International Fellowship Evangelical Students

“Ridiculous” and “Scary”: Bob Grahmann’s 40 Years of Ministry With ��ñ��

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Tue, 20 Aug 2019 13:40:18 +0000

Gordon Govier

“Ridiculous” and “Scary”: Bob Grahmann’s 40 Years of Ministry With ��ñ��

The train stopped at the border between Hungary and Romania. Bob Grahmann was sitting in the last row of seats. He saw the glaring searchlights, the dogs, and the barbed wire outside. He watched as guards boarded the train with their machine guns and methodically rifled through the passengers’ luggage.

It was 1983, at the height of the Cold War. Bob was an ��ñ�� Area Director in New Jersey with four years of campus ministry experience preceded by four years as a local church pastor. A friend working in Eastern Europe had invited Bob to teach church history to Romanian pastors for three weeks during the summer. When they met in Vienna, the friend told Bob that his wife was sick and Bob would have to travel on his own.

As the Romanian border guards moved down the aisle, getting closer and closer, Bob didn’t like what he saw. “I have a whole suitcase full of Christian books,” he thought. “This is going to be really bad.” Bob knew that many people were praying for his trip. And strangely, as the guards got nearer and nearer, he felt at peace with whatever was going to happen.

“They got to the person in front of me and the train started to lurch a little bit,” he recalled. “They said to each other, ‘That’s it.’ They came over to me, shook my hand, and said in English, ‘Have a nice time in Romania.’ Then they jumped off the train. I was the only one on that train whose luggage they did not check.”

With that trip Bob was hooked on international ministry. “I thought, this was the hardest thing I have ever done. This was ridiculous. This was scary. And I want to do this the rest of my life.”

Within a couple years Bob and his wife Patricia moved their family to Vienna. They were invited by ��ñ��’s Missions Director at the time, John Kyle, to begin a Global Project in Eastern Europe. ��ñ�� students from the US came to Eastern European countries to assist evangelistic summer camps organized by the Slavic Gospel Association.

Soon they were also working with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES). Student Christian movements were expanding as communism began to lose its grip on Eastern Europe—something Bob witnessed first hand. “I was there when the walls came down,” he said, referring to the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989.

In 1990 he returned to the US to succeed Barbara Boyd as director of the Bible and Life discipleship training. But he couldn’t stay away from Eastern Europe because the new student movements needed Bible training.

“They were coming out of seventy years of Communism and all of a sudden it disappeared,” he said. “I returned three or four times a year through the 1990s. I started Bible and Life in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Georgia.”

In August of 1991, Bob was in Vienna and took a phone call from ��ñ��’s then Missions Director Dan Harrison, asking him to go to Albania and set up a Global Project. Until that time Albania had been the most atheistic country in the world, and closed to most visitors. Within hours Bob was able to get a visa and a seat on the once-weekly flight between Vienna and Tirana.

He landed in the middle of the night and providentially met a recent graduate of the University of Tirana English Department, who had been led to Christ by a previous visitor two weeks earlier. He told Bob the English faculty at the university was meeting the next morning but advised Bob to watch out for the department chair, who also happened to be the chair of the Communist Party at the university.

Bob presented ��ñ��’s plan for the cultural exchange project at the meeting, including the fact that they would be studying the Bible. “The chairman looked at me and she said, ‘We have been without God for 50 years in this country, and we really need that. Where do I sign?” The next summer there was a Global Project in Albania.

At a conference in 1999 Bob was told by the leaders of the IFES movements in Eastern Europe that they felt they were suffering from lack of proper training. "We'd like you to come and start a training institute for us, for national staff in Eurasia, to train us in theology, Bible, skills of the ministry, and engaging the cultural and spiritual formation," they told him.

In 2002, Bob and his wife Patricia moved overseas again, this time to Kyiv, Ukraine to start what he called The Barbara Boyd Institute for Staff Development and Training in Eurasia. The program was funded for the first 12 years by an entrepreneur who had been mentored by a college professor who, in turn, had been mentored in Bible study by Barbara Boyd.

