Van Minutes
χαρις ὑμιν και εἰρηνη ἀπο θεou πατρος ὑμων και κυριου Ἰησου Χριστου!
At least 7 of our supporters should be able to read that! For the rest of us it is Paul’s standard yet heartfelt greeting, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,” and so we say it to you! Those very same greek words still echo after 2000 years to the same people: God’s graced children. By way of this nerdy introduction I share with you some of my developing passion – one: for sound biblical scholarship based on a good understanding of the original languages of the bible and two: for missions. But first things first!
Reading week and Thanksgiving (yes, again!) are coming up really soon. We get two weeks off, 2 weeks of class plus 1 week of exams, then Christmas! Coursework for me has never been more grueling, but with the completion of two smaller classes (just wrote a final yesterday) should give me some room to breathe. But every time I back away from the work and get perspective – every time – I get a real sense of peace and actually joy, that this is exactly what we should be doing. That motivates me and Karin notices. The upcoming break doesn’t hurt either!
Karin has worked hard on and is now enjoying a S.W.I.M. (Seminary Wives in Ministry Conference) for most of today (Sat). The theme is “Finding Tranquility in Chaos” with author and speaker Becky Harling, author of Finding Calm in Life’s Chaos and Rewriting Your Emotional Script. There are over 110 seminary wives registered. Karin is truly the behind the scenes girl, exercising her talents. She worked on both secretary and treasurer positions (no longer secretary) for S.W.I.M., the registration, all the name tags, part of the lunch, the decoration setup and more. She’s ready for some tranquility! She is still enjoying volunteering in the business office and Luke’s closet as well. She has enjoyed having meaningful tasks that help so many people.
During reading week four of us students are carpooling to New Orleans for the 61st annual Evangelical Theological Society meeting. This is like the major leagues in North American evangelical scholarship, where over 2000 people – theologians, seminary presidents, college profs, publishing house people, will gather from coast to coast to discuss this year’s theme “Personal and Social Ethics.” A small bonus for me is that two profs who taught me at Redeemer University College will be there. One of these, Dr. Al Wolters, will be a response speaker at one the biggest events. Yeah, Redeemer! This is great; I haven’t played dutch bingo in a while!
I may never read as fast as some of these guys write but I aspire in that direction as you encourage and God provides! I am planning to pursue a double concentration in New Testament studies and missions & intercultural studies. This will all fit in the 120 hours required for the Th. M. degree. Once I found that out, double tracking didn’t seem so bad. This is truly a praise for me vocationally. And for Thanskgiving Part Deux: American Edition in our second week off some older Americans who love us has given us turkey and all the fixings for a feast big enough for 10 people! This gentlemen is battling cancer and quite ill, yet they seek us out regularly with gifts we just don’t deserve. Things like this just keep happening!
Speaking of ‘things like this’, fundraising is going well…and we haven’t asked you for financial help yet! We have received another Canadian scholarship amount of $3000 – the most yet! We are now at around 60% of what we need for this school year. Thank you! We also need to repair our car. We had a full inspection/estimate on it. Engine/tranny is fine, it is quite drivable but needs repair within weeks to stay safe. 4 or 5 things need work and the the estimate is in the high hundreds.
We are looking for help to cover:
- the cost of books/tuition & living (the 40%)
- our car repair
Please pray about this, think about this, and give only the prayer and financial support God is prompting you to. Many of you, especially the older ones, have even through great suffering seen things work out, utterly beyond your logic of how they should happen and to your surprised delight. We have had those moments of anonymous cash envelopes, clothes donated just in time, an email and a prayer and a phone call just when we need encouragement to continue. And some of these prayers for our peace, even recently, have come from family, friends and profs that I know are suffering greatly. As I was taught this fall from Job, ” Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” (Job in Job 2:10) “He delivers the afflicted by their affliction and opens their ear by adversity” (Elihu in Job 36:15). This was emphatically taught to me by a man who lost a son 30 some years ago on the mission field and went on to plant over 20 churches there. He taught this fall with so much face nerve pain that he has had surgery to stop it (didn’t work). And he is praying for me. These are touching and challenging examples teaching me to walk on in Christ. Grace and peace to you as you trust God with His plans for peace in your life.
