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Missouri Baptist University
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For Immediate Release

RE: Aiding Africa

Aiding Africa

September 2, 2005

Eric Elves

After graduating from Missouri Baptist University this past spring, Eric Elves wasted no time putting his academic knowledge to practical use, spending a summer teaching people a world away from the primary textbook of his chosen field of study.

Alongside Dr. Curtis McClain, MBU professor of religion and chair of the humanities division, Elves traveled to Africa, touring the continent for nearly a month in an effort to spread God’s love.

Their time in the world’s poorest continent was eye opening, to say the least.

“I have now decided that I will never presume to do a lasting missionary work without learning the people’s language, sitting around their fire, listening to their folk stories, and sharing in their lives,” said Elves, who graduated in April with a bachelor’s of arts degree in religion. “For the short time we had, God blessed and the work was good. But lasting ministry in that place means sacrifice and loving the people to the point that regardless of culture, language, or color they become your family and you theirs.”

McClain echoed Elves’ sentiment.

“We kind of went there knowing that the trip’s purpose is not about us, it is about the mission of the missionaries,” McClain said. “If we’re not a blessing to them, who spent years in the mission field, we don’t need to be there.”

Plans of the trip materialized early Elves’ senior year. And while the Florissant, Mo. native initially jumped at the chance to minister oceans away, as his final year at MBU drew to a close, uncertainties about plans of his first post-college summer began to surface.

“When the time to leave got close I began to fear. I didn’t deserve to go. What gave me the right to go around the world and tell people to change their lives, beliefs, and maybe even culture to embrace a gospel even I have trouble putting my faith in all the time?” said Elves, who is beginning his graduate work at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary this fall. “Eventually God gave me the answer. What gives me the right? He does, the Great Commission does.”

So with reservations out of the way, Elves and McClain delved into their ministry headfirst, traveling deeper into the African bush, an underdeveloped part of the country full of wildlife, than many longtime African missionaries.

“We were also told that many of the children would probably never have seen white people before and that they may be scared of us,” Elves said. “Once they were assured by their parents that we were safe, they were mesmerized by us. They would sit very close to us and steal glances, occasionally touching us to see if our skin and hair felt the same as theirs.”

In the middle of Africa’s dense wildlife, Elves and McClain spent days praying and assisting other missionaries who have been entrenched in the region for years.

For the last arm of the trip, the pair spent a week in Mozambique, an African country that has been on an economic upswing since it was deemed in 1990 the poorest country in the world. There the pair spent their time educating the country’s leading pastors and church planters about the Bible.

While the church leaders were by no means filled with academic knowledge, as Elves can attest, they were no doubt complete with Jesus’ love.

“They were uneducated, none of them even graduating from high school, but they were nonetheless profoundly godly men,” Elves explained. “They know in whom they have believed and were thirsty for more of the Word. It was humbling seeing their love for Scripture, they have such a desire but no opportunity while all too often I have great opportunity and no desire. I felt like a fraud. But, God used that in my life and I realized that He can redeem all things and that either way I was there and had a purpose to serve and people to love.”

Elves’ trip to Africa proved insightful in many ways. But maybe above all, it resolved a question for him that no textbook or lecture could ever fully answer.

“Sometimes people would question me as a religion major, always asking why I spent so much time reading books and studying things that real people don’t care about,” Elves said. “On the other side of the planet, doing the real ministry with illiterate people guess what the first question from the first person I met in the bush was. He asked me to help him understand the Trinity. Never again will I doubt God’s purposes in calling different people to different courses of study and different lifestyles. He is glorified by anyone ho passionately seeks His glory.”

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Missouri Baptist University is a premier Christian university in Saint Louis, offering graduate and undergraduate studies in over thirty specialized fields and nine degrees. MBU's education and fine arts programs are nationally known in addition to business, religion, administration of justice, and more. MBU is one of the fastest growing higher education institutions in Missouri with an enrollment of over 4,500 students at five locations in the bi-state region — West County, Lincoln County, Jefferson County, Franklin County and the new Illinois extension at Lewis and Clark Community College.

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