Wednesday 23 July – winding down or winding up?

I am trying to catch up with the blogs that have been saved on my computer and not been published. So you’ll see a few going up in quick successions.

After preaching on Sunday and leading 2 bible studies on Monday (at the end of an outing to the Taytay Falls, Laguna with other SAW teams!) I had officially finished my formal bible teaching engagements and John has 2 more bible studies to lead tonight and Thursday. Funnily enough, just as we thought that our tasks were finished here, God continued to provide opportunities for us. Since there were only 2 of us left on the team, together with the university’s accreditation week, the English teaching schedule was reduced which meant that both of us were able to spend more time in the student centre. At first, it was strange to be sitting in the centre and have nothing specific to do (we’re from a task orientated background and can’t really help it at times). But after a few hours, it became clear that the “hanging around” is necessary for the student to get comfortable with us and they began approaching us to talk about many things – and quite often biblical questions as well.

Recalling what I had already written in the previous entry titled “Raising up a child”, I haven’t, for a second, thought that I would be doing informal bible studies with the students in the centre. Even though I was very tired from the early morning classes and late nights (the Filipinos don’t seem to sleep much!), when you see the zeal in the student’s faces, with their pens and notebooks ready, one cannot resist but open up the bible and study God’s word together. If you had asked me on Tuesday morning whether things are winding down, I’d have said yes. But I have changed my mind – things will never wind down here, God’s work never stops.

Last night at the fellowship meeting, John eagerly took the students into the Old Testament, a first time for many of them. We read through (in Tagalog) and studied the whole book of Jonah in just under an hour! We have often been challenged by the book of Jonah, for we were / are just like him (with some notable exceptions) – disobedient to God, always whinging, judgemental (he clearly hated Assyrians), unforgiving, lacking any “heart” or compassion for them and unhealthily wrapped up in his own problems. John in his prayer letter wrote this “the experiences I have had here have had a profound effect on me - I have been humbled by how complacent and like Jonah I had become.” I could not agree more, and we both concurred that it may take a few weeks for it all to filter through.

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