Bible studies: Monday evening, our friend Gregory rode his 'bike' (a Chinese 150cc motor bike, seats 4 adults. Eat your heart out you big BMW types) to our house. He has been watching the 'New Beginnings' Bible studies with me for about 8 weeks. He announced that he would like to enroll in our new 'Bible worker training school'! He wants to follow the example of Paul and be a 'tentmaker evangelist'. He asked how much we would charge for the training program. We read the story in Acts 8 about the fellow who wanted to 'buy' the Holy Spirit. Then we told him that the program was free. We also said that this is not a 'seminary' where, upon completion, the student was a full blown pastor. He agreed that this was the program for him.
Gregory requested that we keep him in our prayers (THAT'S YOUR CUE.) Then he explained that he has been 'filling in' as pastor at his Baptist church while they have no pastor. Can you imagine the possibilities here? (Pray again. Can you see that this is not an issue of money? We don't need money for this phase of the work. We need your prayers!)
Monday morning I was walking through town and stopped in at Franklin's carpentry shop. After his usual warm smile and handshakes we discussed the football (soccer) game between Cameroon and Morocco last Sabbath afternoon at 3PM. (We creamed 'em- 2 to 0. Go Cameroon! Carol and I knew when the game was over because we could literally hear the cheer coming from homes all over town.) He apologized for not being in church on Sabbath due to his 'higher than normal' work load. But, he was looking forward to the Bible study on Thursday evening. He wants to begin 45 minutes earlier to have time for singing and additional topic review, both in English and Noni (for the children). I learned that he had instructed his children to avoid inviting a certain household last Thursday because he did not have enough room in his home for all their children!
Monday afternoon as I was building the iron reinforcement bar mesh to imbed in the concrete lid for our septic tank, I listened to a few chapters of the book 'Christian Service' (5 - 8). In this section I heard that the roll of pastor (yes, I have been handed this roll too) is to train members in the three fundamental areas that result in personal 'growth': personal prayer and bible study, sharing your faith. Mrs. White said that training (both instruction and 'doing') are more important than sermon preparation. This is understandable as usually one or two of my dear friends will be nodding off in church during my sermon. It takes some real interactive sermonizing to get their eyes to stay open consistently. Really, its quite fun to play the game of 'keep the members awake'; yes ladies, it's the guys that are nodding off. Okay, I have the instruction, so what do I do with it?
Our outreach model has been for me to take the laptop PC with the It Is Written 'New Beginnings' video / PowerPoint type presentation on it to the church and 'play' it for the attendees. Pros: people here are so underexposed to video entertainment that they still think this format is exciting; we have had up to 10 children watching who virtually understand nothing but like the pictures. Having texts on screen is good. For members who understand (American) English fairly well, this is really great! During my bashful (I can't give a bible study by myself) phase, the 'canned'
approach was really necessary. Cons: the video runs for 30 minutes non-stop. Some polite folks never ask questions when language difficulty arises. But the plot thickens when applying the concept of Christian Service and 'New Beginnings'.
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