Uniforms!

The long promised picture of my students in their uniforms is here. These are the First Year (new) students. (My niece, Natalie, on the far right)

Uniforms

All our Bible students were in uniform today for the first time... well, at least those who have their uniforms. Some haven't paid for them yet but will and then get them. Anyway, it was a small class today with only 5 students in my fist year Bible College class so I was just going to play hangman or something (with OT terms) but 3 of my 4 children are sick. So, I said, no OT class today, hangman or otherwise, I've got 3 sick kids and I want to go home.

One of the students stood up and said, "Ma'am, before you go, we want to pray for your girls."

:)

I love my students...

Leviticus

I've been teaching through Leviticus in my Old Testament class the past couple days. It's one of my favorite books in the Bible, especially when teaching. I think it's because it's just such a surprise, yet so critical to the whole theme of the Bible.

My first year Bible students are doing well. Their English is weak, but their enthusiasm for the Word of God is great.

Four were sick today so we just had discussion in class instead of teaching (wouldn't want them to miss any critical teaching from Leviticus.) The students were full of questions, which believe me, is something I have not experienced in other years of teaching. Very exciting.

Three Days In

I've been teaching for the last three days in Bible College and have had a blast, although my legs hurt from standing so much. Out of the habit I guess.

I'm teaching Old Testament to the 1st Year Students. This is the third time around for me. And the Book of Psalms for the 2nd Year students - 1st time.

We're still waiting around for the new students to come. All the month of may we were unsure of whether we could take new students or not and that uncertainty lost us some time in recruiting, but they're coming in slowly but surely. Hopefully, by this Monday most of the students will have arrived.

There's no class today because our boys have to move into a different building and the the girls have to move into the building the boys are vacating. Works out well, I can catch up on some studying.

Bye

We gave our students their report cards today and from tonight they'll start heading home to their families til June.
We took this group shot this morning, all the students and some of the staff.
Bye.

Our Bible Students' Last Week

It just kind of hit me that our Bible students will all be going home for summer vacation this week. Tomorrow is the last exam and a few days after that they are free to go home.

I've spent the last couple days taking individual exit interviews with all of the students and it has been enlightening. There was so much about our students that I didn't know. One of the main questions I asked them was whether they were coming back to complete their 2nd/last year in June. Most are planning come back, only one was a definite No due to her poor health over the last year.

Some students were reluctant to come back because they are penniless and couldn't afford the nominal fees Yeah, I can solve that problem, it's nice when you're the one in charge. Other students (girls) were unsure whether they could come back because they were afraid their families might force them to marry when they go home and not allow them to come back. I spent some time on the phone to family members assuring them that we will take the responsibility of finding husbands for their girls. Another problem solved.

These are some of the things we face and its been a pleasure and a joy to be a part of these 25 students' lives since July. I'm going to miss them.

Today was their last day in church and they sang a special song and 5 students gave testimonies.

Some fun facts about our Bible students:

1. We have two Romeos, one Monalisa, and a Gandhi

2. One of our Romeos became a Christian and was baptized after attending our Bible College. He didn't even know where he was going when he got on the train from the Northeastern state of Assam to come all the way over to us.

Treasure Finding

Our Bible College Library got a donation of over 1000 books from a Christian Conference Center in our city that was formerly an Irish Presbyterian Mission until the 1980s when all the foreign missionaries got kicked out of India.

The original library has just been sitting there full of valuable English books for decades until we kept after them to give them to us - and last week, they did.

Here are some of the treasures I've already found while going through and cataloguing the books:

Georgette Heyer! I adore reading Georgette Heyer (hey, I never said all the books were theological...). Powder and Patch, Sprig Muslin and Envious Casca (Not Regency, but one of her mysteries, which I've never read. Obviously, a previously resident of the Mission was a fan.

Today I came across a volume of Little Women (L. M. Alcott) that was awarded as a gift to a girl for academics. The inscription reads: "Easter Examinations 1898." Uh huh. Treasure trove for a person like me.

Inscription.

