Paul Heidebrecht's updates from his trip to NEGST

Dear CLA board members:

I returned yesterday from three weeks in Nairobi living on the NEGST campus and spending quality time with students, faculty and staff. The days were rich and full and I am "weary in well doing." I'll try to summarize important discoveries as they relate to our work.

1. Kenya was much calmer than I was expecting. The political situation has stabilized though the issues that led to the unrest have not really been faced by the government. People desperately want to get back to normal and resume the growth that Kenya had last year.

I was able to move comfortably everywhere including Kibera slum where I went twice.

2. Despite the calm, the population was traumatized by the violence and destruction in January and February and you feel it under the surface, even at NEGST. I heard many stories of great fear and anxiety. The mood was somber and I suspect many are still quite depressed. The economy took a real hit and the consequences of the unrest are now being felt on many levels. NEGST is expecting a decline of students as just one result simply because people have lost income or used their limited resources for more pressing needs.

3. The decline of the U.S. dollar affected me and all Americans there quite directly. Estimates of between 15-20% loss of value since a year ago means that everything we pay for when we go there now costs 15-20% more. It was a bit of a shock. Add to that the effects of higher fuel costs and suddenly it costs a lot more to go there. Plus our donations fall short. A $3000 full scholarship really needs to be $3500 to meet the same need. I have begun to re-think my safari trips there as a result.

4. It appears that at long last NEGST will receive its charter from the Kenyan government. The logjam has broken loose and already four other universities have received theirs. Douglas thinks it may come before the end of the year. But the charter will be in the name of a Christian university, not NEGST. The name was to be African Christian University but that name is not available, so the Governing Council will choose another. I attended one meeting on the Christian university plan and realized that Douglas and the NEGST leadership are very serious and energized to move in this direction. This is partly driven by a vision to prepare more than just church leaders and partly by the absolute need to recruit more students.
In November, when we meet with Douglas, we will need to consider the implications of this for us as the development arm in North America.

5. The entire Ph.D. cohort was on campus, though now engaged on their individual research projects. They expect to spend 4-6 weeks at Cambridge in August researching in one of the foremost libraries in the world. I spoke with many of them individually and was even more impressed with them than before. But of course all that we have invested in them depends on them finishing their dissertations, hopefully by July
2009 when we hope there will be a grand celebration at the graduation ceremony. I told them we were all praying and counting on them to finish. Three of the
12 will likely join the NEGST faculty. Most of the faculty who launched this cohort have retired or left and there were many new faces in the faculty and more coming this year. The next cohort will begin in August, 2009.

6. I was able to have one-on-one time with over 30 of the moer than 60 students whom we support. This is always the highlight of being there and if you have any doubts about the validity of our mission, just get to know these students and how God called them to NEGST and to a ministry beyond and you will know we are part of grooming the future leadership of the church on the African continent. The role some of the graduates played in Kenya during the crisis testifies to the quality of leadership emerging out of NEGST. You will be hearing about this in future mailings.

7. George Renner agreed to serve as acting director of the Institute for the Study of African Realities (ISAR) and to seriously build up this center for research, training and nonformal education. Two new M.A. programs will be introduced under the ISAR structure, one in Organizational Leadership (under David Fraser's oversight) and one in Peacemaking & Conflict Resolution. George and Linda have decided to return to NEGST full-time to take up this role. He was clearly very pleased to be there again.

8. Because NEGST kept losing money with their guesthouse/cafeteria, they outsourced the entire operation to a private company. I was present for the launch of this new enterprise. The woman who runs the company is very savvy and professional and will upgrade the services considerably but at much higher rates. There may be some discounts for NEGST visitors but we will all be paying customers when we go there.

9. At our last meeting I told you about an retired American studying at NEGST who has volunteered to assist me in our work when he returns to the U.S. this fall. He graduates in July, perhaps the oldest graduate NEGST has had. His name is Spencer Radnich and I spent an evening with him and his wife. They are quite the couple. Spencer was an engineer and executive for Xerox but took early retirement and has spent the last 12 years in Kenya where he has done many things,including service at Daystar in various capacities. He was also in the Army Reserve all his working life and so he is comfortably retired. He told me he likes to travel and would go anywhere to meet anyone on behalf of NEGST entirely at his own expense. I confess I was a bit stunned. He expects to be settled near Erie, Pennsylvania, by September and wants to spend some time with me learning and strategizing his involvement. I fully expect he will be at our next board meeting so you can meet him in person.

10. NEGST has had to borrow in order to purchase the four acres of land and buildings adjacent to the campus still owned by a Christian publishing firm. This is the same project which we agreed to raise $300,000 to help purchase. I told you and Douglas this has been very difficult money to raise since it's simply buying land and not building anything new on it. My failure to find this money has kept the pressure on NEGST and slowed down the move of the administration offices to that property and the expansion of the library to the second floor where the administration is now housed. All I could do was pledge to Douglas that I would try even harder this year to raise that money though I'm not sure where. If any of you have some contacts or ideas, please share them with me. This is not a glamorous project but something that only certain folks are willing to support because they know it helps stabilize an institution for the long term. Schools here have alumni who understand this but with NEGST, we don't have those kind of alumni. Finally, I was able to get some remarkable interviews with various denominational and church leaders about the recent crisis in Kenya and how the church responded. I expect to write a few articles this summer based on these interviews and hopefully get them published and generate some additional publicity for our efforts at the same time.

Thanks for your prayers,
Paul