Pathetic Prophet

Internet problems galore. So my blog posting has been galess. Lot of excitement lately, and I feel completely drained today. Had a great time with our Bible study last night. The two services were a little more balanced (certainly more balanced than last week!), and I guess we ended up in the high 60’s after you chuck the repeats. And we actually had a good number of students stay for both services. Before, I think we’d only had as high as three repeats, but there were closer to seven or eight this week. Which means more workers helping out, and more interest in the Bible. 

Continuing in David, and last night we talked about how being a Christian does not exclude you from overwhelming problems, desperate situations, and dangerous enemies. Rather, it precludes you. Too much story and too little time, but we started with David parading into Jerusalem as a hero, and ended with him hiding in cave as a fugitive. Kind of difficult to preach on that particular group of events, but we tried to focus on the repeated line that “the Lord was with David.” And how it’s better to be in a cave with God than in a palace without Him. Good news for college students, whose dorms more closely resemble the former than the latter.  

They are really responding to the story of David, and I really believe it’s helping the Bible come alive for them. Praise the Lord for that. I’m putting more and more Chinese into the message every week, which allows me to talk faster and communicate more information. This is also a big help. When you are speaking to a group in their second language, you have to carefully select a bite-sized piece and painstakingly feed it to them through a straw. I really threw myself into the first message, really used a lot of Chinese, but I got about five minutes into the repeat message and almost ran out of gas! It really felt like I was hit by a bus or something. I guess I’m quite a wimp, but that was really tough! It’s hard to stay mega-passionate about the same message back-to-back.  

The students are starting to feel more at home at the new place. They are starting to feel like it is a special place for them to enjoy, which is really the environment we were hoping to create. To give you an example, there’s a guy named Js., who is a friend of many of our first friends here. We met him at a restaurant with our friends (where I almost choked on a fish bone), and I was sure from that first meeting that Js. would never be interested in the Bible study. He’s loud, a leader of party-goers, and gave off a better-than-you air. But he showed up at the first meeting at the new place, and he has come lots more. Last night he brought a game to donate to the student center, and he stayed for both services. He helped clean, prepare food, and take out the garbage. There’s another point off my “ability-to-judge-character” status. Not many left.