DABOH Mission and Memory: IAMS Assembly, Balaton, 2008

Profiles of Participants

See Programme

Gerald Anderson, OMSC, New Haven, CT

After teaching church history on the faculty of Union Theological Seminary in the Philippines, Gerald H. Anderson returned to the United States and was President of Scarritt College, Nashville, and then was Director of OMSC for 24 years. He is now Director Emeritus and is a senior contributing editor of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research. A former president of the American Society of Missiology and the IAMS, he has attended all of the international assemblies of the IAMS and he has been commissioned to write a history of the IAMS. He has been a member of DAB(OH) since 1972. He is the editor of the Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, and most recently published an article on "Peter Parker and the Introduction of Western Medicine in China" in Mission Studies (2006).

Daniel Antwi,  The International University of the Caribbean, The United Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands

Daniel Antwi is dean of the Faculty of Theology and Professor of Biblical Theology at the International University of the Caribbean (IUC).  He has taught New Testament Studies and Missions for over twenty years, as well as being President of the Trinity Theological Seminary at Legon, Ghana.  Educated in the Universities of London and Aberdeen, he acknowledges Professor Andrew Walls as his most revered teacher in mission studies. He has special research interest in the African and Caribbean factor in Christian Mission to Africa,and has written on these. He is the editor of Development, the official journal of the Faculty of Theology of the IUC.  The Balaton Conference will be his first IAMS experience.

Siga Arles, Director, Indian Institute of Missiology Research Centre, Bangalore

Siga Arles obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Aberdeen. His doctoral dissertation mentored by Professor Andrew Walls was published by Peter Lang titled Theological Education for the Mission of the Church in India: 1947-1987 in 1991.

He is the Director of the Indian Institute of Missiology Research Centre at Bangalore. He is also the founder chair of India Ministries Fellowship, a developmental concern; Karnataka Mission Network, a statewide missionary concern; Centre for Contemporary Christianity, a publishing house. He edits the Journal of Asian Evangelical Theology of Asia Theological Association from 2002 and the Indian Journal of Missiology of Indian Institute of Missiology from 2006.

Siga Arles gives himself as visiting professor to many colleges and aims to develop a relevant and indigenous Indian Missiology through his many students and to produce literature to sustain such knowledge. He is involved in documentation of Indian mission history and to develop an archive of indigenous mission history in India.

Marcos Cirilo Arroyo Bahamonde, CEMAA, Peru

"I have a BA in Communication Sciences and actually I`m a MA degree candidate in Missiology at the Faculty "Orlando E. Costas" of CEMAA - Peru. Currently serves as pastor of an evangelical congregation full time in Peru. My work is focused on the study and analysis of contemporary missiology, especially Latin America. This includes an analysis of historical practice missionary in Latin America.  I have written some articles on the contextualization of the mission, and prospects for the biblical mission today.

I´d like to contribute to the DABOH Conference. I am interested in the session 'Issues and Strategies for Extending Access' and 'Issues and Strategies for Regional Partnership'."

Dwight Baker, OMSC

Dr Baker is the Associate Director of OMSC and Associate Editor of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research.  He served formerly as Director of the World Christian Foundations study program, U.S. Center for World Mission, Pasadena, California. 

John Bendor-Samuel, Wycliffe Bible Translators

"After starting with Wycliffe and SIL as a linguist-translator in Peru, I have served in various executive and consultative roles in Wycliffe in various parts of the world, especially in Africa.  I'm currently carrying out research on the development of this ministry in the period 1960 to 1985, including the coming into existence of national organisations in a number African countries.  This research includes the documentation of relevant papers. Our aim is to set up an archive that will ensure that these documents and papers are preserved and accessible.  Additional to the documentation, we are planning to include interviews with African leaders who have been involved.

As a newcomer to the field of archiving, I'm afraid there's not much that I can contribute but I am very interested in learning what is happening in the handling of various aspects of mission and church archives."

