Oh.... Mark

WOW... where to begin. 

So I am loving what I am learning but it becomes a little overwhelming at times. Please pray for me... I have been getting some crazy headaches lately. More like migraines. I think it has to do with the way I sit in class. I just finished Mark this week and because it was my first Narrative I was not sure how I would really take it. There are sixteen chapters in Mark and that makes it the largest book I have done. Still learning a lot about the people of the time and what it would have been like to live among the Pharisees and Sadducee in the time of Jesus. These leaders in Judaism were willing to go to extreme measures to make sure the Law of Mosses was kept. Now that I feel I have a deeper understanding of how zealous they were and the passion "good or bad" behind them believing they were doing right, I can identify in a truly more grounded way. I am studding the book of Acts at the moment and looking closer at the missionary journeys of Paul. This man, once a Zealot Pharisee, became the most influential apostle of all time. I felt that I knew a lot about Paul, but now I feel like I am meeting a new man when I read of his stories. A man that persecuted the Jew that followed Christ teachings. Trying to wipe them off the face of the earth. BUT, God being the amazing God that He is, uses Paul to bring the word to the Gentiles. Paul was a Pharisee! In his culture he referred to Gentiles (none Jew) as Dogs. A Pharisee would not associate himself with a Gentile. This would make them unclean and ultimately this would be defiling. This was the man that led the stoning of Stephen (who was proclaiming that the word is not meant for Jews alone but for Gentiles as well)! But God uses this very man to reach the non Jew. In Acts 9 God states that "Go, for he is an instrument who I have chosen to bring my name before the Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name." When I read this it was as if I was reading if for the first time. There was nothing Paul did to be chosen by God but he was chosen and Paul's testimony was based on God's Grace... and that it was by no means by "works" Paul did to deserve to be chosen or set apart. Now it was never easy or safe for Paul after he gave his life to God it was quite the opposite, but the life as a Christ Follower is not going to be roses. Paul went through persecution after persecution and imprisonment, stoning(the act of having stones throw at you until you die) which he survives and yet he proclaimed the word of God despite. He was eventually Beheaded. Paul lived in a time of Roman rule. The Emperor Nero! If you have time you should google Nero... This was one crazy man. He was obsessed with suicide, so much so he would invite his dinner guest to commit suicide in-front of him after they ate. Or burn Christians as tiki-torches for the dinner-party. Anyway.... 

I tend to get a little excited about what I am learning.

On an happier note there was a Kite festival this weekend and I took a picture of it from my balcony and form the other side of the balcony you have mic's studying like a good student. Not the greatest shots but still cool. A picture of me at the back of the school. You can see my room to the far right at the very top. A picture of the classroom! Then there is another pic. of Micky and I hanging in the backyard of the school after lunch. Micky has decided to save wounded pigeons that fly onto our balcony. I see them as a heath hazard more then a pet so she has convinced one of the other SBS students "Jeremiah" to take care of them on his balcony. They are nursing these "rats of the sky" back to health while their comrades are waking me up every morning before it is a Godly hour to rise. Anyway this is a little side note of craziness happening in my neck of the woods. 

The base has quited down quite a bit since the last time I wrote which is really nice. Now there are only three schools in session, instead of six.  Almost half the amount of people! Anyway I have to run back to charting Paul's missionary journeys through "Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."Acts 1:8

Much love!

Lauren-Jean