James Cuénod's Newsletter 2010-12-01

James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,
To those interested who are dispersed abroad: Greetings.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I can't believe that another year of college has come to an end. Exams
went well and I'm glad they're over, I was satisfied with the results.
I've been quite busy post exams though as well. The Mountain View Baptist
youth had a "wake-over" on the Friday immediately after exams which I
supervised. For something that sounds like misery it was quite enjoyable.
It was also a great chance to say cheers to the youth that I have been
involved with for the past two years.

Following the wake over on Saturday morning I went to a 21st birthday
celebration but I don't think I was entirely cognisant having been awake
well over 24 hours by then. The party may have been a bad idea but then it
was followed by a potentially worse idea; I then left for a camp with
college people. We went to a place in the Cederberg called Beaverlac. It
is a beautiful area and a lovely place to get lots of sleeping done.

I then left on Sunday so that I could make it to one last church service
at Mountain View and say cheers to everyone there. Mountain View has had
it's highs and lows for me but I know that God has grown me through the
experience and they'll stay in my prayers. They also seem to want to get
jacked up as far as having students in their church is concerned (getting
them involved in different ministries and having some sort of mentoring
program with them) which is good.

Then came college clean up, college social, transcript checking, final
chapel and finally graduation. Last year I didn't feel like I had really
known the third years that well and so it wasn't a big deal saying good
bye but I suppose I've spent two years with the current third years so it
was sad to say goodbye to many of them.

I came back on Friday and met with some school friends on Saturday. The
significant thing since I've been back though is that I preached on Sunday
at the youth at Honeyridge. I preached from Philippians 3:1-11 (because
when we were translating it in Greek I got excited about some word play in
verse 2) and I hope I did so faithfully.

Then, as though in judgement, I had surgery on Monday because of stuff
that my braces did and now I can't talk. Hopefully I won't have to wait
until I have a child or something because that would be pretty slow
healing!

So on the top of my prayer list right now is that God would heal my mouth
fast after that 'doctor' ripped it up (he did do what he was supposed to -
I just don't appreciate it yet). You can also pray for Mountain View
Baptist, a student from BI will be joining them and probably filling in
where I left off but also for spiritual maturity in the congregation. It's
great to be on holiday now, please pray that I would grow in my walk with
God over the next few weeks and that all the stuff floating around from
the past year of college would become truth that not only enhances my
knowledge but enhances my love of God.

In Christ,
James Cuénod

--
James, a bondslave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.
http://www.rekindle.co.za

James Cuénod's Newsletter 2010-11-11

James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,
To those interested who are dispersed abroad: Greetings.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Hello again, last time I sent my newsletter out I spoke a lot about the
activities to come. This time I can look back on them. In the last few
weeks I have heard a whole bunch of speakers who were absolutely
excellent. John Piper, Tim Keller, Christopher Wright and John Azumah all
featured in that time. It was really amazing to hear them all I wish it
could have been spaced out a bit more. The reason that we've had all these
international speakers in the area is of course because of the Lausanne
Congress on World Evangelism. It sounds like that went down well too, I
wasn't involved in it but the reports about it that I have heard are very
positive.

I had anticipated lots of activity during those two weeks immediately
after my last newsletter, what took me by surprise was the slew of
assignments that came after those two weeks. I don't know how many there
were now but there were a whole bunch. I found a few quite beneficial
though and in those cases it's not a chore to do them.

So now, exams have started. I wrote Hebrew yesterday and I'm writing The
Person and Work of Christ tomorrow followed by Reformation Church History
and Mission and Culture on Monday and Wednesday next week. Hebrew was
fine, I didn't really enjoy the exam but I can't put my finger on it. I
think I was just not perfectly confident on any of the answers that I
gave; normally I can count on a certain number of marks and then have
question marks over others but I don't know what I can count on in that
exam. I just thought of something cool though; next year I should be
getting a "Hebrew and Greek Reader's Bible" from someone flying in from
the States - it's a Greek and Hebrew Bible with translations of uncommon
words at the bottom of the page so it's not an interlinear but it's a nice
help.

Please pray that I manage to put in the necessary work for these exams. I
am also preaching when I get back so please would you pray that I manage
to put in the necessary preparation while I'm here. I can't believe that
another year is basically gone, praise God for his provision to me for all
this time. Of course, now a continual prayer can be that God would give me
some direction for after third year. Thanks for all your prayers, I'm also
praying for you.

