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hen legendary Bethel development officer H. Wyman Malmsten returned
from visits to upper Midwest churches in the 1940s, he brought
back more than mere dollars to meet the financial needs of Bethel
Seminary. He also delivered potatoes, onions, and other vegetables
to meet the nutritional needs of Bethel Seminary students. While
the people of those predominantly rural churches didn’t always
have money to donate, they had plenty of produce. And Bethel’s “boarding
club” students, living in apartments on the top floor of
the old seminary building, were always grateful to receive Wyman’s
groceries.
Indeed, one woman told me recently that when she was a child,
her folks kept what they called “Wyman’s Bag” near
the back door of their Minnesota farmhouse. Whenever the youngsters
finished harvesting in the garden, they knew to deposit a tithe
of all they had collected into Wyman’s Bag; no one was to
touch the goodies gathered there. Generations of Bethel Seminary
students got to eat because of the “Wyman’s Bags” that
came from such generous farm families.
Yesterday a bag, today a pantry
That spirit of generosity continues today, but in a somewhat different
way. A food pantry on the St. Paul campus claims space from a large
closet in one of Bethel’s Seminary Village apartments. Several
area churches conduct regular food drives among their congregations,
and while most of those goods go to inner-city food shelves, some
of the bags of food have been making their way to Bethel in recent
years. Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie and Berean Baptist Church
in Burnsville have been the largest donors, but other churches
have participated as well.
The food pantry operates on an honor system. Students whose funds
run low at the end of the month can help themselves to canned goods
and packaged foods from the pantry. International students have
especially been grateful for the pantry, since many of them live
on extra lean budgets while they try to finish their schooling
and return to minister in their home countries. Before the food
pantry came to be, some Bethel students did in fact go hungry because
they could not make their resources stretch far enough between
paychecks.
There are many creative ways that people and churches can contribute
to preparing a new generation of pastors and missionaries for the
work of the kingdom. Who would have thought that church food drives
would benefit seminary students so much? H. Wyman Malmsten certainly
wouldn’t be surprised. Decades ago, he knew that one way
people could support Bethel was by throwing their potatoes and
onions into the pot. •
James Spickelmier is associate vice president for seminary
development, Bethel Seminary St. Paul.
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