On November 1st Dr. Dan landed in Shanghai for a four week, four seminary teaching marathon. Here follows his personal account in a show and tell report – enjoy!

( The captions precede the pictures)

The students in the picture below are all church pastors working to earn their degrees. Unfortunately this shot only shows about two thirds of the class. There were about 25 ladies and three men in the class. The women were a force to be reckoned with. They are mothers, wives and the main stay of leadership in the church. Leaving their homes and families they came from quite a distance to learn for a week at a time. They were serious students and took meticulous notes often stopping me to get everything down on paper and demanding clarification. When they prayed during their worship time and at the beginning and ending of a class day the earth would shake because whilst one woman prayed at every phrase the entire group would resound “Amen”. It was awesome. It felt sort of like warriors ready to charge an enemy. I was suffering from the cold but it did not phase them. We would do class close to seven hours each day and then I would retire and take a foot bath out of a wooden basin. But I would give them assignments for each evening, which they would work on into the evening returning to their same seats till nearly ten P M.  This means in the cold they inhabited their seats over ten to twelve hours. Often bodily noises would be heard rising from among the group. I said to myself these women are the real deal. If one wants a yardstick to measure commitment look no further.

This school shown below is my favorite school. They took very good care of me –  washing my clothes and walking me to town and buying me fruit and whatever I needed. It was the only school where they were free to move about in their community. Each day at the end of the day we have an open forum for any question or comment. The ladies who on the whole excelled above the young men when given a chance to ask questions often focused on marriage whilst the young men wanted to stump me by asking me to interpret the most esoteric discombobulated texts in the Bible and there are more than a few. Gathered together there was no verse in the Bible they did could not find its whereabouts within 90 seconds (no WIFI needed). Even so like almost all the students I taught they struggled with my conceptual approach to teaching and learning. They wanted a more mathematical hard information approach. I wanted them to grasp a theological insight and apply it on their own to a new frontier of life and thought. They would rather undergo a root canal than follow this approach.

This is another school sandwiched in huge city in an area where a mix of industries coexist with low income housing. I call this the “Jack Hammer Factory School.” The school founders bought the facility from a company who moved their operation leaving the huge factory vacant. It sort reminds me of the catacombs because there are so many rooms and niches in the building and the presence of a school inside the old factory is obscure.

This year about 80 students live and study in 4 month stretches most not leaving the premises during this term time. This is a master’s level class. The picture was shot from the rear because no frontal/facial view was not permitted. I have taught here three times. Maybe this school had the most mature and promising students at the Masters level.

This is the entire student body of the seminary and Bible college located in one of China’s huge cities. All students no matter their level took my ethics course. The young man to my left I made the class Sergeant at Arms because he had a voice so powerful the window pains would rattle when he raised it.  I decided half way through the class to baptize him with an official role – calling the class to session and announcing break time. This is my fourth year teaching here.

The young man in the picture below is my interpreter hired for the week he traveled by train 35 hours to reach the school in this mountainous region. He was a fine interpreter. Freshly married 4 weeks previous he pined for his wife and often received and sent texts. But he was fully present and deeply intrigued by my ethics course thesis. I realized early on I had the wrong idea about translation. I didn’t need to teach the whole class, but rather just teach him and he would teach the pastors. So while teaching publically and privately I expended all my energy helping him grasp the idea and if and when he got it my job was over. He would take it from there. The gap between Mandarin and English is that great! The glow in the corner is an electric heater. It was cold. But the power in the region went off often.

I went from the city to the country, actually the mountains to a middle province. When I arrived at the ‘school’ which was a two story house with many rooms I was sure at last I would be allowed to walk about outside because their neighbors were few and the location a sparsely populated mountain valley. But I was confined to the indoors lest neighbors caught sight and the gossip chain stirred unwanted attention. These are pastors walking to catch their ride after a week away from their homes and congregations to do my ethics course.

Located in another massive city finding this school would be like finding a needle in a industrial hay stack. Picking me up at a hotel they drove me to the parameter of the city into a maze of heavy industrial operations and then when we arrived at their building they threw a coat over my head and hustled me to the third floor where I lived and lectured for a week. All the students inhabited the second floor. The living was a notch above camping maybe but they were spirited, dancing and singing during break time.  My interpreter hired for the occasion was first rate. There were about 25 students in all. The founder was a woman approaching eighty years.