Jonathan Bonk, OMSC

Dr. Jonathan J. Bonk is the Executive Director of the Overseas Ministries Study Center in New Haven, Connecticut, and editor of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research. Before relocating to the United States in 1997, he served for twenty years as Professor of Global Christian Studies at Providence College and Theological Seminary in Canada. He was raised in Ethiopia by missionary parents, serving there with his wife in famine relief from 1974–1976. A Mennonite, he has served as President of both the American Society of Missiology and the Association of Professors of Mission, and is currently vice-president of the International Association for Mission Studies. He is the author of numerous articles and reviews, has published five books, and edited several others. He is best known for his book, Missions and Money: Affluence as a Western Missionary Problem (Orbis 1991/2007), reprinted eleven times before publication of a revised and expanded second edition in 2006. As Project Director for the Dictionary of African Christian Biography, a multilingual, electronic, non-proprietary reference tool (www.dacb.org), he travels extensively in Africa. He is editor of the Encyclopedia of Missions and Missionaries, published last year as Volume 9 in Routledge’s Religion and Society Series.

Corneliu Constantineanu, Evangelical Theological Seminary in Osijek, Croatia

Dr. Corneliu Constantineanu is Associate Professor and Academic Dean at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Osijek, Croatia and the President of ‘Elim’ Evangelical Theological Seminary in Timisoara, Romania. He has recently joined the Areopagus centre for Christian studies and contemporary culture in Timisoara as the director of the educational and research programs and in the leadership of the Romanian Institute for Evangelical Research.

Corneliu is a Romanian Christian educator, teacher and pastor. After receiving an engineering degree, with a specialization in biotechnologies, he has devoted his life to the study of theology and a teaching ministry pursuing a holistic and integrative understanding of the gospel as public truth, thus trying to integrate Christian faith with cultural, social and political realities of everyday life. Corneliu had the privilege of studying and working, for more than 14 years, in an international, interdenominational and multicultural context at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Osijek, Croatia. It was here that he received his BTh and MTh (Summa cum laude) and then became a resident faculty serving in various capacities as lecturer, mentor, pastor of the International Church in Osijek, director of library, Dean of Graduate Studies and, more recently, as Associate Professor and Academic Dean. Corneliu has completed his PhD in theological studies through the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies and the University of Leeds, UK in 2006. His continuing research interests are in the areas of New Testament theology; hermeneutics; reconciliation; relationships between Christian faith and public life: church & society, gospel & culture, faith & profession, religion and science; the dynamics of integration between theological, ministerial and spiritual formation.

I became very interested in DABOH as soon as I learned about it and I hope it will help me in my work at the Romanian Institute for Evangelical Research – as this is a very new enterprise for us.

Rosemary Dewerse, Bible College of New Zealand

"I have just embarked on a PhD fulltime after lecturing in Missions at the Bible College of New Zealand. Prior to that I was involved in instructional design of internet-based distance learning materials, including multi-media resource creation. I have lived and worked in Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia, lecturing at the United Bible Seminary, Bishkek. My research interests currently include: examining how Kyrgyz believers' experience of suffering and sacrifice is shaping their growing understanding of Christian discipleship; and the contribution that 30-somethings might make as we think about present and future approaches to world mission. I’m also passionate about ethnomusicology and Christian worship.

As far as contribution... I am keen to just listen and learn. I am conscious of my lack of experience as yet. Hopefully eventually there will be a way in which I might contribute in some way post-consultation."

Emilie Gangnat, Défap

Since 2006, I have been working in the Library of Défap where I'm in charge of the Digitization project of the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society iconographic archive. I have been student in History of Art for nearly ten years, first in the School of Louvre in Paris, then in the Pantheon-Sorbonne University in Paris. I'm now doing a PhD and my research is about missionary photography, its production and its diffusion.

As far as the DABOH Conference is concerned I am mostly interested in the session "Issues and Strategies for Extending Access".

