Arkansas Tech students dedicate Congo's first Wesley Foundation
Feb. 16, 2006
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By Billy Reeder*
KAMINA, Democratic Republic of Congo (UMNS) - For Bobby Jackson, it was a fitting legacy.
The young campus minister at Arkansas Tech University had spent much of his life helping others, and he dreamed of extending that ministry of caring overseas. When his life was cut short two years ago, his friends and others at Arkansas Tech rallied around the dream.
On Jan. 8, a seven-member team from Arkansas Tech's Wesley Foundation in Russellville dedicated the first Congolese Wesley Foundation campus ministry at ISP College (Institut Superieur Pedagogique) in Kamina.
The Bobby Jackson Memorial Wesley Foundation dedication marked a milestone in a journey that began with tragedy in August 2004, after the worship leader from the Arkansas Tech Wesley Foundation was killed in a hit-and-run accident.
"Bobby was the kind of person that people were drawn to," said the Rev. David Scroggin, director of the Arkansas Tech Wesley Foundation. "He had a real heart for ministry and especially global ministry." Jackson had sparked the idea of building a campus ministry in Kamina, but the plans were not under way when he died.
The project took off when his family suggested memorials go to Jackson's dream, Scroggin said.
What followed was an intensive student-led drive that has raised $40,000 to date. In 35 years of ministry, Scroggin said, he has never witnessed the level of dedication to ministry and self-sacrifice as he saw in his Wesley Foundation students in the last year in a half.
"These students really understand what it means to give everything. I found a note attached to a $10 in the collection plate one day that said, 'This is all I have.' And I really believe them. College students are not wealthy people."
At the dedication, Jackson's sister, Becky, presented Bishop Nkulu Ntambo with a plaque. "During his life, Bobby touched many lives," she told a packed Wesley Foundation. "He dreamed of touching more lives for Christ through foreign missions."
Bobby died before he had an opportunity to leave the United States, she said. "Because of his passion for Christ and foreign missions, our Wesley Foundation, his family and friends, we are proud to dedicate this project to his memory to the glory of God."
Arkansas Tech graduate Greg Pair told the crowd of 500 that Jackson put others before himself.
"Bobby was a man of God's heart," said Pair, youth minister for Greenwood (Ark.) United Methodist Church. "He was a friend that would lay everything aside for others without questioning what he was doing. Because of this love for mission he put everyone before himself. It's been an amazing blessing in our lives to learn and grow because of the life he lived."
A tool for ministry
The 90-minute dedication service was filled with singing from multiple local choirs and ended with the Arkansas team members forming an impromptu praise band and performing Matt Redman's "Blessed Be Your Name" to the wild cheering of the Congolese audience. The song has been an unofficial anthem for the Arkansas Tech Wesley Foundation since Jackson's accident, team members said.
"The amazing thing about this group is that, to them, the building really isn't the memorial," said Dr. Jon Mac Taylor, president of ISP College. "The building is only a tool to host the ministry, and the ministry is what they really came to give."
Taylor serves two churches in central Arkansas and is the driving force behind recruiting American assistance to the North Katanga region.
"I was completely blown away by what they were proposing," he said. "The Arkansas Tech students didn't just want to build a building as a memorial. They wanted to build the building, help start the ministry and fund it perpetually."
The students envisioned a Congolese Wesley Foundation that would match university students with children living in the abandoned children's home operated by the United Methodist Church in Kamina.
"I kept thinking to myself that this was huge!" Taylor said. "This is a generation of kids that watched the Rwanda and Bosnia conflicts on television and were taking proactive steps to keep such atrocities from happening again. They wanted to give the Congolese students a gift they had received, the ability to lead others on principles of compassion rather than force."
He noted that the "Congo is in need of leaders." Torn apart by civil war in the late 1990s, the AIDS pandemic and a general lack of infrastructure, educated leaders are harder to find.
Ntambo told the Arkansas students that the work of the Wesley Foundation will reach into areas that they never dreamed of.
"Recently, the United Nations selected the ISP College site as the voting location for the North Katanga region," he said. "So there will be United Nations peacekeepers here on this campus, and I will be preaching and ministering to them in this new Wesley Foundation."
The work will be a challenging process for the Congolese, according to Taylor. "Having a centralized college is new in itself; the idea of a campus ministry is a completely new idea for them. It will take time for the surrounding community to realize that the Wesley Foundation is more than a chapel on the college campus."
An emotional, spiritual journey
Team members Dustin Coates and Chris Collins said they didn't go to the Congo to recreate the Wesley Foundation from Arkansas. They knew the campus ministries would be different; they simply wanted to offer their stories and share the love of Christ, they said.
"I'm really looking forward to seeing how this ministry develops," said Larry Jackson, Bobby's father. "I want to see it help the young people, the future leaders. I think this is going to be a bright light for Congo. I didn't know what to expect when I got here, but I've always felt sure that the people here would pull it off. This whole thing has been a journey - a physical journey as well as an emotional and spiritual journey. I'm happy to be a part of it."
"We aren't interested in fossilizing or preserving a building," said Scroggin. "If they beat that building to pieces ministering to the Congolese students, then that will be a blessing and perhaps the best gift we could have ever given to Bobby."
Plans are being developed to create an online forum for Arkansas Tech Wesley Foundation students to connect with Congolese students. For more information, go to www.atuwesleyfoundation.org.
*Reeder is director of communications, Arkansas Annual Conference. He attended the dedication.
News media contact: Kathy L. Gilbert, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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