METS Changed How I Learn in Seminary
By Marci Auld Glass (Columbia ’06)

I frantically finished my final exams early, made plans for my family in my absence, and worked desperately to pack three weeks worth of clothes in a suitcase small enough to meet Max Miller’s requirements. I was preparing for the METS trip. I was nervous and excited about the adventure but had only vague thoughts of how this trip might “help” my schooling and future ministry.

It certainly was an adventure. I was outside of my comfort zone at least ten times a day and experienced all sorts of things that I would not have sought out on my own. I’m such a “homebody” that signing up for the trip itself required leaping outside my comfort zone. Being in different cultures, eating different foods, climbing a mountain on a camel in the middle of the night, meeting people who approach the world very differently from how I do, and understanding that the American media do not always give us the whole story were all ways through which my horizon was broadened.

Through the adventure of the METS trip, I learned not only to survive but to seek opportunities to leave my comfort zone. I became more confident and more comfortable in my own skin. I feel it when I step into a pulpit to preach—because really, how could preaching be scarier than using that bathroom at the Lebanese/Syrian border???

My studies have also benefited from my METS experience. Before the trip, I would read over the place names in the Biblical texts and not notice their importance in a story. Now, with a much better understanding of the geography of the Middle East, I read in 1 Kings 19 that Elijah walked from Mt. Carmel, where God defeated the prophets of Ba’al, to Mt. Horeb and I understand what a huge journey that would have been. When Jesus travels around Galilee or when Paul speaks of his travels, I have a better image and sense of what that would have been like. After wearing sandals for a day on the dusty and rocky paths of Petra, I understand why foot washing was so important. Having sensory images to go along with the Biblical texts informs my preaching and studies. I am better able to “set a scene” in my preaching because of the places I saw, the climate I experienced, the sunrises I observed, and the food I ate on the METS trip.

Perhaps the strongest way the METS trip has impacted my seminary studies came through spending three weeks on a bus with twenty people from different Christian traditions and from having meals and conversations with people who approach the world and their faith from perspectives very different from mine. My appreciation of the fullness of Christian experience is much stronger. My affection for different traditions is much greater. The broad spectrum of Christian faith, practice, and tradition now seems to me an expression of the mystery of God.

In addition, the people with whom I journeyed became family. I would leap at any opportunity to travel with them again. Even though I don’t see any of them as often as I would like, I do feel their love and support in my studies. Their presence connects me to the “cloud of witnesses” in a tangible and powerful way and I thank God, every day, for the providential way our lives came together.

Editor’s note: Marci is in her third year of Columbia seminary this year.

METS Changed How I Teach Eighth Graders
By Susan Yow (L ’06)

“He does look sort of like Indiana Jones.”

That was the reaction of my 8th grade students when they saw a photograph of Max, crouched on his haunches in front of the Temple of Bal in Palmyra. While updating one of my PowerPoint presentations on the early history of the Middle East, I couldn’t help but include the image of our fearless leader. That proved to be just one of the many changes in my teaching following my METS adventure.

I teach 8th grade world history and religion at a private school in Atlanta and have a lot of flexibility in the content of my course. As I can and do reinvent my class over and over again, my class post-METS is certainly different from my pre-METS class.

At the most basic level, I have included many of my METS photographs in my presentations. This not only gives the students more visual associations with the area of study, but also personalizes it for them. As part of a unit on early Middle East history, I used to show a photograph (taken from Google Images) of the view from Mt. Nebo and joke with my students, “Do you think Moses thought, ‘you must be kidding, I wandered 40 years in the desert for this???’” Now I’ve replaced that dull photograph with one I took from atop Mt. Nebo. I tell my kids how overwhelming it must have been for Moses to stand on that mountain and look out over that beautiful land, across the Dead Sea all the way to the Great Sea, and how he must have thought, “God is great.” This mesmerized my students – since their teacher had stood on that spot, they seemed to imagine themselves there too. My 8th graders don’t see much beyond themselves; knowing someone who has been to an ancient site and hearing a first hand description of it does give them some “hooks” on which to hang information and gives them a connection to something outside their little worlds. I saw the same reaction when showing photographs of the Umayyad Mosque – the endless rugs on the floor, the women glued to the back wall, the pilgrims wailing in front of the shrine of Hussein. They seemed to “get” it and have a glimpse of what it would mean to worship in such a magnificent setting. Children need to have this type of personal connection – I’d like to think that my METS experiences have provided that.

Although my class has always focused on world religions, I don’t include an in-depth academic study of Judaism or Christianity in my curriculum. We discuss the history of those religions, but not the tenets. Since my school “adheres to Judeo-Christian values,” I justify this omission by rationalizing that students already knew about these traditions (and, I admit, I didn’t want to deal with parent reactions).

Among the many epiphanies of the METS trip was that by not including a focused, academic study of Judaism and Christianity, I was setting up the other religions we studied (Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism) as “different” and somehow not really valid. After METS, I revamped my curriculum to include a study of Christian and Jewish traditions. To my great surprise, my students were remarkably unversed in their own religions and eager to learn about them and their parents were remarkably silent.

My students have also benefited from another of my epiphanies: nothing conveys information better than a good story. Max is a master storyteller – he has a way of putting complex historical information into easily digestible terms (or “southern,” as he called it). I have tried to include more of this teaching technique in my classroom. I have also remembered Max’s “Velcro theory” – say something enough and it will begin to stick. This lesson is probably even more important with distracted 8th graders than with METS travelers.

I learned so much about Middle East history, culture, geography and religion from my METS experience. I hope that I can impart just a small part of that knowledge to the next generation.