Best Week of My Master’s Degree? Probably.

Earlier today, I tweeted this:  “OBSERVATION: This is the best class I have ever taken, and Kevin Bales is my hero.” I said this at lunch on day 2 of 6, but I’m pretty sure it’ll hold.

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A little background:  I have six classes (or modules) to take during my Master’s course, plus a dissertation. I took three last term, and I’ve had two other classes this term that started in February. This class, however, isn’t being taught by a full-time University of Hull lecturer. It’s being taught by Kevin Bales, who lives in the States, writes books, is president of Free the Slaves, and is generally incredibly busy. So we’re doing this class, which is called “Slavery Since Emancipation,” in 6 days during Easter break.

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I won’t lie; I was an anxious mess as I walked to the Wilberforce Institute yesterday morning. I hadn’t been in the lecture room a full minute when he said, “Hi! I’m Kevin.” And it was smooth sailing from then on.

The class was amazing from the get go. We started our discussion with the very first written records in human history. There were slaves before then.  We talked about how and why slavery evolved (though we’ll never know for sure). What slavery is. The psychology of slavery. How to write a good post-grad essay. Paradigms (which made me think of Glen Whatley). Rugby balls. Peonage in the American South. Peonage in the Congo. And finally, flux capacitors.

The Land of Green Ginger - My first veggie restaurant experience...yums!

During introductions, he told us that he wanted to have lunch with each of us during the week. Lo and behold, I was brave enough to go first. Definitely one of the more surreal dining experiences of my life – a vegetarian café, just me and the leading expert on modern day slavery, talking about putting cheese in cornbread. (We talked about other things too.)

Today was equally brilliant. Joked around with Kevin and Channon a bit. (“Don’t put Kevin in a box!!”) Then we dove into the history of the Congo: King Leopold, forced labor, and the brave people who tried and eventually succeeded at exposing the truth of what was really happening there. (Kevin says that King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild is one of those books that everyone loves. And I suspect he’s right.) By 1, we got to the present day situation. It’s not a happy one. Slavery. Rape. Chaos. Poverty. I made sure afterward that we could have a discussion about how to make it better. He said we would. And we did. We didn’t come up with any sure-fire solutions, but we made an effort.

View behind WISE towards Wilby's house, Mandela Gardens with Ghandi statue, and my view from the ATM.

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The thing about this class is that it’s a bit like Student Week at Glorieta. At Glorieta, it’s six days of intense focus on Christ, taught by great teachers, enjoying the company of like-minded people. I’ve been feeling the same way at WISE these last two days. We’re all there, all day, fully focused on one thing. I love every minute of it.

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We had some Norwegian ladies with us in class today, one of whom is a filmmaker. She directed an award-winning documentary called Modern Slavery, and we watched it at the end of class today. If you want to get a grasp of modern slavery in about an hour and half, watch it. It’s not for the faint of heart. I cried. I think about slavery everyday, I’ve been reading about it for months, and it still got to me. But it’s very well done, informative, and gives us a bit of hope at the end.

Another great resource if you’re interested is Ending Slavery: How We Free Today’s Slaves by the one and only Kevin Bales. It’s an easy read (he uses active language), and as sad as the stories are, it’s all about ENDING it, which I find pretty exciting.

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While I was walking to the ATM at lunch today, I thought about something Jon Acuff said. “Average is exhausting. Extraordinary is energizing. The lie is that the opposite is true, but it isn’t.” He is so right. I was more energized today after 6 hours sleep than I ever am on days when I sleep as long as I want and take it easy. Being fully engaged in that class is an absolute rush. It’s fantastic.

Something about following your passion and pursuing what God’s put in your heart, I guess…

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Kevin’s TEDTalk about how to combat modern slavery:

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