Augustine Lee, Diocese of Taiyuan

Augustine Lee studies history at Gregorian University, Rome.  Since 2003 he began building up an archive of materials on the history of the Roman Catholic Church in China .  At present, this collection includes some four thousand books and over ten thousand personal letters of Chinese clergy and missionaries from the first half of the 20th century.

Claire-Lise Lombard, Défap

For almost ten years now I have been in charge of Library and Archive at the Défap (Paris, France), formerly the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society. But I am a librarian by profession, not an archivist. I also did some theological training and am part of the editorial  team of a mission journal "Perspectives missionnaires".

As far as the DABOH Conference is concerned I am mostly interested in: Issues and strategies for extending access (on Wednesday morning) and  Issues and strategies for regional partnership (on Thursday afternoon).

Jeremy Nordmoe, SIL International

"I have a BA in History from Taylor University and a MA in Public History from Middle Tennessee State University. In 1996, I completed a summer internship in the Archives Center of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. I have over ten years worth of archiving experience with the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, TN. I am a member of Wycliffe Bible Translators preparing to go fulltime as an archivist with SIL International. My role will be to coordinate archiving for Wycliffe/SIL's Americas Area – documenting & preserving our work in all of the Americas. I am interested in exploring the unique challenges associated with archiving within a missions context and how archiving can be an extension of a mission’s ministry to indigenous people groups. I also have an interest in the history of American evangelicals and their institutions (Wycliffe/SIL specifically).

I’m particularly interested in the Issues and Strategies for Extending Access sessions on Wednesday and on the Taking Stock (North & South) on Thursday.  I will be traveling to Peru later this month to do some records survey and appraisal for SIL. Afterward, I might have a better idea of the challenges SIL faces."

Michael Poon, DABOH Chair and CSCA Director, Singapore

Michael Poon is the Director of the Centre for the Study of Christianity in Asia, the mission research arm of Trinity Theological College, Singapore.  His interest in documentation grew out of his 14-year ministry in Macao, where Protestants had little independent access to understanding their own histories, and were dependent on those outside the churches in defining their social roles. Michael is at present involved in several intraregional initiatives in the Asia Pacific; the Documentation of Christianity in Asia Consortium; a Symposium on Cooperation and Partnership in the Mission of the Church in the 21st century, and a Conference on Theological Education for Chinese-speaking Churches in East Asia.  He is an ordained Anglican priest. 

I am eager that the August Consultation would give birth to concrete forms of partnerships within regions and across the continents.  This is vital to promoting better understanding of the life and witness of the Christian churches today."

Berthe Raminosoa, former Director FJKM Archives, Madagascar

Berthe Raminosoa is the Coordinator of the “Librarian training within Protestant Theological Seminars in Madagascar” project sponsored by the Centre de Litterature Chrétienne Francophone. She was former director of the FJKM Archives- Library Centre (1984 – 2007).

“I am particularly interested in the following sessions in the DABOH Consultation:

• setting up instruments for gathering information about archival depositories

• issues in collecting and preserving oral history

• case study from Southeast Asia and Africa, and the Roundtable on developing National, regional and International partnerships.

In Madagascar, documentation is still not among the priorities in the public nor in churches institutions. Every year there are cyclones and floods which destroy houses and documents as well."

Marek A. Rostkowski, OMI,  The Library of the Pontifical Urbaniana University

Fr Marek Rostkowski is the director of the Pontifical Missionary Library and the Pontifical Urbaniana University.  He is also the publisher of the "Bibliographia Missionaria".  Born in Poland, Fr Marek was ordained a priest in 1993. After ordination he continued studies at the Academy of Catholic Theology in Warsaw where he obtained a licentiate in theology in 1996. Called to Rome by the Superior General to prepare for work at the Urbaniana library Fr Rostkowski spent two more years of study during which he obtained a licentiate in missiology from the Gregorian University and the diploma in library science from the Vatican School of Library Science. He began work on a doctorate in missiology that same year while working part time at the Urbaniana library. He was a fulltime assistant librarian to Fr Willi Henkel prior to his appointment as head librarian of the Pontifical Urbaniana University.