I also found two Tarzan books by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Ah, many a happy Saturday afternoon was spent by me watching Tarzan movies. The first Tarzan book I came across was called something like "Tarzan Finds a Wife." But I can't for the life of me find anything about it on the Internet*. Sadly, it was only half a book and had to be discarded. Otherwise I totally would be reading that instead of blogging. Today I found, Tarzan the Invincible. (see above)

Finally, I was happy to find some cookbooks, etc. and this is my most spectacular find to date: Baker and Cook, A Domestic Manual for India by Mrs. R. Temple-Wright. Published in 1912 in Calcutta. Baker and Cook - is that me, or what?

From the preface to the First Edition: "I have only tried to help people make their own bread in out-stations where good bread is not obtainable, and to assist housewives by making the task of ordering dinner as little irksome as possible. I hope these notes will enable hostesses to make the best use of the cheaper, and far more wholesome fresh food obtainable in the country, without having to fall back on the more expensive European tinned provisions."

Mrs. Temple-Wright seems mostly interested in teaching her readers how to make Yeast. And, hey, housewives are supposed to order dinner???

Her writing style is utterly delightful and practical - it deserves it's own post.

Thanks, members of the IP Mission for leaving us all these books.

You wouldn't believe it from this post but the majority of the books are Bible College appropriate.

*I'm going to have to go through the boxes of non-appropriate or damaged books to find that Tarzan Finds a Wife one now... The Internet has failed me.

Singing Competition For Students

On Tuesday night we had a singing competition for our Bible students. Twenty boys and girls participated and I was really hoping to find a diamond in the rough. Sadly, all I got was a headache. Hum.

Michael, pictured below, came in first place.

What as transpiring here, I have no idea, the camera was in my nephew's hand. Interesting photo though.

G. suffered from serious diaper malfunction most of the evening, until I finally whipped the dang thing out. P. was content to eat a tambourine rather than sing.

A Short And Busy Month

It's February. Just 2 or 3 days shorter than every other month, but for some reason it always feels crunched to me.

O. came home from Rajasthan this morning and told me someone invited us to a house opening on the 14th so we'd have to leave on the 13th (it's about 8 hours away). We have a bunch of guests coming on the 17th and 18th and our choir is invited to lead worship in a church in Rajasthan on the 23rd and 24th. As far as I know neither one of us are going for that.

I have two ladies coming on the 25th and staying in to the first few days of March. P.'s first birthday is March 1st and we'll be in Rajasthan so we'll be celebrating that on February 27th (most likely.)

This week - Ha! we didn't even go there yet, is full of Bible College activities. A big one, the picnic, is on Thursday.

Lot's of fun this month - it's gonna zip on by...

A Long Week

Last week was pretty intense but it was chock full of good stuff. From Saturday to Tuesday we had training for those of us who are teaching in our Bible College. It was done by people who work for the makers of our BTCP course material so it was right on and very helpful.

From Wednesday we had all our pastors in for four days of teaching and fellowship. Our theme was "Renewing Your Mind for Ministry." It was a really good week.

Our Bible College classes began from today and I start teaching from Wednesday. I'm going to try to cover as much of my Old Testament class as I can before we leave for our 2 months in the US on July 16.

So, all that to say, don't blame me for not being around last week!

Actual Ministry Related Stuff

It's June and here in India (at least where we are) that means everything is starting up again. School. Bible College.

Our new batch of Bible students are arriving day by day and actual classes start next week. I'll be teaching Old Testament again. I'm not sure what's going to happen since we're leaving for the US in a month. I'll start the course and then have to have someone cover for me for two months. Hummm.

We are getting students from all over India which was one of our prayers for this year. So far, from Manipur, Rajasthan and Maharashtra. More on the way.

We also have someone coming to spend three days teaching our Bible College teachers how to best teach our courses. That starts on Saturday, so I'm excited for that.

Then we are having our village pastors coming in next week for some time together with us and some training. O. and I wanted to spend some time with them before heading to the states. Busy busy.

New Uniforms

We finally got uniforms for our Bible Students and they wore them for the first time during the conference. The Bible College principal actually organized a special ribbon cutting for them.
I cut the ribbon.

