Through the first week of 3rd term

Sandiaoling Waterfall

It's hard to believe that we've already started 3rd term. I have already been in Taiwan for over 6 months, and they have been probably the most difficult 6 months of my life, but it's been an absolutely amazing experience and privilege to be able to spend this time studying God's word so closely. The last 3 weeks of 2nd term we did Samuel, Kings and Chronicles (that is not a typo, those 3 monsters in 3 weeks), which was like having a mountain as the end of a marathon. It was insane and I almost felt like giving up one day during Kings, but it was definitely worth it and was amazing to see how God moved throughout the time of the kings of Israel (and Judah) and how even though it sometimes seemed like He wasn't there, He was always moving and active and sovereign throughout it.

Break was definitely a VERY much needed rest. I didn't do anything too crazy, basically just went rock climbing a few times at a bouldering wall that's in a park in Taipei and went on a couple hikes, one of which was an amazing trail with 3 waterfalls that was actually a real hike on a dirt trail, which is rare for Taipei area (usually it just consists of paved or stone trails with lots of stairs). Other than that I did some relaxing and hung out with my friends and with Jesus.

The bouldering wall in Neihu Sports Park

We now have just finished the first week of 3rd (and final) term and it has started off with a bang with wisdom literature. We started out with Proverbs, and it was probably my favourite book that we've studied so far, and probably will be my favourite out of the entire SBS. The former SBS leader, Scott, taught the book and he brought the truth big time and really dug into it and didn't dodge any of the hard and convicting wisdom in the book. We had two mornings of teaching (6 hrs), and throughout the teaching I was loving every minute of it. Studying Proverbs really showed me how much I love wisdom and how much I desire more and more wisdom from God, which was especially cool because I also realized how much God wants us to seek wisdom and loves to see us desire it (Prov 1:7 and 9:10 say that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom/understanding). On the second day of teaching Scott wore his "friendly shirt" because he was going to be delivering some hard truths from Proverbs regarding teachability, money and diligence/laziness, and the whole class I just sat there loving every minute of it and cheering him on in my heart. It was amazing to see how God had put wisdom in my heart and how it made me love it no matter what it meant for my own comfort and no matter how convicting it was. I can't say enough about the book of Proverbs and I 100% recommend each and every one of you take the time to read through it, and better yet, spend some time meditating on different passages. For our assignment we had to choose 4 themes to track throughout the book and do 5 interpretations for each theme. I chose reproof/discipline, pride/humility, the fear of the Lord and anger/temper as my themes, and I plan to colour code all the different themes in my bible so that I can have a quick reference guide to the main themes Proverbs deals with and spend time every week meditating on different passages depending on what I feel God wants to speak to me about.

The 2nd half of the week we studied Job, which was a lot more intensive than we all thought it would be. We did another special assignment for Job where we went through the discourse that Job and his friends had (and Elihu's response to it) and identified passages that we felt were biblical and ones we felt unbiblical, using verse reference outside of Job to support our views. We also had to identify areas where his friends' arguments were biblical, but were just not applied with wisdom. It was a difficult assignment, but was a really good way to go through the book and see how important it is to use wisdom properly, and was a good way to put the knowledge that we've gained about the bible into use. I just wish I would have had a bit more time to do it (may be something to do again in the future).

This week is going to be a bit of a break for us. We are having some mandatory volunteer training as a requirement of getting our Alien Residency Card, so we'll still have classes a couple days for Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes, but we don't actually have an assignment for them, so it'll be a nice little break for us. We also will be starting the prophets with the introduction to the prophets on Friday and our first lecture for Amos on Saturday. It's kinda funny how having a full 6 day week of classes and training is considered a break for us, but that just shows you how intense and busy this school has been for us.

Please be praying for me over the next week or so. In my last post I posted what I felt like God had for me for the future, but this last week when I was about to hand in my Titus application I felt a huge check in my spirit and felt God asking me if I was absolutely sure that this was what I'm supposed to do next. This led me to hold off on applying and spending time in prayer about my future, and I ended up sending an email to the Oxford YWAM base and it's now a possibility that I may be going there in January instead to staff the Biblical Core Course (basically a 3 month version of SBS) as well as the Backpackers DTS in September. So right now I'm waiting on an email back from the Oxford base about some questions that I felt God wanted me to ask before I made a decision, and I should know by the end of the week what the plan is. I still applied for Titus because the application was due on Saturday and just made them aware of my current situation and that I'm not 100% sure what God wants me to do yet, but that I'll let them know as soon as possible. So if you could all be praying that God really directs my path as I plan for the future, it'd be really appreciated. My heart is just to do what He wants me to do and not to do anything just because it seems good or because others think I should do it. He's planned my steps so far, and I can't wait to see the path that He's chosen for me. I'll definitely write a post when everything is finalized to let you know what's happening.

Also, I'm coming home for Christmas this year! I'll be home December 18th, and depending on what I do after SBS, I'll either be leaving January 2nd if I'm doing Titus or 22nd(ish) if I'm staffing in Oxford, so if you're in London, let me know if you want to get together for a coffee or lunch and catch up.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read my blog and keeping me in your prayers, it means so much to me.

God bless!