hello again!

flowers in front of the main house

Sorry for the long break between updates. Between classes, socializing, and other activities, I haven't been managing my time here as well as I would like. As most of you know I can be a perfectionist, so sometimes it takes me a while to gather my thoughts and write it out in a presentable and articulate way.

Well, it’s just been great teaching after great teaching here during the last several weeks. Allow me to quickly recap some highlights since my last blog:

teachings

Through May 10th-12th, we had the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. One of the great treats during those days was getting in small groups and “exercising” some of our spiritual gifting (Ro 12:4-8; Eph 4:1-16; 1 Co 12:4-11).

May 13th was Foundations of Worship. Although I’ve had some of the teachings before(thanks to my discipler), it was good to hear them again. Concepts such as the Tabernacle: entering the gates, outer court/inner court, the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holies. In other words, giving thanks and praise “until worship comes” and worship until the Glory of God falls.

From the 18^th-20th, we learnt about Restoring the Human Spirit through creativity. For a lot of people, it was great fun; everything from music workshops, art and crafts, wood/metal-working, and clay sculpting. For me, unfortunately, it was a bit stressful at times. Once again, I can be a perfectionist, especially in the area of the arts. It was my first time with modeling clay. What should have been a fun experience turned out to be exhausting at times. In spite of it all, in the end it was all good and here’s is the final product of one of the sculptures I made:

wounded (please don't read too deeply into it, folks)

works from my fellow classmates

i also made the praying figure

one of my classmates made this and i think it's great; it says "living water"

the best for last

I must say, however, that the Transforming Communities course from the 13^th-15^th was the crown jewel of them all. Originally, this was a weekend course only offered to the public who registered and paid and not intended for NETS students. Thankfully, leadership decided to let us sit in and I am so grateful because the class was by far some of the best Christian teaching I have ever had. The course was taught by Alistair Petrie. Some of you may have heard of or watched the video series called Transformations (if you haven't, I highly recommend that you watch it). I watched the vignette from the first of series about the revival in Columbia, South America several years ago. Well, Alistair was the producer of those videos. The course absolutely BLEW MY MIND. There is no way I will be able to do any justice to Alistair’s teaching with anything I write so I’ll just summarize in his own words what the theme of the class was about: “the identification of repentance, spiritual mapping, intercessory prayer, and strategic level spiritual warfare so that the issues in any given community, city, or nation (even churches and our own lives) which inhibit or impede effective evangelism can be identified and removed, allowing evangelism to take place. The prayerful application of these principles will lead us towards revival and transformation.”

Alistair Petrie

Man, as I type this and think about the class, the hairs on my arm stand up. One of the most encouraging things that Alistair did was giving all of us a mustard seed during the Friday night session as a prophetic pronouncement; that God, no matter how small we think we are or our faith is, will use us in mighty ways.

Outside of classes, I’ve been doing pretty well. I can’t believe I’ve been here for more than seven weeks already.

Well, here is a preview of my next post; it definitely hasn't been all work and no play so it will be focused more on some of the fun things I have done:

Have a great day!