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9.10.04 Team Berlin gospel choir Erskine alumnae to share mission team turf in Berlin Three recent Erskine graduates, Blaire Oakley, Rebekah Carson and Caroline Miller, are likely to run into each other in Berlin later this year, but not as American tourists enjoying the sights of a European city. Oakley, an E.B. Kennedy Scholar who graduated summa cum laude in 2003, is already a member of "Team Berlin," a church-planting team in the eastern part of Berlin, and has been working overseas since May. Carson, one of three co-valedictorians in the Class of 2000, is in the United States training to join Team Berlin early in 2005. Miller, who graduated magna cum laude last spring, is raising financial support to join Oakley and Carson in Berlin, where she will be living with a missionary family and helping them with their children, enabling them to continue their work. PICKING A TEAM Oakley, of Conyers, Ga., joined Team Berlin by a roundabout route. During her senior year at Erskine, she was checking out mission opportunities in Bulgaria, a country she visited during her final Winter Term at Erskine. "I had begun raising support to go to Bulgaria and join the team there," Oakley said. "However, God used various circumstances that following summer, and while I had raised the needed support, I felt that He was directing me elsewhere." The turning point for Oakley was meeting Team Berlin leader Ken Mattlack and his wife Tammie in Atlanta while the missionaries were home on furlough. She said she was so excited by their account of their work that "In less than three weeks I was on a plane on my way to visit the team in person and observe the ministry firsthand." Team Berlin is affiliated with Mission to the World (MTW), sponsored by the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). But Carson, daughter of Erskine President Dr. John Carson and his wife Sarah Ellen — both Associate Reformed Presbyterians — wanted to pursue her call to missions within the ARP Church. "I decided to start with World Witness, since it is an agency of my own ARP denomination," she said. "These were the people who knew me the best and who would support me and pray for me." It turned out that Team Berlin's leadership included not only the PCA, but also the Associate Reformed Presbyterian (ARP) Church, and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC). With its ARP presence, the group was a good fit for Carson. Miller, who is from Dillon, followed a path of friendship to Team Berlin. She said she heard from a family friend that one of the Team Berlin missionary families needed a nanny. At the conclusion of a mission trip to Spain this summer, she took a detour to Berlin to visit Oakley. "So I e-mailed the family about meeting them while I was in Germany," Miller said. "And during my time with Blaire, I was able to visit with the family and their three kids, and talked with them about the possibility of joining Team Berlin and living with them." INFLUENCES During their college days, a variety of experiences at Erskine encouraged Oakley, Carson and Miller in their interest in mission work. For Oakley, a desire for mission service kindled in childhood was fanned at Erskine. "Foreign missions has been in my heart since I was a young girl, so being able to serve here in Berlin fulfills a lifelong desire," she said. "At Erskine, I was able to do short-term work in Wales, a wonderful experience in itself that confirmed my heart's desire to serve the Lord overseas." Oakley, who earned a double major in psychology and philosophy at Erskine, said she found philosophy courses "extremely helpful in challenging my Christian worldview and helping me to dig deeper into why I believe all that I believe." Those philosophy courses are still important now that she is working as a missionary. "Since I've been on the field, I've found philosophy is helpful in assessing the perspective of others and figuring out ways to communicate lovingly and understandably that which I know to be true." Carson said her experiences at Erskine helped her realize "that God wants me to be involved in ministry wherever I am." She completed a double major in history and Christian education and worked beginning in her freshman year with the Good News Club, a ministry to community children, becoming the group's leader in her junior year. Although she had felt called to missions even in middle school, Carson said, "My heart was never set on a particular people — I have always been pretty open." So when Carson took several courses on Germany for her history major, it was not part of a plan to serve as a missionary in Berlin. She recalls especially a European history class taught by Dr. Sandra Chaney in which she wrote a paper on the church during the Nazi regime. Her college studies prompted her to "think harder or more clearly about what I believe," Carson said, adding that her focus was on "growing into maturity and making the faith my own." Miller, who majored in Spanish, with a minor in Bible and religion, said her first overseas mission experience at Erskine was during spring break of her freshman year. "I went on the Wales trip, and after that I was hooked," she said. "Since