So, we’ve officially made it through the first week of school! The curriculum is chronological, moving from Genesis through Revelation with the understanding that each book builds upon another. You cannot understand Exodus until you understand Genesis, and so on and so forth until you realize that Christ cannot be understood in fullness until you understand the Old Testament. It’s all very enthralling!
Our classes include:
Biblical Foundations–our lovely 8 am class. We’re doing a survey from Genesis to Revelation, looking at God’s plan throughout Scripture.
Bibliology– we’re learning about how we got the Scripture we have today. We’re going through textual criticism, manuscripts, inspiration, canonicity, etc. I really enjoy this class for all of the basic knowledge it lays out, reminding me of the how and why of what I read every day.
Pentateuch– Currently, we’re in Genesis 5 after 6 days of class. It’s VERY thorough!
Ruth/Eccl/Song of Solomon – this is one of our electives and it’s a survey of these three books. The professor is great and has made everything come alive!
Emerging Church–this is another elective that just started. The name is pretty much self-explanatory, although we will be looking much deeper than just the movement itself. A few of the specifics involve syncretism and contextualism. Basically, how should the church look today in our post modern culture, or in any culture for that matter. We’ll look at the fundamentals of how the body should express itself in society.
I can truly say I feel the weight of “In the beginning, God…”. We spent soooo much time laying the proper foundations that my brain feels full to overflowing!!! We will have a few more electives as the blocks progress (Foundations For Learning, Intro to New Tribes, and Christian Apologetics). Block schedules are strange! I feel like I’m in high school again, going to class every day.
I do believe that we’ve officially adjusted to the lack of running water! God is merciful and made the transition short and sweet. I praise God for gravity and soap! Our little place is coming together quite well. It feels like a home a little more each day. I still hate food shopping the most, so in the beginning, building up the pantry again was agitating. I have had more trouble baking at 1001 ft instead of 6500ft…I’m not joking! The only thing that has been better are my cookies! I learned to bake bread in Colorado and my bread always rises too fast here and then wants to collapse…and it loves to mold fast too. Our apartment is on the third floor and is in a corner that doesn’t have much airflow, creating temperature that are blazing as soon as the sun starts hitting the windows. One day it was 94 in our kitchen. At night it’s been as high as 90 with the fans on high!! Praise God for the rain today that cooled things off. I have this feeling that we’ll end up on the field in a hot, muggy place…hmm….I can hear Harriet rooting for Papua New Guinea now. 🙂
I have had to turn to the Lord for strength to do just the basic tasks of life soooo many times in the past week. It feels like He is working on me in every way and from every angle. I spend most of my time studying and packing my head full of knowledge, drinking yerba mate as often as I can! Seriously, I think I’ll have to have some sent to me before the semester is finished. But all of this learning is exciting, especially because we’re learning it right alongside those who could potentially be on the field with us! It has also been so encouraging to see my brothers and sisters at Warrendale Community Church, and especially my family. I do miss Colorado, but it’s good knowing that the Lord wants us here and is filling our time with blessings.
Keep both Payton and myself in your prayers, we need it! Pray for Payton especially as he’s still working on pacing himself with homework and reading (we have a LOT of reading). Pray for us as we decide on where to go to church. And pray that we would retain all that we are learning, not only for tests, but also for the future.
If I can find the camera, I’ll post pictures.
RED EYE says
LOL, I also noticed the dif in bake goods at altitudes too. I started refrigerating my breads at low altitudes to slow down on the mold factor. Specially true with whole grain and no preservative breads. Good ruck…Dan
Claire says
I've gotten so used to adapting my baking to high altitude as well that I think it would be hard for me to adjust!