From Toronto to Wolfville

Today's student guest post is by Keith Blair.  He is in the first year of the MDiv program.  Keith lives in Wolfville, and recently received the call to be the Youth Pastor at Alton Baptist Church.

“By faith, Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.” Hebrews 11:8

There is something courageous and inspiring about the story of Abraham, a man who trusted God so completely that he was willing to uproot everything he had in his life for the sake of his faith in following an unseen God. But
Abraham’s faith was graciously rewarded by having his descendants, as numerous as the stars in the sky, populate the earth over the course of the next several thousand years.

I grew up in the city of Toronto. Toronto represents everything I had known in my life up until the end of August of this year. In Toronto, I would be able to hop onto the bus or subway, let it carry me somewhere in the vast city of 630 square kilometres, and I would be able to find my way around with relative ease. In Toronto, I had a life. I had a name for myself. I had family and friends. I had a church. I had peace of mind. What could possibly compel me to pull myself away from all this so that I could study in such a vastly different environment as Wolfville, Nova Scotia?

I found out about Acadia Divinity College through the Canadian Baptists of Ontario and Quebec (CBOQ). While I was interning with CBOQ’s youth ministry, I met a man named Dale Stairs, who, at the time, was the Executive Youth Minister for the Convention of Atlantic Baptist Churches (CABC). I later learned that Dale was also a professor at ADC, and I remember in this realization that God suddenly urged me to contact him. To be honest, I was hesitant because at this time I was six months removed from my undergrad, very broke, very tired of school, and not to mention caught up in the work I was doing for CBOQ. So, to have God place the very thought of pursuing a Master’s degree was incredibly perplexing, but if there is anything I have learned about God over the years, it’s that He works in marvellous and mysterious ways.

And so I trusted the Lord’s prompt, and emailed Dale. Without having any idea of how this was all going to work, or where I was going to live, or how this was all going to be paid for, like Abraham, in faith I chose to break free of the comfort of a life I had come to know so well in Toronto, and trust in God’s great plan for my life.

And here I stand, five months later, in the beautiful province of Nova Scotia: I have a place to live, I’m ready to kick off what I know will be an epic three-year adventure here at Acadia, and, like Abraham, God has lavishly blessed me with a community that welcomes its new students in with open arms and commits itself to encouraging and supporting its members’ desire to follow God.

Physically, mentally, and spiritually, I could not be in a better place than here at ADC right now. I may not yet know what the road ahead has in store for the next three years, but the best part is that I get to trust God with that. In the meantime, I will seek to enjoy every experience, big and small, that God has offered me here at ADC. May you as my fellow ADC students seek to do the same!