The Geneva Lecture Series Presents:

Caught between Asian and American, Eastern and Western,
this lecture explores one woman’s journey of
navigating opposing cultural norms and
discovering the gifts given by God.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

7:30 PM
Shambaugh Auditorium
(Main Library)

 
About the Speaker:

Nikki serves as the Program Director for Urbana, a student missions conference that gathers 20,000 students from 120 different countries.  Urbana has been running triennially since 1946 and over 220,000 people have attended.  Nikki oversees the development of the plenary sessions which include worship, speakers, dancers, media, and theater teams. 

She consults and speaks for a variety of campuses, churches and organizations and currently sits on the board of Mission Year.  She has written articles on gender issues and multi-ethnicity for Prism Magazine, and E-Quality.  She recently served on the Third Lausanne Congress (2010) helping to develop the plenary program and speaking on key issues around the U.S. 

Prior to entering ministry, Nikki spent several years working as an engineer in Silicon Valley.  She developed medical devices for the treatment of heart disease and other coronary diseases.  Nikki shared her experiences with 20,000 delegates at the Urbana Mission Convention in 2003.

She was a co-editor of the book More than Serving Tea (InterVarsity Press, 2006). The book is a collection of essays, stories and poems looking at the intersection of race, gender and faith for Asian American women. 

Much of her insights stem from experiences living among poor people in the slums of Nairobi, Cairo, and Bangkok.  She helped develop and direct the Global Urban Trek, an urban immersion program designed to challenge students to use their majors on behalf of the world’s poor people.  For six weeks, students live and work in urban slums in various cities in the world.  One of the primary goals is to sit at the feet of indigenous organizations to learn from their perspective. 

Nikki Toyama-Szeto is originally from Chicago. She journeyed to northern California to attend school at Stanford University and got stuck in the Bay Area for 15 years.  She worked as an engineer before joining InterVarsity staff at Stanford, U of San Francisco, and UC Berkeley.  On the campus, she loves watching students rediscover God in the scriptures and challenging students to think “Christianly” about issues in society. 

Nikki resides in Madison, Wisconsin with her family.

For more information on the Geneva Lecture Series, contact us:

Geneva Campus Ministry
120 N. Dubuque St. #104
Iowa City, IA 52245

(319) 341-0007

geneva@uiowa.edu

Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa sponsored events. 
If you are a person who requires an accommodation in order to participate in this program, 
please contact Katherine Damisch  at 319/341-0007 or geneva@uiowa.edu.