How Will They Cope?

In September this year, our third Training Week of the year was led by Peter Judge Mears, who was accompanied by his son Max. Peter is the Senior Minister at St Johns Anglican Church in Wishart, Brisbane. Peter is passionate about teaching the Bible and is currently completing his MTh on the use of Ezekiel in Revelation at the Brisbane School of Theology.

How will they cope? 

That was my big question as I headed with my son, Max, to south-east Asia for the September training.  After spending some time with friends in P., we met up with our awesome driver and headed to the centre of the country.  For almost a full day we twisted, climbed and bounced over roads surrounded by spectacular scenery and filled with equally spectacular potholes.  A journey that, in relatively flat Australia, would have taken about 6 hours took us 13.  Along the way we were treated to wonderful food, met some new friends and saw the variety of ways potholes can disable a truck!

If that journey was drawn out, the journey we undertook once we arrived at the teaching centre was quite the opposite.  For four days we travelled like a bullet train through the 27 books of the New Testament, racing through four gospels on the first day then, using the book of Acts to provide a framework, the remaining letters of the New Testament.

How did they cope? Amazingly!  What a privilege to work with a group of people so hungry for the scriptures!

In addition to our overview of the New Testament, we looked at the pastoral letters (1&2 Timothy and Titus) at the beginning of each day.  In these letters Paul talks about leadership in the church and, especially, what godly leadership is like.

While we worked, Max was able to conduct interviews with each of the students, providing a valuable resource for Engage to assess the effectiveness of their programme and also get to know each of the students better.  As Phil mentioned in his June 6 post, this takes a long time as each student needs to have their answers translated.  In these interviews we asked about how they have used the teaching they received through Engage.

It may sound strange but after a week of teaching, I left feeling I had received from the students far more than I gave.  Please continue to pray for the students and for the cause of the gospel in south east Asia.