First few days at SIBI

Don't tell anyone, but I think my facial hair is growing faster in Texas. At this new rate, I believe I'll have a full grown beard by 42 (fingers crossed).

Yesterday and today were orientation days for school here at Sunset and actual school starts tomorrow. So far everything's gone well. The church was packed on Sunday. I was surprised there didn't seem to be many empty spaces and it's supposed to hold like 1400 people. I was able to meet some people in the college class Sunday morning as well.

Sunday's lesson preached was on missions and the daily chapel is held in what they call the "flagroom" which has each flag from the world's countries hanging on the wall, as symbolism of the focus of serving every nation. So far, I've been impressed by how outward focussed this church and school is here at Sunset. Many of the faculty have served in the foreign mission field and there are many different ongoing ministries throughout the world that are supported by Sunset. Even though schooling is going to go from 7:30 to 4:30 Monday through Thursday with a short day on Friday, I'm hoping to get involved regularly in local service and volunteer work. There are breaks at the end of every quarter for a week that I'd love to be able to go and serve on. It sounds like there will be opportunity to serve here not too far away in Mexico City. I forget that Mexico City is the second largest in the world behind Beijing I believe. Luis, one of the first year preaching students in our class who has lived most of his life in Mexico, was telling me that there are still various tribes and people groups in Mexico that don't even speak Spanish. They're still speaking their native language. Luis's passion, much like myself, is to share the gospel and Christ's love with people and countries who've never heard or experienced it before. He even said his goal was to be a missionary in countries where Christians are persecuted for their faith, which has also been on my heart much recently. As Luis said, and I second, you obviously don't go to be persecuted, but you go out of love for all the people who haven't experienced Jesus's love... and in the end that may be towards the very groups and people that deliberately persecute Christians. All in all it was neat to meet people of like passion and faith.

Since today was orientation, they had an allotted time for all 42 or so incoming students to share a little of their background and story. It was humbling to hear of all the different stories of people's faiths and how they came to Sunset. There was one man that stood up from Taiwan, who introduced himself as "Hong Chu", but he said, "people just call me Cliff". As funny as that was to hear, it's kind of sad how little tolerance many of us have for cultures we're unfamiliar with, whether it's the pronunciation of a name or any other cultural practices. I was surprised by the number of deaf people attending the school. Of the 42, nine are deaf. Sunset apparently has a large deaf ministry. They have their own section to sign along as hymns are sung during worship services. It's all a pretty cool ministry. In fact, that's why my classes are going to be from 7:30 to 4:30 is because I'm going to be in a sign language class from 7:30 to 8:30 every day. At first I thought, "no way, I don't want to lose an extra hour of sleep. The day's already long enough." But after a short while of consideration I thought of how much it would mean to me if I was deaf and people went out of their way to learn my language to communicate with me. Someone brought this little thought up to me which I thought was interesting. They said if Jesus could come down from heaven to earth and humble himself to learn the language of the time, then it's not much to ask of us to do our best to learn the languages of people we minister to. I thought that was neat and probably part of the reason that Jesus not only seemed to be fluent in Aramaic, but also likely Greek and Hebrew. In fact, I've noticed that the little bit of Spanish that I know and use to Spanish speaking Americans, they love it. It's as though I've taken the time to better understand them, even if it's just a few sentences. So that was my conclusion after thinking about whether or not to take sign language class. They say you can communicate decent after a year of class, unlike taking high school Spanish. And I'd like to think I'm not as immature as I was when I attempted to take high school Spanish.

For those of you wondering what the school teaches that all of these people from different backgrounds could all be a part of, it is essentially a two year bible degree. The bible is taught, along with all sorts of communication and language classes. It was developed to equip anyone for a career in ministry, whether that be a youth minister, a pulpit preacher, a missionary, deaf minister, or whatever else.

Along with Hong Chu, Luis, and many of the deaf, there were many other interesting stories. A young woman shared of her time as an atheist until she grew close to a Christian family that simply loved and cared for her as another human being. Another woman shared of her troubled past, her time in and out of prison until she developed a relationship with the Lord. Two young men had had near death experiences and still battle physical struggles, but were so full of joy. Overall I was surprised at the diversity of our group of students and I think it will be both a humbling and an educating experience just to learn alongside them. My worldview is so small, and I praise God for continuing to open the doors to expand it, and to ultimately be formed into the image of Christ. I'm looking forward to the school year, as strenuous as it might be, and I thank all of you who constantly continue to support me in my future career in ministry. God bless!