Alumni Updates – January 2014
Published Date: December 11, 2013
Gareth Lee Cockerill, (1969, MDiv), has accepted the position of vice president for academic affairs, past and present. He will continue as a professor of Biblical Interpretation and Theology. Cockerill began teaching at Wesley Biblical Seminary in 1979. He is an ordained minister of the Wesleyan Church and served for nine years as a missionary in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Cockerill has a bachelor’s degree from Southern Wesleyan University, a master of divinity degree from Asbury Theological Seminary, a master of theology degree from Union Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. in biblical studies with emphasis on the New Testament from Union Theological Seminary in Virginia.
Stan Cosby, (1976, MDiv), serves as the Senior Pastor of St. Stephen’s UMC in Amarillo, TX. The picture is of him blessing the 2nd graders who have just received their Bibles from St. Stephen’s UMC
Rev. James A. Groves, (1978, MDiv), was welcomed as the pastor of the Dunaway United Methodist Church. Groves is a retired elder of the West Ohio conference of the United Methodist Church. He became the new part-time pastor of Dunaway Church on July 1, 2013. Originally from Findlay, Ohio, Groves is a graduate of Asbury Theological Seminary. He moved with his wife, Pamela, to Lexington after 35 years of pastoral ministry in Ohio to be near family and their adult children, Bethany and Benjamin.
Dr. Barry L. Ross, (1964, THM), first encountered Jake De Shazer at about the age of 15 (he is now 75), when his mother gave him a book to read, published in 1951, entitled The Amazing Story of De Shazer, by Charles Hoyt Watson. He avidly read it several times, enthralled with the story. After reading the article Story of Christian Love by Marshall Staton in the November e-Link, he shared his own story with us.
Margaret and I came to ATS in 1961. I did not know until reading Santon’s article on the Alumni Link that De Shazer was an ATS grad, and just the year before I entered. I graduated in 1963 with the B.D., and in 1964 with the M.Th. After acquiring an M.A. at the Univ. of Mich. in 1967, Margaret and I went off to Japan as missionaries with Wesleyan World Missions (now Global Partners) of The Wesleyan Church, arriving there in October of that year. I had been there only a couple of weeks when my fellow senior missionary took me to downtown Tokyo to the Ochanomizu Christian Center, for a regular monthly prayer meeting of missionaries from various agencies. We sat in a large circle. A rather unpretentious, quiet gentleman sat next to me. At prayer time we were asked to kneel. The gentleman next to me prayed fervently for the beloved Japanese people. When he finished I leaned over and asked him his name. “Jake De Shazer,” he replied. “The Jake De Shazer?” I asked. He smiled, and said, “I think so.”
And so began an association over the next four years of sitting next to, praying next to and learning to love this gentle, kind, loving man. We returned to the States at the end of four years service and did not return for twelve years. Thus, I did not again see Jake.
Additionally, Barry and Margaret have been teaching in Jamaica. Here is his fall semester update.
It is with much joy that we send you this second report from Caribbean Wesleyan Bible College, Savanna-la-mar, Jamaica. (For a few of you, however, this is the first report you’ve received. We’ve been here since the end of August, and will return to Florida on Dec 16.) We have been well received into the college community, and feel much “at home.”
My two courses settled out at four in my survey of the OT Prophets, and eight in Biblical Hebrew. My students are not different than elsewhere I’ve taught in the world, with a couple at the very top, learning every new point of Hebrew grammar and new vocabulary words. Already, with mid-term exams coming up next week, we’ve completed half our time here!
In our first report I mentioned the college Spiritual Emphasis Week services to be in late Sept/early Oct, about which I had not received the email before coming, inviting me to be the speaker. I did accept after arriving, trusting the Lord to assist me in preaching the four morning chapels and four evening services. As the Lord has done in the past, so he did in the present. He gave facility of thinking and ease of delivery. The messages were received with open ears and hearts.
One Sunday highlight in mid-October was the privilege to attend the 75th Anniversary celebration of the People’s National Party (PNP), the ruling party of Jamaica. The party avows itself to be a Christian party, with Christian standards and goals for the nation. Its birth was in the parish (=state) of Westmoreland, in which the college is located. The Torrington Wesleyan Church, located on the edge of the campus, is the largest church building in all of Westmoreland, so was selected as the venue. The Prime Minister, Most Honorable Portia Simpson Miller, Jamaica’s first female P.M., was present and gave a stirring challenge to the party and all present (standing room only), to continue to lead Jamaica on the path to becoming truly a Christian nation. Following the three-hour service, all were elegantly served lunch under large tents in the church yard, compliments of the PNP.
See all articles
Stan Cosby, (1976, MDiv), serves as the Senior Pastor of St. Stephen’s UMC in Amarillo, TX. The picture is of him blessing the 2nd graders who have just received their Bibles from St. Stephen’s UMC