In 2010 Bob and Patricia returned to the US so Bob could become director of Link, ��ñ��’s program which sends staff volunteers overseas to partner with IFES movements in other countries. He directed Link for seven years and is now Senior Missions Ambassador, splitting his time between recruiting for missions, Bible study training, and Bible training overseas with IFES.

He also continues to work with the leaders of five IFES movement whom he first started mentoring when they were students. “Mentoring is one of my favorite activities,” he said. “When I was a freshman, an older student discipled me, really invested in me. Not a staff, not a pastor, not a missionary, but a student who taught me everything he knew about Jesus and really helped me. And that's a model I use.”

After becoming a Christian in college, Bob went to seminary and started pastoring a small church in New Jersey. But he was impatient and began to wonder if there wasn’t another way to change the world for Jesus. He attended Urbana 76 to investigate missions and sat in on a session with then ��ñ�� president John Alexander. Many of the questions had to do with what career people choose after they leave ��ñ�� staff. Some, of course, become pastors.

“I went up to him afterwards and I said, ‘Have you ever had a pastor come on staff instead of a staff go to be a pastor?’ He said, ‘It’s very unusual. But we’ll check with your church. If they’re really mad that you’re leaving, we want you.’”

The church was not happy to lose its pastor. But the lives of generations of students in the US and abroad have been changed because of Bob’s decision.

Following is the video that was prepared to celebrate Bob's first 40 years with ��ñ��. (Yes, he's not ready to retire yet.)

News Keywords

Bible and Life

International Fellowship Evangelical Students

World Assembly 2019–What’s It All About?

ashlye.vanderworp@intervarsity.org — Tue, 06 Aug 2019 16:57:49 +0000

News

Steph Schmaltz

World Assembly 2019–What’s It All About?

Eleven hundred participants made up of college students and campus staff ministers from 170 countries. Seventy seminars. Twenty-two meals together. Thirteen new student movements. And one message of hope to take back to universities across the globe. July 3–11, 2019, this is what 50 staff from across ��ñ��/USA experienced as they participated in a special event that only occurs once every four years: IFES World Assembly.

World Assembly, put on by the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, focused its delegates on being messengers of hope to the world around them. It provided a unique place for our movements to break bread, listen to front-line perspectives, learn from exposition on portions of Luke and Acts, form new friendships through daily cross-national small groups, lament, rejoice, and pray with our brothers and sisters across the globe. In addition, affiliated IFES members voted on resolutions, welcomed 13 new movements, and had vibrant discussions on issues facing today’s global church. With no shortage of content, World Assembly delegates went home with much to process.

It’s tempting to let this be a standalone event for those of us privileged enough to attend, but what if we instead catalyzed our experience to improve our own movement and better love our IFES brothers and sisters?

As the USA delegation returns to our roles, here are some points to contemplate and implement across our movement.

Learning from IFES movements to further the 2030 Calling: While innovation and ideas are coming from within our movement, we can also learn from IFES movements who have already faced similar challenges. For example, UESI in India empowers alumni to plant chapters, EvaSUE Ethiopia reaches 45,000 students with less than 50 full-time staff, and movements in Europe are finding new ways to reach students in an increasingly post-Christian society. We have a great deal to learn from our IFES brothers and sisters.

Developing world changers: Not only do we long to see lives transformed and campuses renewed, but we also long to see world changers developed. To do that well, we need to educate our students on global issues and help them form healthy cross-cultural relationships. While we can do some of that on our campuses, what would it look like for chapters or areas to regularly connect with another IFES movement? Students could pray for each other on World Student Day (October 18, 2019), share ideas to reach their friends, visit one another (a possible Global Program), and dream of new ways to support and encourage one another.

Establishing and deepening relationships with IFES movements: As a founding member of IFES in 1947, ��ñ�� committed to seeing a Christian witness not just on every corner and every campus of the US, but also in every country! While each IFES movement is independently led, what are ways we can serve and support our global fellowship? Could areas or regions establish and deepen relationships with other movements by praying with, taking offerings for, or even hosting students and staff? ��ñ�� Link currently has 200+ staffing requests from across the IFES fellowship. Could God be calling some of us to go and serve as staff in another movement?

