Robin Cook (MA[BS] 79)
I am currently the Director of the Sports Ambassadors, a ministry of OC International, where I have spent the last twenty-five years. Eight years prior to that I was in Asia serving OC International (while there my son Joshua was born; he recently completed his MA[BS] from DTS in 2012). Our mission statement is “Motivating, training, and mobilizing local church leaders to employ sports and recreation to reach their community and beyond.”
As I take teams of players (from colleges and churches) for international ministry, I am given opportunities to speak to the teams during these trips. I also have opportunities to speak in those churches and to pastor fellowships. Having relationships with these coaches and players for decades has been fulfilling. Something I try to get across, as I’m speaking, is Do I love them in a way where they can sense my desire to want a long-term relationship?
I have so many memories from my time at DTS, memories of lunch with classmates or a chat as we took breaks from our studies, memories of playing basketball with the city league with eight other DTS guys that played at a high level in college prior to seminary. It was great to see men learning the Word and willing to play ball to be out in the world. But the best memories I have are of learning from Prof and other professors on campus.
After sitting in Prof Hendricks’s office waiting over an hour for three consecutive days to get into his weekly discipleship class, I was rewarded with him coming out and saying, “Simply because you’ve been here for three straight days waiting to get into my class, I want you in there with the seven others. You will be my object lesson on our first day together.”
Years later my wife and I were in Sri Lanka for almost three years, and he wrote a note to me saying he was praying for us as we were investing in some teenagers. (Fifteen years later one of those teenagers went on to be the leader of a denomination in Colombo, and two others became pastors.)