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| Wharariki Beach on our BCC weekend away. |
For those of you who don't know what I'm doing, here's a quick update. I'm now living in Oxford, New Zealand, which is a small town of about 1500-2000 people in the south island of NZ about 45 minutes from Christchurch. I moved here to take over the Bible Core Course, which is a 12 week inductive bible study course where we studied 16 books of the bible from June 25-Sept 13.
The school was an amazing success and God really helped both me and my students through it. I really saw God's providence and His guidance throughout the school. It definitely was one of the busiest times of my life, but it was absolutely amazing and God was with me every step of the way reassuring me, pushing me, comforting me, teaching me, guiding me and really giving me His peace and reminding me that He was in control and that He was the one who really was leading the school, so all I had to do was accept His leadership and allow Him to move through me.
I ended up teaching a lot more than I had originally planned because of not being able to find teachers for all of the books, which made it even busier than it would have been, but God was so good in helping me formulate my teachings and also helping me to stay energized and healthy and able to do what He was telling me to do. I ended up teaching the Gospel of Mark, Proverbs, Small Group Bible Study, Ezra and Revelation, as well as teaching for a couple days on the Snowboarders DTS when they had a teacher have to cancel one week. For someone who had only ever taught twice in my life for only one day each, this was quite the amazing task, especially since all of my teachings had to be made from scratch, but the more that God told me to do, the more I saw His favour and His blessing on my preparation and my teaching. Revelation was an especially hard book since it's a pretty crazy book anyways and because I was teaching it only 1 week after I taught Ezra. I thought I had a teacher lined up for Ezra, but that ended up falling through, so while I was praying about what to do, God said something crazy and told me to teach it myself. After laughing and thinking it was insane for a bit, I was able to switch around the schedule a little bit to give me at least 6 days between my teachings, and trusted God to make it work, and He definitely did. Although it wasn't my most prepared teaching (both Ezra and Revelation), God was amazing through it and taught me immensely while I was preparing, and my students came away with a greater understanding of the book of Revelation and came away feeling encouraged by it instead of discouraged by how confusing it can be. Some of them even said that it was their favourite teaching in the school, which just shows how good God is when you trust Him and let Him work.
As I look back I am amazed by how this school has gone and how much God blessed us with a great school. I had some awesome students who were able to push through different obstacles and difficulties to be able to finish this very busy and demanding course. They definitely were a huge blessing to me, and I don't know if I could've done it if I would have had a different class because they were just so easy to work with. Everybody was able to pass with good marks and they all were able to show that they were able to interpret for the original readers or hearers effectively, which is the main goal of the course. I was able to see God move in awesome ways in their work and in their lives, and I know that they all have come out with a greater appreciation for the Word and a greater understanding of it. Although this is a busy school, it is amazing how much it opens up your understanding of the scriptures on a much deeper level. The more I study, the more excited I get about the Bible and the greater depth of understanding I get of the amazing God that we have and the stories that He has given us.
Although I was incredibly busy this school and was in my office or the classroom all day every day (and night), this was an amazingly rewarding and refreshing season. God has really been showing me more and more that I understand His heart and His love that He has for me and for all of us. It is only through that understanding that I've been able to allow Him to carry my through any trials or tasks that He has given me. It amazes me how fresh I feel even though I have gone through an intense last year and a half where I have basically been studying or teaching the bible day and night pretty much every day. Without God I should be feeling run down and ragged and burnt out, but because He has been driving me and because He has been there with me telling me that it will be alright and reminding me that I just need to be obedient and He'll take care of the rest, I am able to come out of this crazy time feeling fantastic and excited to continue to develop the Bible Core Course here as well as continue to study more and grow deeper and deeper in my knowledge of God's Word and of Him. He really has shown me the Father Heart that He has for all of us, and it's amazing how much He loves and cares for us and wants what is absolutely best for us! He's shown me that I was right on when I said when I was first heading out to join YWAM, that as long as I keep doing what He tells me to do, I can't lose! That definitely is 100% the truth; not only can I not lose, but I'm thriving living for my Daddy and living in His love. He is such an amazing God and Father and Friend and I'm so thankful that I've decided to live fully for Him, it's the best thing I've ever done and ever will do!
