Stalkerish much?

This is my desktop wallpaper at the moment:

What do you think...

Stalkerish much? :P

(No... of course not.. it's just my way of seeing Esther everyday!)

Continued...Bible study, OCF Chill and Good Friday cleaning

Continuing on from my last post...

So the bible studies this week at AUTCF were amazing I think. We're up to Galatians 2:1-11. Quite confusing at first and a lot to unpack in 11 verses. We had 9 people on Tuesday, 7 on Wednesday and 11 on Thursday. On Tuesday we only got through interpreting the first 5 verses, and on Weds and Thurs we got through all the verses. There were a lot of subtle hints in the text and it took me a while to get my head around it even though I had read a commentary on the passage.

I'm really enjoying taking the Thursday Bible studies now. I go along to the Tues and Weds ones also, so by the time I'm observing the passage for the 3rd time I have a good idea of what I'm doing. It's been challenging for me to lead these Bible studies, and I've only led 3 but I'm enjoying it more and it's been encouraging; stepping up to this role. I have learnt to not just blurt out what the "answers" are but to hold back and let the students struggle with the passage a bit, and I've learnt to pose questions that will steer the study onto the right track. I don't confess to know everything.. in fact I don't know the Bible as well as some of the students at all and that is something that I'm working on this year.

Going into Thursday's Bible study I was a bit hesitant... it had been a hard passage the past two days and I wasn't sure whether I would be able to lead it effectively. Praise God, definitely, for an answer to prayer - one that one of the Jeffs had prayed for me during the team meeting. The study was amazing... God was truly working within the students and they wrestled with the passage and when things came to light, they were right onto it. It was so encouraging and I was so thankful at the end of the study, my hands were shaking and I felt like crying!

After the phenomenon that was Bible study, Sarah, Kate and I went along to Maclaurin Chapel for the OCF Chill event. There was dinner (YUM!), board games, and live music by Shi Ern. Being extremely tired and with brains that weren't functioning enough for Taboo/Scrabble/Monoply, we decided to stay in the kitchen and do the dishes instead - which was quite therapeutic and didn't require any brain function at all... well, barely any anyway!

Today is good Friday...and I cleaned the oven and the stove and the exhuast fan thing... a lot of grease splatter I tell you.. and lots of food-stuff on the stove. Luckily, I learnt from my mother and trying to preserve/not damage the stove in the apartment, it's always lined with foil... so all I have to do is peel off the foil and chuck it in the bin. I do clean the stove top still though.. just getting rid of that lil bit of grease that gets through. Oh.. which reminds me, a part of the exhaust fan thing is still outside on the balcony... I'd better go take it in (I can't believe I just wrote that much on cleaning my kitchen! So sorry!).

A getaway, Christian...really? And "who do you say Jesus is?"

As mentioned in my last post, Sarah and I went to Bethlehem, Tauranga over the weekend for Justine's 21st. It was great fun, beautiful weather and a very classy afternoon tea with LOTS of fun had.



We also got to visit BTI (Bethlehem Tertiary Institute) - where Justine is studying to become a teacher. We got to sit in on her English class - learning about reciprocal reading, and I remembered using this reading method in primary school. Then we got to join in on her art class where we were makin "juicy" stencils for silk-screen printing. Sadly we had to leave class early to catch out bus back to Auckland so we missed out on the printing part, but I had fun creating my underwater scene, complete with Jellyfish for Jellyfish catching (like on Spongebob Squarepants) and Gary - the pet snail.. "meaow!" It was a really good lil break, and good to get out of Auckland, although I do love being in Auckland.

We arrived back in Auckland at 3:40pm, then I walked to my brother's workplace - Opus in Westhaven and we went straight up to Orewa to have dinner with the family... Now, whenever I go up to Orewa, mum tends to cook a feast.. and the food is SOOO good! I ALWAYS over-eat!

Tuesday - back to work! We had our weekly AUTCF committee meeting at 9am in The Hub, and the main thing on the agenda was the upcoming Easter Outreach (which we did today - more on that later). I will write about the Bible studies later... but there was bible study 4-6pm. Then I went to see Slumdog Millionaire which I really enjoyed. I liked the way it was shot - with constant flashbacks enlightening the audience as to how he got to where he was.

OK, so today... was an amazing day I think... not because of one big thing that happened but a lot of things today which both challenged me and led me to praise God. We had our Auckland Team meeting this morning. During our sharing time, I felt that I was quite happy with where I was. I couldn't think of any prayer requests for myself on the spot, but that doesn't mean that I didn't need prayer. I think it was one of the Jeffs who prayed for me though - for leading the bible study today. Anyway, we'll get back to that.. but we did a Bible study in Mark at the meeting. One of the things that came up was ... "What was Jesus doing with these people (tax collectors and sinners)." In the application stage, Andy spoke about sometimes questioning whether certain people had really turned to Jesus, but that is not for us to judge. This really challenged me and this is why: Some of you may know that the trials for those who were leaders during the Pol Pot regime (or the Khmer Rouge) are happening now in Cambodia. The man who they are currently persecuting is Kaing Guk Eav, or Duch (pronounced Doik). He was a torture prison boss at Tuol Sleng or S21 prison camp where approx. 17,000 people were detained, tortured and executed. My mum's family lived through the Khmer Rouge. My grandfather passing away because of lack of medical services, leaving my grandmother with 8 young children and 1 on the way. I don't know if they did ever encounter this camp or Duch but he was part of the team who oppressed and killed so many Cambodians - and estimated 1.7 million people including babies and children, and especially targetting the educated.