In Christ,
James Cuénod

--
James, a bondslave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.
http://www.rekindle.co.za

James' Newsletter

James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to those
interested who are dispersed abroad: Greetings.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

It's that time again; the time when I realise that it's two weeks since I
told myself to send out another newsletter. I was chatting to someone at
church this morning and he says that people ask him, "now that you're
retired, don't you get bored" and his response is something to the effect
of, "it seems like I've just woken up and half the day's gone and then I
start doing something that needs to be done and the rest of it
disappears". I'm experiencing more and more of that.

The past few weeks have been enjoyable though; I hiked Muizenberg's
mountain yesterday and went to the Melting Pot (a little open mic place)
and a piano recital last week. Meetings and responsibilities seem to
consume time though. There are a bunch of security issues in the various
residences and three new people have moved into the res in the past month.

The next two weeks also look to be crazy with a number of assignments
being due as well as an Islam block course, a Tim Keller conference (at
Common Ground), a few John Piper sessions (at St James) and the Lausanne
conference. As well as the annual lecture, a slot with Christopher Wright
and something else that I'm sure I've forgotten. So please keep me in your
prayers in that regard.

I had the opportunity to get my hands on a keyboard down here as well
which has devoured more time :). I have had a good term thus far though
although the courses have seemed a tad dry. Greek has been exciting to me
as we've been translating our way through Philippians and Hebrew has also
been pretty cool recently as we've been dissecting Genesis 11. Please pray
that these things would excite me for the right reasons (which I believe
they have been this far but it's easy to, for example, do word study for
the sake of doing a word study).

Slowly plans are forming in my mind as to what my options are once I have
finished my degree but it's still weighing on my mind so please also keep
that in your prayers as well.

In Christ,
James Cuénod

--
James, a bondslave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.
http://www.rekindle.co.za

James Cuénod's Newsletter 2010-09-12

James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To those
interested who are dispersed abroad: Greetings.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Hello again, I am pleased to say that for a change I'm a bit more relaxed
as I write this newsletter. I am on holiday (and will be for the coming
week) which is quite welcome. The term was short but we packed a lot of
work into it and one of our subjects (The Person and Work of Christ) has
come to an end, the rest continue to the end of the year. So, in the
coming week, hopefully, I'll be able to get some work done and have an
easier term.

At my church in Cape Town, Mountain View Baptist, we have been looking for
an associate pastor to help with the youth. During a general meeting I was
nominated along with a bunch of other people to join the call/selection
committee and so I am now a part of that. Because of that, I had a few
meetings with a candidate and I must say that I have certainly learnt a
great deal about running something of that nature in a church (and it's
not an easy thing). I will be leaving Mountain View at the end of the year
though, so please keep the church in your prayers particularly with
respect to the youth and the calling of an associate.

The GWC SRC elections also snuck up at the end of the term and I had some
nostalgia over last year's campaign. There was quite a lot of work to do
though and so nothing much happened until the guy who we campaigned for
last year put up new campaign posters. There was still a lot of work
though and so it was late, the night before the elections, that my light
was on editing some campaign flyers to compete with and on election day it
was like a propaganda leaflet drop as I infiltrated each class and left a
number of them lying all over the place. The fruit of all this is that I
am now the Residence Representative so please keep me in your prayers with
additional responsibility of this and my role at Mountain View.

The GWC Booksale also happened on the last day of term and I'm pleased to
say that I managed to get some really good books. I am probably most
pleased that I managed to get my hands on Carson's "Exegetical Fallacies"
but there really were quite a few good deals that I picked up. CUM Books
has also had a crazy sale on these past few days which has helped to
further diminish my savings (which, I am discovering, should really just
be called "spendings") account but I'm certain that CUM made a loss on the
stuff that I bought from them (such as Commentaries marked down from R600
to R50 and others from R300 to R5). So I suppose you can praise God that
he has placed such opportunities before me and given me the capital to
take advantage of them.

This coming week I have quite a few things that I need to get done
(including Hebrew which is still the bane of my life and hopefully some
Greek, Reformation Church History and finishing two books - although that
may be a bit too ambitious). Please keep me in your prayers especially
with regards to Bible reading and prayer and please also pray that I would
maintain a quality work ethic this coming term and next year. I am also
not sure how to proceed after I have got my BTh at the end of next year so
please pray about that as well. I know that we have a sovereign God and
have been reminded today how gracious He is to us. Someone at church told
me his parts of his testimony and then we witnessed a number of baptisms
and I must say God is so gracious. Let's never get excited more about
books or Theological study than we are about the Gospel!

