Thirty-two grants for cross-cultural learning have been made to seminary students and faculty of the 11 accredited Episcopal seminaries by the Seminary Consultation for Mission (SCOM). Grant recipients will learn in settings in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe between January 2005 and August 2006.
"Members of our seminary communities are growing in their vision for learning in God's mission beyond the USA," said Dean Titus Presler, chair of the SCOM Grants Committee, in announcing the grants. "Such exposure forms students for ministries both in the multicultural USA and abroad. Their international experiences will also deepen mutual understanding amid the current tensions in the Anglican Communion."
Five students from Berkeley Divinity School, Episcopal Divinity School, and the Seminary of the Southwest will work in the Diocese of Maseno North in Kenya as they serve internships with Nan and Gerry Hardison, missionaries of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society (DFMS) engaged in theological education and medical work.
Seven students from Virginia Theological Seminary will participate in a mission exposure trip to the dioceses of Hpa'an and Toungoo in the Province of Myanmar, which was hit by the recent Indian Ocean tsunami. They will be led by the Rev. Kitty Babson, a DFMS intermittent missionary and an adjunct lecturer at Virginia, who has led several such journeys.
Three students from Sewanee will work with people recovering from addictions in a variety of settings in Romania. That journey will be led by Prof. Robert Hughes, who has led similar trips.
Reflecting the growing emphasis on Hispanic ministry in Episcopal seminaries, Prof. Lizette Larson-Miller of Church Divinity School of the Pacific and Prof. Paul Barton of the Seminary of the Southwest will undertake intensive Spanish immersion courses in Mexico.
Sixty percent of the grantees will go to African countries –- Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, and Uganda –- eight will be in the Asian countries of Myanmar and Pakistan. Eighteen are men, and 14 are women. Grantees also come from the General Theological Seminary in New York and Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania.
"As we rejoice in the grants we were able to make, we regret that 14 grant applicants did not receive funding," said Presler, dean of the Seminary of the Southwest. "Generally we were able to make grants at only 66% of an applicant's request." SCOM had about $61,000 to grant this year, but requests totaled about $143,500. Funds come from an endowment established by the Council of Episcopal Seminary Deans through a grant from Venture in Mission, the church-wide capital campaign of the 1980s. The council appoints a committee to make the grants annually.
The 2003 General Convention urged seminaries to include cross-cultural learning for all students, and the Standing Commission on World Mission's vision statement, "Companions in Transformation," calls on General Convention to provide more funding for cross-cultural seminarian internships.