then I've been to China with ELIC (English Language Institute/China) to teach English and this summer I went to Spain on a two-week mission trip." TRAINING Oakley underwent extensive training before going to Berlin; Carson is taking a number of training courses in the United States; and Miller, whose planned Berlin assignment is a short-term one, is on a track different from that of Oakley and Carson, but hopes to go to Berlin "as soon as possible." Oakley's training for her assignment has included a program offered by MTW titled "Living in Grace," and another program called "SPLICE" offered by Missionary Training International (MTI) in Colorado. She describes SPLICE as "three weeks of training along with 37 other missionaries from various organizations, denominations and backgrounds, all headed to various parts of the world." By the end of the program, Oakley said, "we had bonded as a missionary community." Carson also took a SPLICE class and learned about moving from one culture into another. "Where the cultures clash is your weak point as a missionary," she said. "The class helped us be more aware of our American values, appreciate cultural differences and keep from being frustrated by them." Team dynamics was also part of the SPLICE program, Carson said. "Stress with fellow missionaries is one of the main reasons missionaries leave the field," she said. "The class helped us think through team dynamics, help things work together." Language training is essential for many missionary assignments, and Carson said she worked on "how to learn languages in general, phonetic and linguistic studies and drills" in a program called PILAT (Program in Language Acquisition Techniques) offered by MTI. She also hopes to benefit from some tutoring in German this fall provided by Kerstin Hering, wife of missionary Jay Hering. "I'll be in language school when I get over there for the next two years," she said. "But Blaire is not through with her language studies and she is still able to interact with people over there." Although much of her work will be behind the scenes with a missionary family, Miller said she spoke with another member of Team Berlin about helping with the English ministry. "My time spent studying abroad in Madrid helped me learn how to adjust to different cultures," she said. CHALLENGES Serving as a missionary in a historically Christian country in Europe might seem like an easy assignment, but Oakley has discovered its difficulties, and Carson and Miller are likely to experience some of the same challenges. Oakley was introduced to Berlin when she first made a visit there to observe the mission team's work. "I was overwhelmed by a sense of darkness and heaviness that hangs over this city," she said. "There is a sharp contrast in Berlin between East and West, even 15 years after the fall of the wall.” She said that in the eastern part of the city, where Team Berlin's work is concentrated, "you still sense the presence of that wall in the hearts of the people — over 85 percent of the people have no belief in any God whatsoever." Oakley said it can be hard for missionaries to continue their own spiritual growth and progress toward maturity while in the field. In Berlin, the Christian community is small, she said, and Christians are often thought to be intellectually inferior. "I only know a small group of believers in this city of four million," she said. "But our training prepared us for such isolation, and helped us to develop practical, creative ways to continue to grow spiritually." GETTING THINGS DONE Oakley said there is "no typical day" for her in Berlin. She spent most of the first month getting settled in and during the second month was learning her way around the city, picking up bits of the language, and developing relationships with a few Germans. "That second month I was also able to assist in some ministry — we had organized a Gospel Choir week," she said. "We had nearly 40 adults come to be a part of the choir, which met for two hours each night for a week, culminating in a concert for friends and family." Oakley said she has completed more than eight weeks of language school, is still in school about 25 hours week, and spends a lot of time studying when she is not in class. "I have also been blessed with some great German friends who assist me as I stumble my way through the language." As she takes care of such chores as daily trips to the grocery store to replenish a refrigerator she describes as "the size of a shoe box," Oakley said, "God's already opened up doors for ministry opportunities, so much of my time is invested in relationships." Carson said she will be working in a family center the team has established in Berlin, a ministry with programs for youth and children. "It's sort of a community center, with English as a second language classes, a Christian scouting group, and also different special programming such as craft clubs," she said. "It is a way of building relationships." Carson summed up the motivation shared by these three Erskine alumnae who will meet in Berlin — "To reach out and show them that someone cares about them, that a heavenly Father cares about them."
Rebekah Carson |
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