Thirteen Sermons

Tonight I listened to thirteen sermons, yes thirteen. Why O why? Because our thirteen Bible Students were practicing their preaching in a Hindi Bible Message Competition.

Each student had 5-10 minutes to give a short message. They did well for basically their first time. They'll do even better in the future. But this reminds me, I haven't even tallied up the scores yet to see who won...

The Grant Application

Do you remember the Grant Application for the completion of the 3rd floor of our School Building that I blogged about a few weeks ago? For various reasons, that I won't bore you with, the application has been pushed back and we won't be getting any results for at least another month or so. However, as a result of the circumstances that I am not boring you with, we now have another grant application going in to support our Bible College for an entire year. So, more to pray for...

Time In The O. T.

I've been spending a lot of time in the Old Testament lately since that is the class I am teaching in our Bible College this year. It's also one of the reasons I'm not blogging as much as I'd like to. (Once again I have been "blogging in my head.")

This week we finally started Genesis - the entire month of September being taken up with the introduction to the O.T. which I freely admit is pretty dry. So, I was pretty excited to get into the meat of the Word this week. According to my syllabus I was supposed to finish Chapters 1-11 yesterday and then 12-50 tomorrow.

It's so Not happening.

We got through Cain and Abel yesterday and I'm hoping to make it to Jacob tomorrow but I'm not holding my breath. The course is designed as an Overview but there is just too much good stuff to skim over.

2007 Students

Group shot of our 2007 Bible Students and their Principal and In Charge. They're holding their new Bibles. I finally got a pictures of them all together - my camera works much better than E.'s Spiderman one...

If you pray for us, pray for these students - as they study the Word of God as well as a new language. Pray for those of us who teach, as well, that we would be usable for God's purposes in these lives of these young men.

Old Testament

I taught my first class in the Bible College today after a hiatus of 9 months. Previously I taught English, I am now the Old Testament teacher.

This is exciting for me and intimidating at the same time. I love the subject matter yet I look out at my students and see 14 eager young men who are really, really weak in English. They'll learn, but man, I just look at myself and see how incapable I am to teach these guys.

Thank goodness the Lord is on our side. 'Cause this surely would be impossible without Him.

Gave The Bibles

The Bible College Principal and I gave the English and Hindi Bibles to the Bible Students today. I even took a picture of them with their new Bibles with E.'s Spiderman camera but the camera deleted the pictures before I had a chance to load them here. It does that. Oh well.

O. is in Calcutta and he has our real camera with him, so I'll wait to get a group picture of them til he gets back on Saturday.

O. is in Calcutta for the Pan India Summit* and he just called. It's his first time there and he says it is a nasty dirty city, the dirtiest in India that he's ever seen - and that's saying something.

* It's organized by the Evangelical Fellowship of India and some other Christian organizations. I got this off the EFI website:
Issues to be addressed:
1. Missions 2. Persecution of the Church/Religious Freedom/Advocacy 3. Development/Empowering the Poor 4. Research/ Developing India Christian Handbook 5. Leadership Development 6. Media 7. Theology of Church 8. Inter-Church/Ecumenical Relationships 9. Financial Management- For Church leaders and Organization leaders.

Bible College Bibles

Yay! We got the Bibles for the Bible College today. We have 17 Hindi and 17 NIV English Bibles. We currently have 13 students studying but better safe than sorry.

A kind man donated the money for our College course books and there was enough left to get these Bibles for the students. 34 Bibles for $75, not bad.

Praise the Lord!

New Church

Last night we attended the official first service of one of our churches that has been started by one of our Bible College graduates. It is in a city nearby and our Bible Student, Jayker, and his family have been working in the city for the last year or so part-time while he was studying.

They've recently moved to the city to stay. About 25 of us from our home office went over for for the first service and about 25 people came from that area.

It's pretty exciting for us for the main reason that we have been trying to plant a church in this city for years. There have been several attempts in the past to start the church but nothing lasting has ever remained.

Pray with us that God will establish a growing church in this city.