Bondslave of Christ

Greetings in the name of Christ,

Let me begin again by thanking you all for your prayers. I praise God that
there are people such as yourselves who He has placed in my life for
encouragement and prayer and I pray that I would not "be wise in my own
eyes" but that I would "Fear the Lord and turn away from evil".

Lectures have finally commenced, however slowly. I began on Thursday with
Hard Questions (a theology course) and Church Life (a short course
regarding church life). This was followed, on Friday, by more Greek,
Public Speaking (our preaching course) and Learning Development (a course
on how to study/learn). Today I the only new course was Biblical Theology
(which is a course designed to help us to interpret the Bible in light of
the rest of Scripture). It is good to be getting into the swing of things
and I foresee a lot of work in the future (we did not have all our
allotted subjects on Thursday or Friday for various reasons).
Nevertheless, I am grateful to be here and I am still thoroughly enjoying
it.

As I mentioned last time, I went on camp on Monday morning which gave us,
the students, a chance to get to know one another better and there was
some preaching. The structure was a lot like the Honeyridge Church Camp
with specific sessions but plenty of time to relax (although it was
primarily to get to know one another so there were fewer sessions). On
Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning, the second and third years had
gone back to college and started lectures. We began the Learning
Development course (which is required by the government but does seem
useful) discussing note taking.

On Sunday the 8th I went to two new churches. I went to Tokai in the
morning which is a CESA church. It was very interesting; the worship was
probably the best of all the churches that I have been to, however, the
sermon was topical (though I am told that this is rare), the topic was sex
and they had an infant baptism. Strangely, I think it is probably one of
my better options at this stage. In the evening I went to Mountainview
Baptist; the teaching was pretty good, unfortunately they were a bit too
Charismatic (in the theological sense of the word) for my liking.

Yesterday I finally attended the college's church, MCC (Muizenberg
Community Chapel). It was okay but I disagreed with the interpretative
method used on the parable that was presented (Luke 20). Also, because it
is the college's chapel, the speaker is always different; I would prefer
to be under one good pastor.

I also had my second Hebrew lecture yesterday. I can't remember whether or
not I mentioned this; a lecturer from BI (the Bible Institute, a Bible
college in Kalk Bay) offered Hebrew lessons to the students here. We will
be doing Hebrew in second year (we will kick off second year with Hebrew
Week) so no one was really interested because either they were overwhelmed
with all the new Greek or they were already doing Hebrew. Being marginally
odd, however, I decided to investigate. It is only an hour and a half on
Sunday and a tiny bit of time during the week for homework and I think
that it'll be of great benefit to me next year. So, I am now familiar with
the Hebrew alphabet as well as the vowels and dipthongs.

I am truly looking forward to the coming term and, more particularly the
coming week when I finally have a full week of lectures. Please remember
me in your prayers and praise God for the opportunity of being here that
He has afforded me.

Flourishing in the gospel,
James Cuénod

--
James, a bondslave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