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Intercultural Studies and Missions alumni are using their degrees around the world in a plethora of ways and contexts. You can read about a few below.

Rob Maupin graduated from the Biblical and Theological Perspective Missions track:

Before coming to Wheaton, I was a youth minister for eight years, working in churches in Texas and Missouri. I also worked as a youth minister in Wheaton while I was studying. After graduating from Wheaton, I recruited a team of four couples to work in Mexico City (missionmexicocity.com). Most of my personal work involved leadership, team development, fundraising and leadership training. My team's work revolved around existing churches. We developed a series of Spanish language discipleship resources and events for youth (www.lavidaprofunda.com), did leadership training for elders and pastors, and also developed an outdoor ministry of camping, rock climbing etc. for local youth groups. Our team lived and worked there for five wonderful years.

My studies at Wheaton were foundational for our work in Mexico, especially in shaping a wiser approach to cross-cultural problems. Within four months I was applying the case study analysis process to some of the cross-cultural problems we faced. The research and communication models in the core courses became both maps and life-preservers for me. In addition to the course content, I was deeply happy to learn a new model of intellectual and spiritual discipline. The need for wisdom in cross-cultural work is simply astounding; this job sometimes seems like one of the most complicated fields in the world. I am deeply thankful for the classes and professors which so shaped my vision of God, development, holism, spiritual conflict and leadership.

At present I am the assistant professor of Intercultural Studies at Lincoln Christian College, in Lincoln, Illinois. I have been at LCC for a year and, along with Professor Mike Nichols, I am working to train undergraduate students to become healthy, excellent “entry-level” missionaries. Professor Nichols and I try to help match students with agencies/ministries. Our program allows a fair degree of preparation in a specific area of mission like Business, Youth Ministry, Bible Translation, Urban Ministry and TESOL. My experience and studies at Wheaton have stirred my passion to call students toward a disciplined and wise approach to cross-cultural work. When I left Mexico I began reflecting on how the discipline of study blessed our life and work on the field. I am convinced that this kind of preparation is both loving and effective. It is my honor to be a small part of that task. I think of my time at Wheaton and realize that I owe a great debt of love to the professors there. A great deal of the good in my life is a direct result of contact with them.

I have been married to Shannon for 15 years and we have two gorgeous kids, Garrett and Kate.

Chris Irwin, who has worked as a church-planter in Guayaquil, Ecuador for 16 years, completed his Intercultural Studies MA during his last furlough. As he studied, he was unexpected and deeply impacted by Principles of Development, one of the courses in the Community Development track:

During our last furlough, the Lord guided us to study at Wheaton, and while I expected to grow in knowledge, the Lord had much deeper plans. One of His plans involved a paradigm shift in ministry philosophy through a course I tried my best to avoid, without success!

As a church planter, my focus has been on reaching out to address people’s spiritual needs. Our city is surrounded by invasiones; miles and miles of squatters’ shacks where the poorest of the poor live without basic necessities. We have two works in these areas and we've done our best to reach out with spiritual help. We even wrote in our team's purpose statement that we did not want to involve ourselves in any social work. Didn't Jesus say that the poor will always be with us?

Having tried unsuccessfully to avoid the course Principles of Development, I sat in the first class and wondered just how honest I should be when Dr. Campbell asked each student to share why they were in the class and what they hoped to learn from it. When my moment came, I was very frank. I am a church planter and not only have I not been involved in social ministries, I feel like they deviate from the most important work which is spiritual, not physical...

Over the next few months God used this class more than any other to open my eyes to the fact that we should not separate the spiritual from the physical, that we are to work to establish God's kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven, that poverty, social injustice as well as many other developmental needs are spiritual matters. Furthermore, my Ecuadorian brothers and sisters will imitate what I do! In spite of having established several churches, there was virtually no ministry to reach out to the needy.
I came away shaken in the realization that I had ignored the poor and our responsibility as Christian leaders to involve ourselves in their lives. Most importantly, I came away with a plan of action. While my primary work has been church planting and I am not directly working in development, I am equipped to implement change. First, was the determination to begin dialoging with our churches regarding the issues. Second, was providing them with resources, many of which are already in Spanish, and some even written from a Latin American perspective. Third, I would seek to read scripture with an eye toward the poor and not from my own privileged cultural lenses.

