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...
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