Year 2.21

Year 2.21 has been a fascinating week mostly spent teaching abroad. On Monday morning breakfast was at a popular bun QF restaurant near the sixth mouth. A class of 28 students, one audit, was waiting for me. They learned uneasily the grammar rules on the first day. Class ends at 530pm. After dinner with two students I returned to class to sit with a few students there because I did not want to sit alone in the small morel room. Interestingly this is the third generation I am training, having skipped the last generation because I was absent at home with Doris the last three years.

Tuesday was exegeting and preaching the first point in Philemon. The brighter students were two with law background and one from HKU. The audit and two older brother-sister siblings had it rougher. Overall most are unsure but are willing to learn. The two ladies from Greenland with me for dinner told me the first generation student I trained was their pastor's son.Tuesday I spent the evening in class too till 9pm.

The next day was the best. Most remarkably understood what I was doing and how grammar dictates preaching. One student who was worried if she could improve made major progress. So did the rest of the class. A former student took me to dinner and told me he had taught 100 students the grammar rules, 40 at seminary and 40 at missions. Night space was taken by church, so I spent some time at Starbucks, returning 9pm to watch an anti-triad TV series younger coworkers were watching, starring Jordan Chan to counter my boredom.

Day 4 was a fitting end to what I taught them. Most had control of grammar and their preaching. A student who gave me a hard time last night bought three small bags of mixed nuts to call it a truce. I found out one other student's supervisor and leader at Mountland was one of my former students too.

Friday was preaching  day. All had a turn preaching one point. The class went so well that I taught then OT grammar using Obadiah. The class ended at 230pm so I could take an earlier cab to the airport for my 630pm flight. I regretted not taking a book to read for my three hours flight. I reached home at 1030pm to 651 messages! Overall I had three groups with connections to my past teaching, my pride!

Day 6 was back to work after my hand treatment in the morning. Five of us went to lunch. I had to write my leadership statement on a potential new responsibility. At night I had dinner snack with a pth fellowship group I spent the least time with.

The typhoon disrupted Sunday worship for the third time this year. Thankfully the church met the challenge with FB live by the pastor, followed by pth department live. Lunch was with a neighbor coworker followed by tea at the pier After the winds died down I did prayer walk and went to the gym and watch episode three. The biggest thrill was finishing the application questions to the Lent series even though there are six sermons still to be edited.

Oct 17, 2017