Wheaton College Alumni Magazine Autumn 2013 | Page 47
alumni news
profile
Empowering Tribal Ministry
by Katherine Halberstadt Anderson ’90
Sherelle Cotecson M.A. ’10
(center) received the International
Christian Leader Award in
2009, one of five awards given
by the Billy Graham Center
Scholarship Program enabling
those already leading ministries
in other countries to further
their education at Wheaton
before returning to enrich the
same ministry. Sherelle joins
1,000 BGC Scholars who have
attended Wheaton College
Graduate School since 1975.
“In an age when all of mankind is rapidly becoming
interdependent within a single global community,
cross-cultural communication unavoidably becomes one
of man’s highest priorities.” —Don Richardson, Peace Child*
After reading Don Richardson’s
Peace Child, Sherelle Cotecson M.A. ’10
felt called to full-time tribal ministry in rural
settings. Eyes wide, she knew she wasn’t
signing up for a life of comfort and ease. In
fact, for those who think they have a rough
commute to work, Sherelle pretty much
has them beat.
As training program head of Tribal Mission
Foundation, Int., in the southern Philippines,
Sherelle has a trek to work that involves
bus and motorcycle rides, river crossings
on foot, or miles of hiking on sometimes
barely discernible, muddy, or rocky paths.
“But the most exciting part is the bamboo
54 A U T U M N 2 0 1 3
raft rides,” she says. “We consider them
a treat.”
Fresh from seminary and a short stint of
teaching, Sherelle began working for Tribal
Mission Foundation in 1996.
“When I read Don Richardson’s book, I
realized the excitement of the call was
not really on us to take the gospel to
another culture, but instead to find the
footprints that God has already left on a
certain culture, those which we just need
to uncover,” she says.
To illustrate, Sherelle recalls a visit to a
remote village in 1998. Someone was
supposed to meet her and her coworker
to escort them through the muddy terrain.
But there was no one. So the pair began
hiking on the only path they could see.
Twenty minutes into their hike, they ran
into someone who was able to lead them
to their destination. “When we got there,
it was as though God had prepared the
whole community.” Before the day ended,
they had established four literacy classes
and found four pastors to teach the classes.
In a matter of months these pastors had
formed churches. “Of course it was a hard
hike going in, but once there, we felt like
we were walking on paved road,” she says.
Everything does not always work so
smoothly for Sherelle and the nine other
full-time staff whose work involves training
others to empower their own people by
giving them skills and tools to help their
communities.
In fact, the areas where they work were
once a hotbed of Communist insurgency
in the southern Philippines, and these
small communities at times still harbor
undercurrents of fear when rebels threaten
to attack.
In addition to actively working with about
five tribal communities, the Foundation
also partners with a ministerial association
to develop oral mission education material
and holds holistic training sessions
for community leaders at the mission
headquarters.
When Sherelle was about ten years into
her work, she met a Wheaton alumnus
who encouraged her to pursue graduate
work in intercultural studies. “The theology
courses I took at Wheaton have helped me
as I develop a framework for how to train
others to teach theology in the context of
their own cultures,” she says.
This cross-cultural framework is being
used today to train tribal churches to
do missions to Muslims. Says Sherelle,
“There are hostilities toward Christians, but
somehow, the same Muslims are more
welcoming toward the highland tribal
people.”
*Don Richardson, Peace Child. Regal Books/
Gospel Light, 1976.