David Hellsten

David, Annette, Lara and Simeon Hellsten

• From Sweden, born 1966.
• Married to Annette from England since Oct 1995. We have two children: Lara, born 20th Nov 1999 and Simeon, born 3rd May 2002

Academic qualifications: I studied theology at the Bethel Seminary, Stockholm, Sweden 1989-1993, and did an MA in theology/missiology at All Nations Christan College, England, 1998-99.

I have been a faculty member at ABI since March 2000. My main task is teaching, a very varied lot of subjects including courses such as OT Historical books, Christology, Catholicism, the book of Revelation, Church History etc. I am also in charge of the library, and have quite a lot of academic administrative duties as well.

Annette homeschools our two children and is involved in ABI life; mainly in worship times as well as encouraging and spending time talking with the students.

Before coming to ABI, Annette and I were members of a church-planting OM team in Lushnjë, Albania, 1993-98, the last two years I was the assistant pastor. I did quite a lot of Bible teaching and preaching during those years.

After we finished our time on the OM team, I felt called to go into full-time Bible teaching. At first we thought we might be heading further east, but God pointed us to ABI, and we realised we were returning to Albania.

I enjoy teaching at ABI because I know it makes a difference to our students: they couldn't get the same kind of teaching in many other places, there aren't many books on theology in Albanian, and they couldn't afford to study abroad. It is stimulating because the issues they raise are quite different from what students in the West might be facing, which challenges me to think about what is relevant and important in their Albanian context. I would like to be able to write up some of my courses into publishable book form, since translated books often fail to adequately address specifically Albanian issues.

A side interest of mine is linguistics; otherwise I enjoy reading and playing games.