World Assembly brought forth major topics that will require careful thought and consideration at personal, chapter, regional, and national levels. However, we don’t want these topics to paralyze us or stop us from taking a step in the direction the Lord is leading. We pray that World Assembly will instead be an Ebenezer of remembrance for how the Lord moved us.

To watch talks, hear delegate reflections, and get a better picture of World Assembly, watch videos on the IFES World YouTube channel by clicking below.

Watch World Assembly Videos

News Keywords

International Fellowship Evangelical Students

IFES Chooses New Leadership

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Fri, 01 Mar 2019 17:39:37 +0000

News

IFES Chooses New Leadership

The International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) has announced new leadership for the global movement that includes ��ñ��. The IFES Board has nominated Chris Clarke to become IFES General Secretary.

If approved by the IFES General Committee in July, 2019, Chris will succeed Daniel Bourdanné, who has served as IFES General Secretary since 2007. Chris was active in the national IFES movement in New Zealand as a student president, national board member, president, and conference speaker.

More on his background in this IFES news report.

News Keywords

IFES

International Fellowship Evangelical Students

New Zealand

Chris Clarke

Daniel Bourdanne

World Student Day Reflects Our Global God

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 18:25:56 +0000

News

Gordon Govier

World Student Day Reflects Our Global God

World Student Day celebrates God’s work on college campuses around the world through the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES). This year, on Friday, October 19, 2018, students in up to 160 countries where there are IFES affiliates took part in World Student Day.

How do students who are separated by geographic and language barriers celebrate together? They pray for each other; prayer knows no boundaries. Students love to use technology; Skype calls on the Internet are common. And sometimes students even cross borders and meet together in person.

Tania Andrade, an ��ñ�� Campus Staff Minister at California State University San Marcos, did all three last year, at the invitation of students from Compa, the IFES affiliate in Mexico. “I love that the students were the ones who took the initiative,” she said. “I was really excited.”

Tania already had connections and relationships with Compa staff and students through summer projects and other joint activities, and that made the meeting easier in spite of potential language issues. A group of three ��ñ�� staff and five students crossed the border at 5 p.m. on a Friday night and met together with the Compa students and staff at the home of a ministry supporter.

They ate dinner together, worshiped together, and connected with Compa student groups in Veracruz, Mexicali, and Tecate via Skype. During the Skype calls, prayer requests were shared back and forth and then they prayed for each other.

“Every Skype call we had, we could tell that they genuinely cared about each other,” Tania said. “We learned a lot about Compa’s ministry and were inspired by their creativity.”

During the evening the students and staff also broke up into groups and prayed for some of the cities most impacted by recent earthquakes: Mexico City, Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Morelia. During the worship time together Compa students led some of the songs and ��ñ�� students led some. “It was also cool for us to sing a song in Swahili,” Tania said. “It was a beautiful moment for us to praise God as a global God!”

Participants in World Student Day learn about how God is moving around the world, in ways that are different from where they are. They also learn about their unity in the faith. “It’s a great experience of seeing the greatness of God and the church coming together,” Tania said.

Find out how you can participate in World Student Day.

News Keywords

IFES

International Fellowship Evangelical Students

Compa

Prayer

Skype

International Fellowship Evangelical Students

“Ridiculous” and “Scary”: Bob Grahmann’s 40 Years of Ministry With ��ñ����

“Ridiculous” and “Scary”: Bob Grahmann’s 40 Years of Ministry With ��ñ����

World Assembly 2019–What’s It All About?

World Assembly 2019–What’s It All About?

IFES Chooses New Leadership

IFES Chooses New Leadership

World Student Day Reflects Our Global God

World Student Day Reflects Our Global God

“Ridiculous” and “Scary”: Bob Grahmann’s 40 Years of Ministry With ��ñ��

“Ridiculous” and “Scary”: Bob Grahmann’s 40 Years of Ministry With ��ñ��