Joseph McRae Mellichamp
Emeritus Professor of Management Science
The University of Alabama
In 1996 my wife Peggy and I were invited to make two trips on behalf of Faculty Commons: to Poland that spring and to Taiwan, Korea, and Singapore in the fall to launch faculty ministries there.
Not every ministry activity yields fruit. There have not been any ongoing results (that we know of) from our time in Singapore or Korea. In the other two countries what transpired has blown us away.
During our visits to universities in Warsaw, Krakow and Poznan, we met Polish professors who had suffered through years of Soviet oppression. Campus Crusade’s director of student ministries, Andrzej Zabolotny, was so impressed with these professors that he subsequently stepped down from leading the student ministry and started the Polish faculty ministry.
Peggy and I fell in love with Poland and the Polish people and have made 10 wonderfully fruitful ministry trips including that first trip in 1996. Today the Polish Christian Professors’ Forum has faculty works in all eight of the major university cities in Poland and is a registered professional society in Poland. The Forum hosts a biennial “Faith and Science Conference” which attracts professors from throughout Europe and the U.S.
In 2004 a team of five Georgia Tech professors and four Faculty Commons staff returned to Poland. During one week we presented 50 professional and ministry talks in 25 different academic institutions in seven cities to a combined audience of 4,500 people. What a blast! And what a boost to the Polish Christian Professors’ Forum, all fruit from that first trip in 1996.
Taiwan
The highlight of that other trip in 1996 was, and continues to be, ministry in Taiwan. We spoke at a weekend conference organized by Andy Lin, a Campus Crusade staff member, for about 50 Christian professors from all over Taiwan, challenging them to think creatively about how they could use their academic positions to represent Jesus in their teaching and research. The airlines lost our luggage on the way over, so what we remember most about the weekend was my smelly golf shirt and Peggy’s dirty denim dress.
Imagine our surprise when we returned for a follow-up visit in 1998 to find faculty ministry on 35 of the 70 university campuses in the country, with goals to eventually reach every campus! And we returned to Taiwan again for the tenth anniversary of the ministry in 2006 to find the ministry flourishing. One of the unexpected impacts of the ministry there has been the travel of Christian professors into closed countries in the region and the impact they have that other Christians simply can’t.
A God Thing
You know what is so thrilling about these examples? They are a God thing. We presented the same material in all four places—the same material we have presented in a dozen other countries. But somehow God had prepared the people in Poland and Taiwan to do what we in our wildest dreams could never have imagined.
What about you? Want to get in on a God thing? Let your Faculty Commons contact know that you have a briefcase and will travel. We are putting together a team for another trip to Poland in May.
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© 2009 Joseph McRae Mellichamp Used by permission of Faculty Commmons