I AM SO BUSY

I AM SO BUSY

Seriously though, this BSN thing is nuts. They have to keep reminding us that, yes, it is a college course, because we constantly have homework.

Let me back up.

This place is really nice. We're in the middle of a bunch of farmland about 20 minutes outside of Madison at the TC (Training Center...YWAM loves their acronyms), and while it is beautiful and relaxing, it also makes me feel very isolated, especially in comparison to my DTS. In San Francisco, I was in the heart of the city. It was impossible to get away from people. Here? The only people are the people I live with, and if I need to get away, I have headphones and a big backyard with a nice swing.

The city of Madison is gorgeous. I've gone in a few times now. The first full day here, the Saturday before Easter, we all bused in to town to do a bit of a photo scavenger hunt and to see the YWAM Madison downtown base (they have an acronym for that too, but I can't remember what it is). I also went downtown to State Street, which is between the UW campus and the capitol, to watch the NCAA championship match. It was raining and the streets were packed with drunk college students. It was a wild night right up until the saddening end (GO BADGERS!).

But about the school: We will be going through the whole Bible once in 4 months. However, the first week of teaching was all about worldviews. We learned about the lenses with which people (including ourselves) see everything in life, and how those can affect, specifically, their understanding or approach to the Bible. This week is all about exegesis and hermeneutics, e.i. how to study the Bible in it's original context and then how to apply what we learn from that to our lives in modern times.

When I said I was SO BUSY, it was because I had just gotten assigned a word study on Timothy and Ephesus. So all last evening I was using a concordance to find and list every time Timothy is mentioned in the Bible (far more than I thought) and any time the city of Ephesus or the Ephesians are mentioned. The goal was to get a better understanding of Paul and Timothy's relationship, and since 1 and 2 Timothy are addressed to Timothy while he's in Ephesus, we also wanted to learn about the state of the church there.

It took awhile.

We've been told to expect at least 3 hours of homework due the next day each night, with week long assignments that will take a bit longer. After this week, we'll be going chronologically through the whole Bible. I'm a little apprehensive, but extremely excited.

Prayers for focus and self control would be greatly appreciated. This is my very first college level course (not counting Psych 101 and American History 101 my senior year of high school, which were pretty easy), and if I'm honest with myself I never developed a great work ethic high school. I have a hard time sitting for hours at a time pouring over one topic. As much as this will be a time of gaining knowledge, it will also, hopefully, be a time of character building.

Well, I should go now. We have a relatively light workload tonight - we are trying to find a one sentence summary of the purpose Paul had for writing 1 Timothy, and then finding half a dozen major points and summarizing how they relate to said purpose - and I want to take advantage of that by getting it out of the way now so I can relax and socialize a bit after dinner. My guess is it'll only take me a little over and hour.

As always, please share this link and the link to my GoFundMe (on the left side of the page!). Outreach locations won't be decided for awhile, so I'm not sure exactly how much I'll need, but I'd guess at least a thousand more dollars, especially when I have to find plane tickets.

The focus is still on The DR Congo and Tanzania (we have two students and one staff from Tanzania who want to start up a BSN in their country when they finish this school!), but because we have so many people, Uganda is another place I heard we might be going. I will update on here the moment I find out where I'm going!

Okay, that seems like a pretty good first update! Thank you all so much for your interest and support!

God's Blessings,
Chris