Hey everyone,
I realize it’s been 2 months since I have updated my blog, and just wanted to bring you all up to speed to where I am now!
I am currently at my parent’s house, they were very kind to fly me home for the Christmas holidays! And seeing as I won’t be home again until October, it’ll be a good time catching up with family and friends.
The first term of the School of Biblical Studies (SBS) is now over, and has sped by quite quickly! At this point, we are almost done the entire New Testament; in January we’ll be finishing off the brunt of it with 1-3 John, the Gospel of John and Hebrews.
It’s been an interesting journey as I’ve started to gain a better understanding of the challenges the early church faced, and the reasons the epistles (letters in the New Testament) were written. As I read and study these books, it’s been very humbling to recognize the humanity of the early church. I find that in the Western Church, we often ‘glorify’ the people of the Bible and like to think of the early church as the perfect standard we should hold. Not so! The church in Corinth was divided, they still practiced immoral things from their past, they were sexually immoral, they were greedy, and didn’t look out for one another. The entire letter to the Galatians reprimands them from turning away so quickly from the things they had learned and binding themselves to the things of the earth. There were divisions between the rich and the poor, between the Jews and the Gentiles. There were many false teachers moving through the churches, teaching people that they had to be Jewish in order to be a Christian, or teaching other things contrary to what the Old Testament taught (and what Jesus clarified).
At the beginning of December, the base hosted “Winter Wonderland”, which is a Christmas “Open House” that is run yearly, and has many events, such as a Narnia experience, school choirs coming in to sing, multi-ethnic foods, games and crafts for children, amongst many other things. Myself and a group of others performed a signed song in British Sign Language (BSL). That was a unique challenge because my knowledge of BSL was very limited!
Performing the signed song
A few weekends ago, I was able to return back to the base I did my Discipleship Training School (DTS) at, and was able to reconnect with some good friends!
One of the girls from my DTS!
One of the guys from my DTS and one of my staff!
Some of us at the base-wide Christmas dinner
The whole SBS group at our Christmas party
9:30 pm on the last night of the term, some of us were still working hard to finish our assignments!
A nice picnic spot I found on one of my weekend bike rides!
Prayer Points:
- Wellness: I came home with a really bad cold, and would like to be able to enjoy Christmas!
- Finances: A few people in my class still need to raise money for the next 2 terms, pray that all financial requirements are covered!
- Rest: The school is very intense and we are all very drained right now - pray that we would be able to rest and relax, and be fully refreshed upon our return in January!
