{"id":29,"date":"2011-08-11T00:08:16","date_gmt":"2011-08-11T05:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/(*Feel%20free%20to%20DELETE%20this%20page%20when%20you%20don't%20need%20it%20anymore.)All%20the%20navigation%20for%20your%20portfolio%20blog%20can%20be%20changed%20to%20point%20readers%20to%20your%20best%20work.Horizon"},"modified":"2016-09-03T22:26:56","modified_gmt":"2016-09-04T03:26:56","slug":"editing-menus","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/kilnamcha\/editing-menus\/","title":{"rendered":"Collegiality"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Inferno in Abilene\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It was an inferno! No, I am taking about Dante\u2019s Inferno <\/em>or Gehenna<\/em> in the Bible. I am talking about our move-in day, August 6, 2011. Every day was like an inferno in Abilene that Summer. We barely pulled into our driveway the night before with all our belongings in the largest U-Haul truck we could rent. My colleagues came to unload the stuffs that we had acquired over the years. We thought we got rid of many unessential stuff, but we still had too much for just two of us. The high temperature hit 106 degrees that day, and this was the day Rodney Ashlock, Chris Hutson, David Knipe and Wendell Willis experienced what Inferno<\/em> was really like, at least for about four hours, as Glenn and Dana Pemberton watched them work like slave drivers would. I am sure they all probably made an emendation to their new year\u2019s resolution to get rid of some stuff and live a simple life after that experience.<\/p>\n

I was moved immensely by their help and am forever grateful for their hot<\/em> welcome so that I myself came up with an emendation to my pledges that I would be there for my colleagues in need of my help. Inviting them back for Korean BBQ was just a beginning of repaying the debt I owe to them. I was always there to be the first of the hot<\/em> welcoming party whenever we had a new faculty move in to town. I was there to welcome Richard Wright, Amanda Pitman, and John Boyles move in. When the trumpet was blown to request help Amanda move in, I responded to the email by writing \u201cwith busted knee I come\u201d because I injured my right knee in February this year. Deborah Niccum thought that was funny. When Jonathan Huddleston purchased a house, I was there to help him move in, and also when he moved away I helped. When Jeanene Reese moved, not only did I help her on the moving day but also on other numerous occasions when she needed some minor repairs in the house. She may think she owes me a big time, but I was glad to help my colleague and friend. Letter from Jeanene Reese<\/a><\/p>\n

On the Mountain Top<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

When Cascade College was about to close its doors, my colleagues and church family often asked me the same question: \u201cWhat are you going to do?\u201d Without missing a bit I used to answer as if the closure were not a big deal for me at all: \u201cOh, I am going to take off a couple of years, work on the textbook project I had already started, and publish it. Then I will look for a job.\u201d In actuality, I had no idea what I was going to do. Well, I learned a lesson or two. For one I better watch out what I say. It took me exactly two years to find my dream job. As Cascade\u2019s closure came closer and closer, I used to remind myself to trust in God and never doubt his providence. At times, it was not easy \u2013 especially when OC did not offer me a position, when the Ohio Valley University chose somebody else, when I could not even land an adjunct position in Oregon, etc. Little did I know that God had a better plan for me \u2013 my dream job at my dream school! What more do I need? I am already on top of the mountain. It was a homecoming. I have finally come back home. My colleagues consist of my former teachers, my classmates and a few new faces.<\/p>\n

Since my arrival in Abilene I have been privileged to be part of a small weekly prayer fellowship with Jeff Childers, Doug Foster, David Wray and John Willis. They have been so gracious to extend their invitation to include me to fellowship with and to be mentored by them. John and Doug were my teachers in 1990s. It has been a significant blessing for me to have this esteemed group of colleagues to mentor me. I feel like Peter sharing the same feeling, \u201cLord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters\u201d \u2013 As for me I would have to put up more shelters. With the Lord\u2019s presence through my humble, esteemed colleagues I am truly on top of the mountain!\u00a0Letter from Jeff Childers<\/a>\u00a0Letter from Doug Foster_Weekly Prayer Group<\/a><\/p>\n

