A New Calling to Sudan

November 30, 2004

Davis and McMurtry

For Megan McMurtry M.T.S. '03, Th.M. '05 running an office for the divinity chaplain, Black Church Studies program and Baptist House usually does not leave time to listen to conversations going on around her. One day in late summer, however, she could not help taking notice of what Ellen Davis, professor of Old Testament, discussed with Tiffney Marley, director of the Office of Black Church Studies.

Davis had just returned from Sudan in Africa and was relating her vision for a visiting teacher program at Renk Bible College in southern Sudan. McMurtry knew almost instantly that she wanted to be a part of it. She said, "What an amazing opportunity to use what I have learned to minister to those who have not had the same opportunities I have. At the same time, I can gain a new outlook on how I can be involved in the international church and learn from the people of Sudan."

Renk is the northern most city of southern Sudan, just west of the Darfur region that has been so often in the news recently. Renk has never been completely cut off from the power centers in the north, but it has known the pain of that country’s protracted war nonetheless. Episcopal Bishop Daniel Deng Bul, a former student and friend of Davis, has worked to establish schools and homes for the thousands of children orphaned and abandoned during hostilities.

Renk College Construction

McMurtry is prepared for the rough conditions of a developing country. She said, "Sure the time there will be difficult, but if the Sudanese people live in these conditions and worse, war, all their lives, surely I can endure it for three or four weeks." She and Anna Brawley, Ph.D. adjunct instructor of Hebrew at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, will teach three classes of Hebrew a day during their stay.

Davis has realized the Renk Visiting Teachers Program through a partnership between Duke Divinity, Renk Bible College and Virginia Theological Seminary. To learn more about the program or help support McMurtry and future teachers, read the Plan for the Visiting Teachers Program at Renk Bible College.