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Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Moody Alumni Day

Tuesday of the Moody Founder’s Week Conference is Alumni Day, a day of class reunions and special meals. Last year, the Class of ’57, the greatest class to graduate from Moody Bible Institute, celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. I attended the celebration and enjoyed seeing many classmates, including some I hadn’t seen since 1957. Most of us recognized one another!

Ours was the best-attended class reunion in the history of Moody. In spite of our 70-something age bracket, about 175 of us mingled together. We compressed 50 years into a day of fellowship and shared stories from our student days.

It was a very special time.

It was also a time to reflect on Moody’s program of training current students to share the gospel in cross-cultural settings. Our class decided to launch an endowment fund, called the ’57 Fund, designed to help students travel to mission fields for short-term missionary training and experience. Our goal was to raise $57,000. No small task for a bunch of silver-haired or no-hair people, most of whom were involved in full-time Christian ministry. Some of us are still preaching or teaching or counseling or doing something productive in the world of work. But as far as I know, none of us will receive a Wall Street ticker tape parade.

Today, Glenn Ruby, one of our classmates will present a check in the amount of $37,000 to Moody’s Alumni Director. As Winston Churchill said, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. It may be the end of the beginning.” Our class will keep on giving and reach our goal of $57,000.

Happy Alumni Day, fellow Moody alumni!

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