Keeping Good Company<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

When I was a kid, my mom used to say, \u201cAlways keep good company.\u201d Second Century Seminar is another occasion for me to be obedient to my late mom by surrounding me with great minds like Everett Ferguson, James Thompson, and Wendell Willis. Whenever I go to this quarterly meeting usually in the metro area, we ride together as Wendell as our chaperone, discuss the paper together, and ritually take a detour to eat ice cream at Braum\u2019s. For the most part, I am simply gleaning their wisdom by keeping good company.<\/p>\n

The Legend of the Nimrods<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

At Cascade College where I taught for five years, I was the only Old Testament faculty. There was no one to bounce off my idea. I am now blessed with several Old Testament faculty \u2013 John Willis, Mark Hamilton, Mindi, Thompson, Rodney Ashlock, and Glenn Pemberton. Soon after I joined the ACU faculty Glenn Pemberton came up with this idea of an Old Testament colloquy to share our research informally and have fellowship once or twice a semester and called it the Nimrods. It has been a while since we met last time, but I\u2019ve enjoyed our gathering and gleaning much of their wisdom.<\/p>\n

The Bible, Justice and Law<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2014 Tim Sensing asked me to teach an interdisciplinary graduate course, so I invited Andy Little to work with me on this new course we entitled The Bible, Justice and Law. We spent quite a time developing the course for January 2015. In the exchange of ideas I came up with an idea of convening some sessions at the Christian Scholars Conference, so I started inviting scholars from diverse fields and institutions \u2013 Old Testament, New Testament, Social Work, Law, Business, Economics, theology, to name some. Participants include Mark Hamilton, Andy Little, Katie Wick, Stephanie Hamm, Monty Lynn, David Perkins and Mindi Thompson from ACU, and from other institutions came Tim Willis (Pepperdine), Chip Kooi (OC), Kelsey Herndon (OC) Ron Clark (George Fox), and Charles Rix (OC), to name several. The GST course in January 2014 didn\u2019t make due to lack of interest, but we had three sessions at the CSC in 2015 two sessions in 2016, and plan to have two more years of presentations. With this project I have been able to interact with my colleagues in different disciplines, and that interaction will expand in the next two years as more presenters are scheduled to participate. Letter from Andy Little<\/a>\u00a0David Fleer is very appreciative of my effort of convening sessions, he once said, \u201cKilnam, thank you very much. In the past few years you put together more sessions than anybody, besides Tom Albright.\u201d I could have him put it in writing, but I didn\u2019t want to bother him to do so because he has been dealing with a terrible loss of his loved one. Instead, David Fleer\u2019s simple thank you card may be sufficient.<\/p>\n

In 2015 upon request by Tim Sensing to teach an interdisciplinary GST course, I asked Kyle Tippens of COBA to work with me on this. We developed together BIBL 640 Biblical Perspectives on Stewardship and taught the class in January 2016. It was my pleasure to work with Kyle. Letter from Kyle Tippens<\/a>\u00a0From time to time I invite my colleagues to my classes as guest speakers, who would provide their expertise from a different perspective and discipline that would strengthen the messages of the Bible. The list includes Ron and Janine Morgan, John Xu, Gary Green, Larry Henderson, Yann Opsitch, to name several. Occasionally, I\u2019ve visited somebody else\u2019s classes. Chris Hutson\u2019s Chruch History was one, Doctor of Ministry class taught by Randy Harris and David Wray was another.Thank You Card from David Wray and Randy Harris<\/a><\/p>\n

Since I am deeply involved with mission work in China, I\u2019ve been working closely with Dr. John Xu and Berlin Fang in several contexts. They started weekly Chinese Bible Study last year, and they invite Bible faculty to teach that class. I know Mindi Thompson and Doug Foster have been their guest teachers. I taught the class three times thus far. (Their Thank You Card) I\u2019ve also invited Dr. John Xu and Berlin Fang as guest speakers to Ebed, weekly Korea-China mission interest chapel group I sponsor so that they can educate my student to be culturally competent. I also invited Dr. John Xu, Dr. Fei Gao of Hardin-Simmons, and Dr. Daqing Yuan to work with me on a three-part Summit presentation in 2014. I also work closely with WWW and enlist the expertise of Larry Henderson and Gary Green to prepare my students for mission trips to Korea and China. They also introduce me to contacts in China.\u00a0Letter from Phil Vardiman<\/a><\/p>\n