John Roxborogh

"I am recently retired from the Knox College Centre for Ministry and Leadership in Dunedin New Zealand and currently teach Reformed Studies
part-time. I was previously convenor of DABOH and am looking forward to our gathering in Balaton and setting future directions for our work
encouraging church and mission archives around the world and research on the dynamic of Christian faith in all our cultures. My website is
http://roxborogh.com and my email john@roxborogh.com."

Rosemary Seton, SOAS

For many years Rosemary was in charge of archives and special collections in the Library of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. These include the archives and libraries of a number of major British missionary societies such as the London Missionary Society, the Methodist Missionary Society and the China Inland Mission. From 1999 to 2002 she directed the Mundus Project, a government-funded initiative to improve access to British missionary collections and to create an electronic gateway to UK Missionary resources. She assisted with the organisation of the Rescuing the Memory of our Peoples, a Joint IACM-IAMS Documentation and Archives Conference held at Rome in 2002 and, with Martha Smalley, wrote the Manual for Church and Mission Archives produced in connection with that Conference. This has now been translated into Chinese, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Swahili.

Bob Shuster, Billy Graham Center Archives

"I am an archivist at the Billy Graham Center Archives of Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois, USA.  We collect materials about North American nondenominaitonal Protestant Evangelical evangelism (see: http://www.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/  and http://www.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/ar/2007/cover.html )  I attended the IAMS-DAB mission conferences in Rome in 1980 and 2002 (see http://www.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/remember.html )  My primary interest for the 2008 meeting are in exploring 1) what other archives are doing the we can learn from; 2) how existing Christian archives can assist new archives and encourage denominations and institutions without any programs of historical preservation to begin ones; 3) how to create and sustain means of communications and support between existing archives; 4) how the documents preserved on the Church's history can be useful not just for scholarly publications but more directly in life and everyday practice of congregations and individual Christians; 5) ways to insure the preservation of materials outside the collection policy of denominational archives, that is to say the documents of significant independent Christian ministers, institutions, movements, and events." 

Paula Skreslet, Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education, Richmond

Paula Skreslet completed her D.Min. at Union Theological Seminary and her MLS at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign). She served for ten years in Egypt at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo, helping to manage the library there. She now works as Reference and Archives Librarian at the William Smith Morton Library. She is the author of numerous articles and two books specializing in sources for area studies and bibliography of religion in the Islamic world.

Stanley H. Skreslet, Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education, Richmond, Virginia

Stan Skreslet is F.S. Royster Professor of Christian Missions at Union-PSCE, where he has been teaching since 1997.  Previously, he served ten years on the faculty of the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo, Egypt.  His degrees come from Yale University (PhD), Union Theological Seminary in Virginia (DMin) and Lewis and Clark College (BA).  He is the author most recently of Picturing Christian Witness: New Testament Images of Mission (Eerdmans, 2006).  Active in the American Society of Missiology, he has served as President of the Association of Professors of Mission.  This year's meeting in Budapest will be his first chance to attend the IAMS conference.

Brian Stanley Cambridge/Edinburgh

Brian Stanley is currently Director of the Henry Martyn Centre for the Study of Mission and World Christianity and a Fellow of St Edmund's College, University of Cambridge. From 1 January 2009 he will be Professor of World Christianity at the University of Edinburgh and Director of the Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non-Western World. As Director of the University of Cambridge's Currents in World Christianity Project from 1996 to 2001 he took a keen interest in promoting strategies for the preservation of archival resources for the study of world Christian history. The Henry Martyn Centre is a specialist library and study centre in Cambridge which has recently acquired the important papers of Dr Joe Church, pioneer of the East African Revival Movement.

"This will be my first DABOH conference, and, though my impending move to Edinburgh will prevent me attending for the whole time, I am looking forward to meeting colleagues with shared interests and to participating in the discussions."