Taking the course Principles of Development wasn't easy, but it was invaluable. I'm glad that the Missions Department of Wheaton had the foresight to make what I thought should be an elective a course requirement.

www.IrwinsInEcuador.com
www.MissionsForDummies.com

Miriam Smith graduated from the Community Development Missions track:

It has been my huge privilege to graduate from the Intercultural Studies program at Wheaton Graduate School. This was made possible for me through the Billy Graham Scholarship.

I am a missionary kid (MK) from Chad, Africa and I grew up loving and thriving in Africa. I returned to Africa the day after my wedding to another African MK and we began our own missionary journey. During our furlough in 2002-2003, I was able to begin studies as a full-time student at Wheaton. After years in Africa, living out the reality of cross-cultural communication and contextualization, it was so amazing to sit in a class and hear professors explain in concrete terms what had been my experience for so many years. It gave me so many hooks to hang my realities on. I also learned so much from our readings and from interaction with other students, especially our international brothers and sisters.

Currently, I have been asked by our mission to develop curriculum and teach a course in transformational development and missions at our East Africa School of Theology. This is my absolute passion and joy and I couldn't have done it without the scholarly and personal input from the classes and professors at Wheaton.

My husband and I are also involved in helping the national churches of Kenya gain a vision for transformational development and training local bodies of believers to touch their communities in tangible, love-centered ways.

On a personal level, the presentation of God, especially in my development classes, broadened my view of God and my love for Him. He is a big God, concerned about poverty and injustice as well as the God of solutions for these problems which so often confound us humans. It is encouraging to know that the God we serve has answers not only for our personal, spiritual problems, but also for societal and structural evils.

I can only thank God for the opportunity to study at Wheaton, and trust Him for opportunities to pass on the knowledge and hope He has given me.

Megan Johnson has used her Intercultural Studies and Community Development education in agricultural development in Zimbabwe:

I completed Wheaton’s Intercultural Studies MA program in 2003. Some of my favorite Intercultural Studies courses, including Cross-Cultural Research and Intercultural Communication, imparted to me new ways of viewing the world around me and the possibilities that exist in that world. The Cross-Cultural Research course really awakened in me a gifting and desire to make discoveries about a particular culture and to use that information to bless them in some way. I was able to take “informal” surveys during my time in Zimbabwe, simply by being available and interested when I was sitting among farm workers during our tea breaks. Asking a simple question and giving people time to respond unveiled before me a view of life of which I knew nothing. Discovering that many of the poorest visitors to the farm’s medical clinic had no close access to a water source prompted us to provide a teaching session on how to plant a small veggie garden using a minimum of water.

Beginning in August of 2007, I spent four months in Zimbabwe working as an agriculturalist with Farming God’s Way and Eden Children’s Village. I had recently completed a one year internship in tropical agriculture with Florida-based ECHO (Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization), and traveled to Zimbabwe to complete the internship and explore long-term possibilities for work. While in Zimbabwe, I had the privilege of learning first-hand from Zimbabwean farmer and Farming God’s Way founder, Brian Oldreive, and observing how he has implemented a powerful spiritual and agricultural solution for the poor of Africa. Using Farming God’s Way principles, I then spent two months working on a farm at the children’s village, where I was able to work amongst the people (weeding, fertilizing, planting, turning compost, digging) and appreciate and value the kind of life that is normal for a large portion of our world (that of survival and manual labor).

I plan to return to Zimbabwe for my future work and am so grateful for the “eyeglasses” my Wheaton program imparted to me. I feel the possibilities are endless regarding ways I can make a difference in Africa if my eyes remain open!
Nara Bayadaa was one of the Community Development track’s international student graduates:

I am involved in a teaching ministry at Union Bible Theological College (UBTC) in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. UBTC has been operating since 1995. The college is the largest theological institution in Mongolia. UBTC serves member churches from all denominations and currently has about 130 students from 70 churches in Mongolia.

While I was studying at Wheaton Graduate School, I took two courses on Community Development, Theology of Development and Principles of Development, which reshaped my thinking of Christian perspectives on development. Particularly, I was educated more on Biblical holism and holism in the ministry. My desire is to convey the sound doctrine and genuine Biblical truth to the student body at UBTC and to the Mongol church, as it is young and newly established.