David W.Shenk was born and raised in a Christian missionary home in Tanzania. His parents were pioneer Mennonite missionaries. Christ called him as a child and after his conversion he knew Christ was also calling him to be him ambassador among the unreached people. At 15 years of age moved to the USA for high school and university study. He met Grace , who later became his wife. in high school. They both knew that God was calling them to serve among those who had not heard the Gospel.  For ten years he  was involved in educational work in Islamic Somalia and then lectured in comparative religion and church history at Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya for six years. He served as academic dean and professor of theology at Lithuanian Christian College in Lithuania from 1998-2002.

Since 1980, Shenk had been based at Eastern Mennonite Missions headquarters in Saluga, Pennsylvania, where he helps to coordinate interfaith commitments. He is the author of many books, including A Muslim and a Christian in Dialogue, Global Gods, and Surprises of the Christian Way.

David and Grace have been blessed with 4 children and 7 grandchildren.

From Journeys of the Muslim Nation and the Christian Church

Somalia was my first immersion within a Muslim society. In 1963 our family began a ten-year sojourn in this Muslim nation where most citizens were camel-herding nomads. We were commissioned by Eastern Mennonite Missions. Prior to Somalia, I had grown up in Tanganyika and then lived in the United States for about a decade.

Although my assignment was to work within the Somalia Mennonite Mission educational program, God was really the foremost concern throughout the decade of involvement in that country.

When a Marxist revolution forced us to leave, we moved to Kenya, in 1973. Our home provided a setting for dialogues with Muslims, including key leaders.

While living in Kenya, my interest in the theological realities that Muslims and Christians experience in meeting one another grew, as did a commitment to a presence among Muslims of loving service and faithful witness that neither avoided differences nor exacerbated mistrust. The Project for Christian Muslim Relations in Africa (PROCMURA) provided a network for me to work with other Christians committed to faithful witness among Muslims. I served with the PROCMURA team in leadership training seminars and institutes that helped to equip Christians for conversations with Muslims.

A team worked with me to develop a Bible study series that engaged the Islamic worldview and addressed misunderstandings and objections Muslims have concerning the Christian faith. These courses, entitled The People of God, have been or are being translated into some forty languages; thousands enroll in this series of biblical studies every year.

Since my family and I returned to the United States in 1979, I have continued my conversations with Muslims. In the last few years several events with Muslims have impacted me. One was a series of six dialogues in the United Kingdom with Shabir Ally, director of the Muslim Information Center in Toronto. Then, two years later in the fall of 2002, I had the surprise of being the dialogue companion of Ms.Hamideh Mohagheghi in Germany.

Complementing the German even was a Shi’i-Muslim and Mennonite-Christian dialogue sponsored by the Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute in Qom, Iran, and the Toronto Mennonite Theological Center in collaboration with Mennonite Central Committee.

My journey with Muslims has been as an Anabaptist Christian. I am a follower of Jesus the Messiah. I believe that in the Messiah, God has acted to redeem humankind, and in Jesus I have received forgiveness and reconciliation with God. I believe that the church is called of God to be a sign of the presence of the kingdom of God on earth, a kingdom inaugurated by the Messiah that will be fulfilled eternally at his second coming.

My life motto is 1 Peter 3:15: “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”