The Korean term for family literally means \u201ceating mouth,\u201d implying that family is somebody you share meals. I\u2019ve invited many of my colleagues for dinner, both from our college and outside the CBS. It would be too numerous to name all who have been to my house for Korean BBQ, and some of them came multiple times. My wife and I have also been to many of my colleagues\u2019 homes to share meals and fellowship. The list of the homes includes the Ashlocks, the Hamiltons, the Littles, the Pembertons, the Popes, the Reeves, and the Thompsons, to names several. When Ken and Karen Kukrowski visited Korea in this past July to attend the Society of Biblical Literature International Conference, I worked as their host and tour guide.\u00a0Letter from Ken Cukrowski<\/a><\/p>\n

Faculty Intramural Team Sports<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been actively involved in faculty intramural team sports. The Sunflowers of Death was the first team I was part of for four years. Members include Ryan Jessup, Matt Garver, Don Pope, Andy Little, Brent Reeves, Kyle Tippens and David Kneip, to name several regulars. Ray Petit, Dwayne Towell, Neal Coats, James Prather, Houston Heflin, Vic McCraken and numerous staff, GST and undergraduate students have played with us. Andy Little named the team the Sunflowers of Death. I am currently sitting out due to my knee injury, but we play twice a week for a couple of hours each time. It has been a great way to strengthen collegiality and exercise. \"1st<\/a>We play against student teams when intramural season begins, and we went to the championship game four times in the past, only to be beaten by the our opponents who apparently never age \u2013 they are always between eighteen to twenty-two years of age whereas we age each year.<\/p>\n

When competition got too fierce in the Fall of 2015, a graduate student wanted to join my team. Apparently, there was a rumor that I was forming a new team that would focus on fellowshipping and having fun together, not winning at all cost. That was how I started a new faculty team the Ten Plague with Pope\u2019s blessing \u2013 our (Don) Pope, not the one in Vatican City. Again the naming right belonged to Andy Little. New faculty members like Nathan Gibbs and Nil Santana were added to some former Sunflowers Kyle Tippens, Don Pope, and me. \"Ten<\/a>The rest of the team members are GST students, most of whom are foreign students like my GA, so this provides a good avenue for them to interact with our faculty in an informal setting. We\u2019ve played two seasons thus far, won some games and lost some, but most importantly \u201cenjoyed playing together immensely,\u201d to use Kyle Tippens\u2019s word.<\/p>\n

Also I was one of those who helped release the beast in Vic McCraken and John Camp in our faculty dodge ball team. Vic asked me to join the team, and we played for two seasons. The beast in Vic was quite tamed, but the beast in John was completely manifested and uncontrollable. We were just goofing for our students\u2019 benefit for the most part, and students loved John as he taunted and dared them to get him out. It is too bad we don\u2019t have a video of our games, but our students thoroughly enjoyed watching us make fun of ourselves on their behalf.<\/p>\n

Obviously, I have not yet crossed paths with many of our faculty and staff members. Yet I appreciate my colleagues\u2019 collegiality in many different contexts and hope to strengthen collegiality and widen it in the coming years.<\/p>\n

Next Page:\u00a0CV<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Inferno in Abilene\u00a0 It was an inferno! No, I am taking about Dante\u2019s Inferno or Gehenna in the Bible. I am talking about our move-in day, August 6, 2011. Every day was like an inferno in Abilene that Summer. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-29","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/kilnamcha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/kilnamcha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/kilnamcha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/kilnamcha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/kilnamcha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/kilnamcha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":557,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/kilnamcha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29\/revisions\/557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/kilnamcha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}