Bible Forum on Deuteronomy

Last Saturday Kathleen led a Bible Forum in Huonville, Tasmania, teaching on what we can learn today from the book of Deuteronomy in the Bible. This book expresses Moses' passionate last words of advice to his beloved people as they prepare to leave behind a life of wandering, with its dramatic signs of God's special provision, to a more settled existence of planting crops, building houses and establishing towns. This transition, like all transitions, had its challenges. But God went with them. They needed to take care to follow God's instructions and not to ignore Him. Otherwise, they would suffer severe and unnecessary difficulties. We looked at how and why the insights we gain from reading Deuteronomy are helpful, relevant and important for our lives today.

Go to the Huon Anglican Church's website for the recording of her talks and to access the PowerPoint presentation:  http://www.huonanglican.org/recordings/ 

We welcomed 31 participants from various local churches: Presbyterian, Anglican, Baptist, Roman Catholic, Churches of Christ, Pentecostal and from various places as far afield as New Norfolk, Midway Point, Kingston, Bellerive and Sandy Bay.

India, March 2016

We have returned to Tasmania after spending a month teaching at the South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies (SAIACS) in Bangalore, India. Unlike previous visits to this college, we had no sickness or injury, so we are very grateful. The weather was unusually hot, but we survived. Stuart taught on Luke’s Gospel, and Kathleen taught Proverbs. 

We were blessed with enthusiastic and conscientious students, who all did well in their assessments. Kathleen has begun supervising the work of an Indian student who is writing her Master’s thesis about the suffering of the innocent. Last year Kathleen examined a Ph.D. student who received his degree at the graduation ceremony at the end of our stay; now Stuart is helping him to prepare his thesis for publication for international readers. While Stuart spent much of his non-teaching time (afternoons, because it is so hot) doing various editing and proofreading jobs, Kathleen spent a lot of her time seeing students one to one. This time many past students wanted to make appointments to see her too, and to share answers to prayers and stories of their lives now. That was, for her, the most encouraging part. While some were close enough to come back to see us, others are now too far away, but we were usually able to hear reports of them. We were invited to several weddings, but unfortunately they are taking place at times when we cannot be there. 

Our students at SAIACS all have leadership potential, have been rigorously selected, work hard, and are willing to personally sacrifice in order to reach out to those who are needy. They offer their well-informed Christian faith in action, for the good of their people, and work in all kinds of places that would not be so easy for Westerners to work in.

The graduation ceremony was, as usual, colourful and memorable, with many students (including many whom we had taught in previous years) excited about going out into teaching and pastoring ministries in various parts of India, Myanmar, Nepal and other regions in Asia.
We will be in Tasmania for the rest of April, May and June and then away for 5 months in the second half of the year, teaching in Sabah, Latvia and Ukraine, as well as attending a conference and having some library time at Tyndale House, Cambridge. 

We were reminded in a recent sermon that wherever we are, we are never really “at home”—rather, we are pilgrims on the continuous journey towards the fulfillment of God’s kingdom. As International Teaching Partners we strive to teach and proclaim his word “among the nations” (Psalm 57:9) with that goal in mind.