Upcoming Mission work

After a couple of weeks at school here at SIBI in Lubbock, things continue to be progressing well. The classes are a load, going to school from 7:30 to 4:30, then having homework and studying I need to do. It isn't the same as my past history of schooling where I studied little. High school didn't require a lot of studying and, without making too many excuses, I was too lazy and lacked much interest in the course material in college to spend much time studying. It's a different story for me when it comes to the bible. I enjoy studying and learning new things from the bible. There are still many things I have to force myself to do though. For example, I'm currently taking a break from an assignment that requires us to read about 70 pages from the MLA book for writing. When I first began to read, I put it down and said "no way", but then I looked and saw reading this book is 10% of our entire grade for the class. It's not like college where you can get away with just skimming because our teachers make us sign a sheet that says we read it or didn't read it... and we're in preaching school. I think that would actually be effective for college professors as well because most people aren't deliberate liars.

Anyhow aside from the boring studying stuff, I attended a meeting today for a mission trip some students are taking to Ottawa Canada in mid October during our fall break. It's fairly inexpensive for an international trip, between $500-$700, so I'm really hoping to go. We would go for a week and do different evangelistic activities and spend some time with the small church up there. I guess Ottawa has a population of about 1 million people. I've never been to Canada so I would enjoy taking the trip. I'm at the state in my life where I really want to travel everywhere and get a sense of different cultures, hopefully being a good example for Jesus wherever I go.

I started taking a Portuguese class that one of the teachers at SIBI is teaching. He was a missionary in Brazil for a long time and takes students on week trips during the summer to both Brazil and Mozambique, which is apparently a Portuguese speaking country as well. So far the language seems to be very similar to Spanish, but more difficult to learn. Hopefully after a while of the class I'll be prepared at least for a short term trip to a Portuguese speaking country. It's funny how learning it makes me want to finish learning the more advanced teachings in Spanish... in due time I suppose.

I've been looking for different opportunities to serve outside of school in the community and quite a few people had suggested that I go visit the Carpenter's Church here in downtown Lubbock. I got on their website and found out they were very interactive with homeless and poverty stricken people in the downtown area. They meet every day of the week and house what homeless people they can. Anyhow I went and joined them last night for their Wednesday evening meal/service. It was certainly different than any church I've ever been in before. I met the couple that leads the group and they were very kind, explaining that it's family atmosphere. I got to help serve some dinner and listen to stories from all sorts of different people. It was humbling, kind of like Nicaragua in a lot of ways. There were various people from all walks of life, most of whom seemed to be struggling, whether homeless or financially impoverished. I appreciated being able to sit down and just listen. I like to hear about where people come from. It helps me to be more compassionate. The reason I have a tendency to be a hypocrite and judge by appearance is only because I haven't spent enough time getting to know and understand people who differ from myself. While the church service and dinner was rather chaotic, I found it to be peaceful. The truth is that we can't organize everything to be the exact way we'd like it to be. Sometimes things are out of our control, so we do our best and let God do the rest. I commend the folks at the Carpenter's Church for starting a good work and creating a family setting amongst people groups that are too often separated by barriers that only exist in our minds. More to come...