So why was the Bible study challenging? Well from reading about the trials, I came across this report: "After the lunch break the defence requested to be allowed to make balancing claims about Duch's character. He is now a Christian." This request was refused. My initial reaction to "he is now a Christian" was literally, "yeah right." I find it hard to believe that this man, who was part of such an evil regime, who had his hand in killing 1.7 million Cambodians, is now a Christian. I questioned whether he really was a Christian or if this was just a ploy to improve his image in court. What we learnt from Bible study in Mark was that we are right with God because we are saved, NOT because we are righteous. This may well be true in Duch's case.. But I will still struggle with this for a while. In my mind he doesn't deserved to be saved, and God shouldn't love him.. but just because I think that God shouldn't doesn't mean that he won't. I know that God loves everyone and it's not my place to judge - that God will ultimately judge us for our hearts. But in my humanness, I don't see why Duch should be saved, why he should be shown grace. It's been on my mind ever since I read the article over a week ago. And today Scripture brought it back to me.


So, after the team meeting, Sarah and I (and 8 bi-lingual Bibles for Ben) headed to AUT for our Easter Outreach. The group stuck up a red cross in the quad, above it they put "Jesus: Who do you say I am?" And had 6 "I am" statements around it. From 12-2:30pm, they invited passing students to write down who they thought Jesus was and stick it on the cross, in exchange for a mini easter egg.



Here are some of the responses:




Praise God for the response that we got from the students and for those students who stopped, read, thought and wrote something to stick up on the cross. We are so lucky that we are able to do this kind of thing here in Auckland without any opposition. We were able to leave this up in the quad for the rest of the day til 6pm.

I think I'm going to have to continue writing this post tomorrow... There's so much and I want to write and reflect on for the Bible studies this week but it's late and I need some sleep! So this blogpost is to be continued...

A Quick Update

Right - so seems that I have quite a bit of blogging to catch up on so will try to keep each account brief! Have just finished my Minty assignment (YAY! 1000 words), and like I've said before, if only those words came to me as easily as the words of this blog!

So AUTCF - we have been doing our usual Milo Mondays. Met a couple people last Monday, one of whom showed up to Bible study yesterday with a friend! Bible studies running Tues, Weds and Thurs from 4-6pm in WT1101. Last Tuesday we had an amazing turn out! 13 people altogether, with 7 newbies and 6 oldies. Praise God for answering our prayers about integrating the new and the old and for providing people eager to study the Word! Weds was a good turn out as well - 8 altogether. Yesterday I was leading the study, and E from Milo monday brought her friend and we started straight away as they had to leave after 30mins. We were able to work through the first half of the passage, but pray that they will come back next week. Then C arrived and we did a little one-on-one bible study as the two Es had to leave. This was a little different to what I had prepared for so we just worked through the passage, observing and interpreting as we went. Some good applications were drawn and we closed in prayer.

AUTCF are also preparing for an Easter outreach on Campus. More details and pics will be up after the event on 9th April.

EU - We had a very summery Bible study in Jonah last week as we decided to hold the bible study outside, in the shade of the tree on the lawn outside Maclaurin Chapel. It turned out to be a little dangerous though with the acorns (?) dropping at any moment and we had a few loud clanks on the table!

On Weds 1 April, we had a table in the AU Quad from 10-1 and we were giving out lollipops and flyers for EU. We had about 160 flyers and 200 lollipops. I think we had about 20-30 flyers left so will be praying that some of those people with flyers would come along to check out the group.

We had a very small Auckland Team Meeting yesterday, with Jeff in Wellington and Andy deciding to use his 12 hours for the meeting in Wellington as well. There were just 4 of us and we shared what had been happening and prayed for each other. As I was writing down the prayers, I decided to start a prayer journal, just so that I could keep track of what needed to be prayed for so that I wouldn't forget.

Sarah and I will be off to Tauranga tomorrow at about noon. We are going for 2 nights, staying with our good friend Justine! It's her 21st birthday today and we're going to join her for her celebrations on Sunday - a high noon tea party, Jane Austen style.. (still need to find something to wear!) Am really excited to see her!!

Am LOVING Skype at the moment, even though I only really use it to chat to a couple people. But it's great being able to see Esther's face! (She's my beloved bestie.. who decided to rough it in wild South Africa (or safa) for a year). It's been good keeping in touch AND getting some very good shots of her through the webcam:P There's one in my previous post, and here's another:

There are some others that are less tame, but they will find their way up here somewhere in the near future!

ESTHER!!

Skyping Esther this morning:

Not sure what the African sun is doing to her skin! Incredible Hulk anyone?

(She's gona kill me when she sees this photo!)

More updates coming - exciting Bible study yesterday!!