Southwestern teams with three other SBC seminaries to take Gospel to Asia-Pacific region
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary students and staff partnered with students and faculty from three other Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) seminaries to take the Gospel to the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region of the world in late May to early June.
The Southwestern team joined with groups from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary to learn about Asian and Pacific cultures and religions and to tell the people of that region about Jesus. It was a trip Ed Stucky, associate director of recruiting for admissions at Southwestern, has dreamed of for almost a decade.
Stucky, who led the Southwestern students on the trip, said he previously had been to the region 14 times, either with his wife or taking students on mission trips.
“Back when I first came to Southwestern, I started thinking about how special it would be if we could do a trip [to APAC] that involved multiple seminaries,” he said. Stucky joined the Admissions teams in 2019.
Stucky said the subject of a joint trip came up at an International Mission Board (IMB) event. He recalled that one of the men said he would work on putting something together, “and it came together. I had hoped that we would have all six seminaries, but we got four out of the six, … and we had almost 30 students between the four schools, and to the best of my knowledge, that’s never happened before.
“Just the fact that we could have four seminaries cooperating to share the Gospel with the highest concentration of Muslim population anywhere in the world was a special opportunity,” he added.
George Martin, senior professor of Christian missions and world religions at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said, “On the 101st anniversary of the establishment of the Cooperative Program, it was great to see the seminaries together on the other side of the world. Hopefully, this trip, even if in a small way, can serve as a catalyst for our seminaries to work together in reaching the world.”
The celebration of Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice, was taking place during the teams’ visit.
“The devotion that day, the call to prayer, started early, probably a little before 4 a.m.,” Stucky said. “I was on the roof of my hotel, and I just got overwhelmed. Well, I have been overwhelmed by the call to prayer before, but I just got overwhelmed that morning with the vast lostness that is everywhere, with the people that are trying to be devout and to be devoted, and yet they’re looking in all the wrong places, and so my heart continues to break for them. I think it’s why I keep going back.”
Students attended training sessions after they arrived but also had time for tourist-type activities. There were also multiple opportunities to share the Gospel, Stucky said.
Joshua Brandhorst, an intercultural studies student from Shelbyville, Tenn., in the five-year program at Texas Baptist College, which allows students to pursue both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree at the same time, said he wanted to go on the trip to see how mission work is done in other parts of the world.
“I grew up on the mission field in Brazil, so I wanted to see other cultures,” he said.
Brandhorst said he and his fellow team members had opportunities to share their faith, and he also shared with a couple of people on the flight to another part of the country.
“This was a new experience for me,” he added. “It was exciting and daunting. I was expecting more radical belief from locals, but they seemed to be nominal in their beliefs. The trip has changed my view of ministry to Muslims. I know that some locations are different from what I encountered, but I would be willing to go back again.”
Noelle Zedwick from Denton, Texas, also a student in the five-year program, pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in intercultural studies and an MDiv in international church planting, said she went on the trip “to further my experience with overseas mission work, as that’s my long-term career plan, and to get a taste for another culture.”
Zedwick said the group participated in many tourist activities and also had opportunities for street evangelism where they connected with many local people. “We traveled from city to city, gaining a comprehensive understanding for what it’s like to be a lost person in [the region] as well as what it’s like to be a believer/worker there.”
She said interacting with students from the other seminaries was one of her favorite parts of the trip.
“It was amazing to meet so many like-minded people from different backgrounds and see how we came together for one goal: to make Christ known among the nations.
“It’s hard to describe exactly the impact this trip had on me, but it’s safe to say it furthered my burden for the lost and reignited my fire for missions, Zedwick added. “I saw once again how deep brokenness goes in these places and how powerfully God is at work.”
Ella Buzzell, a business major at Boyce College, the undergraduate school at Southern Seminary, agreed that serving alongside students from other seminaries was a blessing and that the students quickly bonded over their shared purpose of sharing the Gospel in the region.
“We definitely formed friendships,” Buzzell said. “Even though we all came from different schools and backgrounds, serving together created a lot of opportunities to get to know one another, and I’m grateful for the relationships that came from it. It was a sweet blessing to feel like I now have friends at multiple seminaries.”
Stucky said, “I’m encouraged by this next generation,” adding he believes at least two-thirds of the 30 students who went will serve in some type of long-term mission work.
“[That’s] more than I could ask for,” he said. ”Once you share the Gospel, … seeds are planted, God’s glorified, His name made great. If you can get somebody to go over and spend, you know, part of their life, that’s special.”
