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Imad Shehadeh labored for five years to open a seminary in his adopted homeland of Jordan. As he earned his degree in 1990 from Dallas Theological Seminary, the soft-spoken Shehadeh dreamed of opening a graduate school in Amman, the Jordanian capital, to serve as a base for Christians in a region that is more than 90 percent Muslim.

When he returned to Jordan, few endorsed his vision. Authorities in the Muslim country twice shut down Shehadeh for training without government approval. And many Christian leaders found his original doctrinal statement too restrictive.

But things began to change as Jordan's government worked through democratic reforms that liberalized the country.

Realizing he needed to have the government's support, Shehadeh applied again for permission to open a school. The government's Ministry of Culture not only granted approval for the school to open, but also wrote into the school's constitution an article allowing interfaith dialogue with Muslims.

STRATEGIC LOCATION: Today, Jordan Evangelical Theological Seminary (JETS) is in its third year of legal operation. The evangelical school has unprecedented freedoms in a Muslim country. In some Arabic-speaking countries, Muslims who convert to Christianity are in danger of losing their jobs, families, or lives.

By embracing a broad doctrinal statement, the 43-year-old Shehadeh, a refugee, has gained the support of numerous churches. Jordanian leaders from the country's five main denominations are on the seminary board.

Already the school has 28 resident and visiting faculty—half of them from Jordan. Nearly 150 students from nine Arabic-speaking countries—Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, and Sudan—have been accepted to study at the school.

The interdenominational school offers undergraduate and graduate-level training, JETS does not have the governmental or access restrictions of other Christian schools in the Mideast.

Shehadeh says the Middle East is experiencing unprecedented growth in the number of evangelicals. Yet there are not enough leaders to follow up new believers. Often churches are small, and local leadership has little theological training. But JETS is training 45 Iraqi students to return to a country with only a handful of seminary-trained pastors. JETS students are eager learners. Last year, students started three dozen home groups in an effort to gain experience in church planting.

REACHING INDIVIDUALS: Jordan's freedoms, its central location in the Middle East, and its peace with Israel since 1994 have all been of strategic importance for JETS.

Nowhere is that seen more clearly than in the life of its students. For example, Rumail Yousef, an Iraqi electrician by trade, remained in Iraq while thousands of his countrymen fled after the Gulf War when United Nations sanctions began to cripple the country's economy. In the midst of economic woes, Baghdad's main evangelical church began to grow. From a core of 25 saints, the church now boasts attendance of 800 on Sundays.

Burgeoning growth meant a greater need for trained leadership, so in 1993 the church sent Rumail away to study theology before returning to help pastor the flock. But his visa to Egypt, where he had applied to study in the Presbyterian seminary in Cairo, never came. After a year's wait, he applied to study at the Baptist seminary in Lebanon, but authorities in that country also turned him away. So Rumail applied for admission in the bachelor's program at JETS. He saw no other alternative.

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April 6 1998, Vol. 42, No. 4