THOUGHTS FROM THE SENT STAFF

By Daniel Kenaston

I had the privilege over the last few months to be part of the SENT school on a weekly basis, providing oversight and coordination as well as teaching for about three weeks. Although these responsibilities have been taxing in several ways, I have been thrilled to be part of what God is doing in the lives of our young people and have benefited much from the stimulation of teaching and of learning with them. Taking one important subject (MISSIONS), focusing on it for 3 months, studying it from many angles, and working it out in several different circumstances has been our aim. By God’s grace, this has been accomplished to a large effect in the lives of the young people who attended this year’s school. Our desire is that you would understand the focus and aim of the school, rejoice in the blessing of God (which we sensed in this pioneer year), and pray with us for its future fruitfulness. We pray that this will happen as you read the lines below, see some pictures of the school and of our daily lives, and read some excerpts from the hearts of the students that attended this year.

One purpose united the mission board, the school staff, and the missionaries who came to teach each course: to work with God to raise up a generation of mission-minded and mission-trained young people who can be used by God to reach out to many needy countries in the years ahead. Thus the name: Serving Every Nation Training School, or SENT for short. Surely, the best service we could give the nations of the world, both nation states and ethnic nations, is to bring the saving Gospel of Christ to them and then live and preach it in front of them. We also desire to follow the path of our Master, who came to this earth as a servant of all and through his servant-hood made many great. We feel that this servant element is of extra importance for those of us who come from the developed Western world and may be tempted to feel superior to the people who God has called us to reach, thereby immensely limiting our testimony of the life of Christ lived out before them.

We set out to keep the school visionary, so as to increase the burden our youth feel for the world and to get us looking beyond our current borders to a lost and needy world. Our burden was also that the inspiration or visionary element would be strong enough to keep all the bookwork from becoming too scholastic and boring. We feel that a heart desire/practical application gap exists in many of our youth. We desire to include lots of practical opportunities for our youth to be stretched, not only in having a heart for the world, but also in the daily life of sacrifice which is required of a missionary. We recognized that many of the youth who come to a school like this have already said “yes” to the purposes of God for their lives. Our goal is to equip them with missionary skills, which will help them to work out the missionary visions that God is placing on their hearts in real life. We desire God to use the school and its expanded opportunities of real missionary life to be a reality check allowing our youth to make sure that the missionary plan of God is not just burning in their hearts but can be worked out practically. Many have been kept from useful service by the “spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” syndrome. We would like to help our youth to avoid this pitfall.

Jeremy and I were tremendously blessed by the caliber of the young people who volunteered or were chosen for this first year of school. Both of us felt that our duties as authorities were greatly diminished by the spiritual desires and devotion of the students. Each one was dedicated to squeezing all that they could from the three months of study. This focus kept them from much of the frivolity that could have grown out of our closely shared lives. Being deeply challenged through the daily teaching also helped to set the tone of their relationships and ensured that the discussion times were basically centered on the subject being studied.

Each of our missionary families made a contribution to the school during the three months the students spent in Ghana. Most of the missionary men taught a course (usually a week) which gave them lots of interaction with the students. In addition, each family spent one weekend with the students. We were rewarded with the fellowship of so many like-minded young people and were especially delighted at every chance we had to sing with a huge group of good singers! Most of our families here are young and some have no youth in their home at this time so the joy of four-part singing with all four parts present might be hard for you to imagine. The youth were divided between Bunbon and Loloto for their practicals in ministry, which brought them into close contact with those two missionary families. It is a little difficult to live a normal life with ten extra young people in your home. But we worked hard to give them a picture of what our life entails on a daily basis. We allowed them to participate in nearly all aspects of our life from cooking and hauling water to village preaching. All in all, I believe the missionaries give an edge to the teaching at the school since it is their daily lives that enables the students to see the things they are learning lived out in real life. As missionaries, we feel that our lives were enriched by our interaction with the SENT students and our hearts were challenged by their passion.

The students’ time was filled with all the required reading (about 10 books in all) and the homework assignments. All of our time was spent on the one subject at the heart of the school: finding the heart of God for our lives and equipping our students with some of the skills needed for a life of cross-cultural ministry. To focus so fully on this one subject with all our bible reading, class time, prayer, and talk time is a powerful stimulus in changing our lives permanently for the purposes of God in this world. Our prayer throughout the school was that the work of God in the lives of the youth would go deeply enough into their hearts to become long-lasting and practical, even upon their return to their respective homes to await God’s further plan for them. Jeremy and I poured out our every ounce of energy and inspiration in this direction, constantly begging our students to allow the things that they were learning to become an integral part of their lives, and not just an emotional experience of being outside their comfort zone in another land.

The first year of the SENT school is now in the past. The students have returned to their homes, the missionaries are back at their stations, and the buildings are dormant, waiting until the next group arrives later this year. In many ways, the challenge only begins now. We have been really burdened in prayer these last weeks for this group of young people returning to their familiar lives again. Please join us in this prayer burden! To live out the redemptive purposes of God in our daily lives, wherever we are, must be one of the greatest challenges of the Christian life. We are jealous that these youth pass this test. The missionary plan of God is not limited to overseas work, nor are we exempt from it if we find ourselves called to stay at home. All our efforts, whether here or there, must focus on the one thing that Jesus poured his life into while on this earth, seeking and saving the lost! The missionaries here are united in prayer for these students that they would find a way to keep God’s vision for the world alive, even while surrounded by the comfortable insulated life in the West.

We eagerly anticipate the next year of the SENT school. We keenly recognize the investments made in the last year of this school through the tuition paid by each student, the time off work, and the sacrifices of the missionary families who gave of themselves to teach and interact with the students. We do not take all of these sacrifices lightly, yet we look at the lives changed by the three months they spent in Ghana and the vision that has been burned into their hearts by practical experiences and believe the return is worth the investment! Surely, the need of the hour, both for our spiritual survival and for the salvation of the lost, is for us to more fully understand and align ourselves with the purposes of God in this world. This school is a step in this direction. From this perspective, we look forward to the next year of this school and prepare to again pour out for a new group of students. We are already in prayer for these new students and are working with the board to receive applications for future students. The potential of twenty young lives to make an eternal difference in this world is too large a force to overlook, and we are motivated to teach and train by this vision. Please keep praying with us toward this end! Thank you for your continued care for this work!

—Daniel Kenaston for the staff of SENT

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