I apologize for not really staying on top of this whole blogging thing. Sometimes I have to choose between blogging and letter writing and letter writing almost always wins. I think it's important to note what music I'm listening to right now because that has a singular effect on the content of what I write. I'm currently listening to Ave Maria sung by Luciano Pavarotti on Pandora radio and it is brilliant. For some reason, my hormones are changing or something and I'm moved to tears very easily (as I write this with tears in my eyes). I can't really explain it; perhaps a woman thing?
Wow, I'm easily distracted. Back to what I actually wanted to write about which is what God is doing in my life right now. In an effort to be transparent here with whoever reads this, I'm going to be upfront about my spiritual struggles and not try to cover everything up with a pathetic facade which, I'll admit, I'm prone to doing. For weeks, I had despaired of not finding any fellow Christians besides my roommate and just stagnating in my spiritual life.
That all changed in Oxford. Last week, the entire program went to Oxford for a week to stay at the University College and experience what it's like to be a student there. The outcome of this move was that we all had more of an opportunity to mix with other people in the program outside of those in our house and in our classes. Sunday morning comes around having just arrived the day before and many of us troop over to Christ Church (name of a college, not a church) to attend a service. The service was quite remarkable: the choir sung magnificently, the church itself was breathtaking, and non-Christians were attending a church service which to me was the most remarkable thing of all. Anyways, after the service, I talked to a few other people about what they thought of the service and that started us on the topic of our own religious leanings; there are more Christians in the group than I had realized.
So Oxford was the beginning but this last week, there's an e-mail that's sent out to everyone in the program that advertises a Bible Talk that a member of the ASE program had put together for Tuesday evening. I decided to come just to show her support for courageously doing what I hadn't even thought to do. On an aside, I talked to Ruth the other day about missed opportunities in sharing the gospel and how even if we miss out, God will provide other means for the truth to be proclaimed...like that passage in Esther, "And they told Mordecai what Esther had said. Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, "Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" (Esther 4:12-14)
Well, God certainly provided a means for truth to be proclaimed even within the secular confines of an academic program studying in England. I went to the bible study and two other people besides myself and Emily, the person who put the bible study together, were there. Regardless of numbers, I was tremendously encouraged by her courage and initiative to study God's word in "dark" places. We looked at a passage in the gospel of Mark that spoke of Jesus' baptism and how extraordinary that was. We also ate chocolate. :) One girl that came was Catholic and the other was Jewish... I am very excited to see where this goes and what God intends to do with this study. Despair is futile when you're a child of God; He gives us hope, and a future, and a purpose.
Whoever reads this, please pray for this study and for the Christians in this program to be bold in proclaiming the gospel. I'm now listening to classical Christmas music (Still, Still, Still on the Christmas Adagios album); apparently I didn't realize that Ave Maria is Christmas music. ;)
Til later my friends, cheers!
