ken Walker (Founder of EDUF) and his wife Linda picked us up at the airport and we enjoyed a time of fellowship over dinner.
When we set up our exhibition table, we met Daryll Stanton, who serves as one of the EDUF Board Members. He had a table next to ours and we had time to get to know one another.
We primarily engaged with people to help them know what EDUF is and to try to meet our goal of getting 100 churches to give $100 for our 2022 August for Africa project.
We had a number of good conversations with pastors and leaders. Quite a few mentioned that raising $100 per church should be easy enough. Some mentioned they would like to have their children join in and contribute. Another mentioned that their adult Sunday school class likes to take on projects and this would be a great project for them.
We met Peggy Cooning who is our contact person for our TNU scholarship. It was great to put a face to the name.
We were able to get the word out about what EDUF is and what we do and found that people were responsive.
