Week 8 - “A heart that beats - an incredible machine made of blood and love and hope and lust and steam calling…”

Some habits are easier to break than others. While I do not anticipate or desire any changes to my caffeine habit (mmm English Breakfast tea), I know that this habit would be a hard one to alter (hence why I travel with tea – seriously). Here’s a habit I figured would be harder to break: associating October with autumn and associating 25 degrees with cold. Just in case you forgot, that’s my way of reminding you all that the seasons are reversed down here, so it’s spring soon-to-be summer. While I’ve gotten used to this idea, it does seem strange to think Temperatures range from the cool upper-teens to mid-twenties; it’s classic mid-spring weather, only it’s in Celsius instead of Fahrenheit. Anyway, now that we’ve got that exciting little tidbit out of the way…

One of the more exciting pieces of news of the week is that I started up a new Bible Study. Now, in addition to Wednesday evenings at UCT, I also will have a Tuesday Bible Study at the Cape Town campus of CPUT (Cape Peninsula University of Technology), which is just down the road from where I work at the ASF office. I’ve participated in many Bible Studies, and each has been different and informative in its own way. In the days of ECM BrewHaha Bible Studies in Newark, we were lucky to make it through a chapter a week, but through the discussions we had each Monday when we gathered for lunch, we learned a lot about life. Since I am still learning myself, the approach I’ve taken to leading Bible Studies has been the method where (one of the students or) I read a passage aloud and then, I ask them to share a word/phrase/verse that stood out to them or rose a question. If I can think of good questions while I’m preparing for Bible Study, I’ll ask those, but mostly I want to be more of a facilitator than some sort of instructor (as we would say in English Ed courses - a guide on the side rather than a sage on the stage :-) ). I was a bit anxious leading my first Bible Study at CPUT – especially when twenty-five students showed up, but the approach I selected seemed to work really well. We made it through less than a chapter-and-a-half of Jeremiah (I chose Jeremiah because I love love love the first chapter with the verses where Jeremiah is called), but there was energy and discussion and debate. Almost all of the students spoke up and got involved! It was so exciting. The Bible Study I’m running at UCT is much smaller with less debate, but it provides a more intimate setting for our discussions of Esther, which leads to a very different set of questions that still seem to overlap with the Jeremiah discussion in the strangest of places. Thanks and blessings to everyone back home for all of your love and prayers and support. I feel so blessed to be here, but I do miss you all. (PS – I LOVE mail, in case you were wondering…)

Music: My favorite band, Sugarland, just released a new album The Incredible Machine <33333 – “Little Miss” just might be my new theme song, but the whole country/rock album is definitely worth some attention.