Howdy Partners (in ministry)!
How y’all doin’? We really miss all our friends, family and supporters…and snow – at least for skiing! We’re trading in our Canadian “eh?” for Texas-speak now. It’s funny that in greek class, when translating the plural form of “you”, English has no equivalent – except in Texas. Look at the end of the update for a “Texas translation” of John 20:21.
The weather right now is a clear blue 20C outside our window right now, but it certainly wasn’t on Wednesday and Thursday. Check out the video on the right to see what it takes to shut down Dallas Theological Seminary for a day. Over 560 fender benders in Dallas alone!
My studies are going along pretty well so far. I received good marks for both my fall semester and the winter course that I took. Taking a one-week winter course is kind of like doing a “ten-paces duel” Bugs Bunny style and getting shot up with 40-50 paintballs. First you get really wound up and start walking. Then you wheel around and endure lots of pain for a short period of time. The welts go away after two weeks. After the initial 8am-5pm classes for a week, and having the homework subside after two weeks, I now face a spring semester with one less class, which was my goal. I am behind right now in my spring courses but it will not be so for long. I enjoy the professors also, they are very good about meeting for coffee and lunch and they usually pay!
After visiting everywhere from Bible Churches, to Baptist, to Chuck Swindoll’s Stonebriar, etc., etc., Karin and I have decided to join Park Cities Presbyterian Church (PCPC) here in Dallas (www.pcpc.org). We have been attending there for a while now. We were also checking out Providence Presbyterian, a small church. We felt that even though we liked the small church for it’s smallness, it was new and did not have developed vision, mission support, types of meetings/studies etc. We are up for being pioneers, but not yet. Park Cities is big and established. It has money. It has been around almost a century. The sanctuary is cathedral-like. At first the many members and big building and the demographic of the members kind of scared us off. But after research and prayer, the picture we have is different. This is a warm, mission minded, faithful church with lots of ways to get involved and be taught how to ‘do church.’ Just last week Sunday night they had the Golden Gate Baptist Gospel choir visiting for a mission conference weekend, and in the words of a middle age white elder, this “award winning” black gospel choir was “rockin’ tonight.” I looked around and saw otherwise stiff folks swaying along with the choir and a lot more “Amen”s and “preach it”s than usual during the sermon.
We are checking out just how many ways we can involve ourselves next weekend on the “Urban Ministries Bus Tour.” A bus is going to take members around to every urban/partner ministry the church is involved in. Prison ministry, outreach centers, pregnancy centers, etc. There are also church classes at church for different ages and purposes. We will join one of those soon. There is a choir. Karin and I are already in “Perspectives” www.perspectives.org, a 16 week mission training course hosted by PCPC and attended by memebers of about 8 different churches. It is an invaluable training program already set up by the U.S. center for World Mission. After finishing we will not only have a solid global perspective on missions, I will be certified to host a Perspectives class if I wish (and I do wish). You can run these classes from anywhere in the world. This event was one of those ‘God moments’ when we realized that the “space” I had in my spring schedule was really God’s way of making sure there was time to do Perspectives. And we have our new church to thank for the scholarship that allowed us to attend for free. We received 500 dollars (250 each) to attend the class and we did not even ask for help – amazing!
Karin is auditing Women in ministry class here and she really enjoys it. It trains the wives of the seminary students how to become effective ministry leaders alongside their husbands. That meets on Friday mornings. Karin is also working away on quilts. Since there is more to show than to tell, the pictures on the right have some of her recent work with descriptive captions. Just click on more photos. In just 24 days, she is headed to Ottawa with these quilts to finish them up, as well as attend her cousin’s wedding February 28th. I will be here all by my lonesome studying away. *sniff* It won’t be so bad as we have my parents visiting the following week after Karin is back! They will be enjoying Dallas with us during my March break (approx Mar 14-21).
God is still so good to us. No real sickness or big trials. We are getting into a church. We got to go to the rodeo last week! (check photos) It’s room temperature outside. We received unsolicited money from the strangest most unexpected places three times in the last two months – even from other students! Just the other day someone delivered 72 containers of strawberries and blueberries to the school lounge; free bread is frequent but not fruit. They were gone in 5 minutes, before I knew they were there. The people who supplied them know us and they saved some blueberries and strawberries just for us, found me walking home and gave them to me. Almost literally a “cherry on top” of our blessings. Things like that happen enough to us that you would think God is right there all the time! And being blessed so richly, we consider it our calling to be a blessing also (as we are learning in Perspectives).
Here’s the Texas translation (true to the greek) of John 20:21: “Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending y’all.” That “y’all” is an intentionally plural form meaning all believers.
That “sent” is to those who have not yet heard, “And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?” (Rom 10:14) Both Karin and I are happy to be in a place where we can become well qualified ’senders & sent ones’ and inspire others to do the same.
From Dallas with Love,
Daniel and Karin