Paul Stuehrenberg, YDSL

Paul F. Stuehrenberg is the director of the Yale Divinity Library, home of the Day Missions Collection, one of the major repositories for documentation on the history of Christian missions and world Christianity. Yale has undertaken the Kenneth Scott Latourette Initiative for the Documentation of World Christianity, a program that sponsors the preservation of print and non-print materials at repositories around the world that compliment Yale's collections. Currently filming is underway at the Uganda Christian University and Victoria Bible College in Australia. Paul is a member of the ATLA International Collaboration Committee. Yale is one of the partners in the Documentation of Christianity in Southeast Asia Consoritum and is a member of the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau.

Guy Thomas, mission 21 and University of Basel, Switzerland

Guy Thomas, from Geneva, Switzerland, and London, England, completed his MA and PhD in history at the University of Zurich (1994) and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (2002), respectively. From 1995-2002, he spent a total of over four years as project leader and consultant setting up the PCC Central Archives and Library in Buea, Cameroon. He became Head of the Archives and Library of mission 21 and Lecturer in African history at the University of Basel in 2002. Having specialized in the history of West Africa, he combines the use of visual (photographic and cartographic) and written sources both in teaching and research. He is currently working on a project to upgrade and digitize the historical map collections of mission 21.

Mariel Deluca Voth, Bethel Seminary

"I am a member of the International Collaboration Committee of the American Theological Library Association.  I have been very involved in documenting Christianity in Latin America through RLIT and the Latin American Theological Fellowship (FTL) because I live in Buenos Aires at least 6 months out of the year."

Andrew Walls, Edinburgh/Liverpool Hope

Andrew Walls was Librarian of Tyndale House, Cambridge, in the 1950s, before service in Sierra Leone and then in Nigeria. He taught for many years at the University of Aberdeen (where he is now Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies). There he founded the Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non-Western World, building up resources for the study of Christian history, thought and life in Africa, Asia, Lain and Caribbean America and the Pacific. In 1986 the Centre moved, with him as Director, to the University of Edinburgh, where it has become widely recognized as as a major base for research in the field. Currently he is Honorary Professor in the University of Edinburgh, and also Professor of the History of Missions at Liverpool Hope University. There he is located in the Andrew Walls Centre for the Study of African and Asian Christianity, a new institute especially devoted to the collection of literature related to African and Asian Christianity, and Christian literature published there. He also lectures in several countries in Africa ands Asia, and is a professor in the Akrofi –Christaller Institute in Akropong, Ghana. He has also been Visiting Professor of World Christianity at both Yale and Harvard Universities, and Guest Professor of Mission and Ecumenics at Princeton Theological Seminary. Since 1972 he has been editor of the Bibliography on Mission Studies published in the International Review of Mission.

A member of IAMS since its inception, he was the first Convener of the DABOH (then the DAB) Group. He rejoices in the growth and development of the Group under its subsequent leadership, and expects the Balaton meeting to set new goals and standards in the collection of materials and the construction of instruments to support mission scholarship.

Jean-Paul Wiest, The Beijing Center for Chinese Studies

He is the Research Director of The Beijing Center for Chinese Studies (China). His interest in Oral History began some 28 years ago when he began working on the Maryknoll in China History Project. He has since developed and refined a two to four day workshop aimed at teaching Christian communities how to preserve the “living memories” that constitute the fibers of their identity and witness as a social and religious group. He has conducted this workshop some thirty five times in countries all around the world.

“I look forward to the DABOH consultation to benefit from the participants’ experiences and suggestions on how to plan and implement successful Oral History projects. We have so much to learn from one another.”

Christabel Wong, ForATL & Seminari Theologi Malaysia

I currently serve as the ForATL Treasurer and ForATL Area Representative for Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, as well the Editor of ForATL News. For the past decade, I have been a librarian at Malaysia Theological Seminary, which holds a special collection on the history of Christianity in Malaysia, Singapore and Borneo. The seminary library is a member of the Forum of Asian Theological Librarians and the newly-formed Malaysian Theological Libraries Association (MATLA), and is involved with their collaborative projects to compile union lists of theses and periodicals. We are also participating in the Documentation of Christianity and Asia project.

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