In Christ,
James Cuénod

--
James, a bondslave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.
http://www.rekindle.co.za

James Cuénod's Newsletter 2010-08-01

James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,
To those interested who are dispersed abroad: Greetings.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I can't believe so much has happened since I last wrote a newsletter. It's
been about eight or ten weeks now and I've had exams, holidays, ministry
week and of course the soccer was going on during all that time. So I'll
start at the beginning and try not to ramble too much.

The exams went acceptably, having been back at GWC I've had the chance to
see my results and I must admit that I was disappointed with some of my
results. The exams were a welcome end to the term though. I flew back to
Joburg a few days after exams finished which gave me the chance to watch
the opening SA vs Mexico game at a fan park which was quite an experience
and then it was back home for me.

My first week of holidays went by rather quickly, I did a fair bit of
reading (I've been reading the Count of Monte Cristo most consistently
recently) and I prepared a sermon which I thought I would need for
ministry week (which was the week after the holidays) but it turned out
that I didn't (I'll hopefully have the chance to use it at Mountain View
Baptist though). To be honest, the first week has become a bit of a blur
in my mind because for the second and third weeks I was involved in
Honeyridge's holiday club.

Thankfully, the holiday club wasn't two weeks of kids (the first week was
a setup week) or it would have been considerably more exhausting. It went
really well, I thoroughly enjoyed it and I'm pretty sure that the kids did
too. It's quite exciting to have the chance to explain the gospel to a
bunch of grade six and sevens (that was my groups age group) every day for
a week. Unfortunately, I had to fly back on Thursday and so I missed the
last day of the holiday club but I'm certain that it finished well.

So I arrived back in Cape Town on Thursday evening and on Friday I joined
some people from college and went to the Aquarium which was fascinating.
The creatures that one finds living in the sea boggle the mind, they
honestly don't look like they are from this planet - if you want to marvel
at God's creation the Aquarium is a good place to go. Since we were
already in the city bowl, I joined a college friend and his sister's
family and went to the fanpark again. It is rather weird to me that I
began and ended my holidays at a soccer event. Speaking of which, I have
been quite amazed at the power of soccer as a talking point to pretty much
any person in the country; it has been rare to find someone who wasn't
following it in any way.

Easing back into college, we started with ministry week - a week in which
all the undergrad students go to different churches, usually all over the
country but this year, because of the world cup, primarily in Cape Town
and do whatever their host church asks of them. I was assigned to Holy
Trinity in Gardens. Our primary activity was doing a holiday club but we
also visited a hospital and an old age home in the afternoons. I had the
chance to lead one of their Bible studies, on Sunday I also lead the
service and our team leader preached (and it was a quality sermon).

It was on Saturday though that I found out that a very good friend of mine
from school had passed away on Friday night. Although GWC began on Monday,
it was not really college work that dominated my thoughts. Thankfully, I
flew back for the funeral which was on Friday the 16th. It's quite a
thought that a guy who matriculated with me has died and not because of a
car accident or drugs or alcohol but something natural. It made me realise
that death is definitely not natural and, interestingly, one of my first
theological thoughts that I had as I thought about his death was that God
is definitely there.

Last weekend, then, I went on a "Music Ministry" weekend which was a great
experience. We talked about the power of music to manipulate emotions and
the correct use of music and then learnt a few songs. The weekend inspired
me to actively try to learn to play an instrument.

This weekend I joined people from Mountain View and we hiked to Elephant's
Eye at Silvermine which was also awesome. It's good to be back but I feel
that I have a lot of work that I need to start ploughing through which I
normally had weekends to use except over these past few weeks.

You can praise God that He has given me the opportunity to be here and
please pray that I can be an encouragement to some guys staying in res
with me who are struggling at college. I've got a lot of work that I need
to do and I'll need a lot of motivation to do it so please ask God to use
the work to improve my relationship with Him. Please also keep my
devotional life in your prayers; idle hands may be the devil's playground
but boy, I don't think we realise how much he loves busy ones as well.

In Christ,
James Cuénod

--
James, a bondslave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.
http://www.rekindle.co.za

James Cuénod's Newsletter 2010-05-14

James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To those
interested who are dispersed abroad: Greetings. Grace to you and peace
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Whenever I begin writing a newsletter, I always check the date of my last
one to see what I can catch people up on. I was surprised to see that it
is two weeks since I last sent one out, partly because I thought that it
was only a week ago that I had sent one but also partly because I can't
remember what has happened since then.

Perhaps one of the reasons I can't remember what has happened is because
some stuff is eclipsed by something that is standing out in my memory.
Last week I went and watched a debate between William Lane-Craig and Yusuf
Ismail on the topic "Identifying Jesus: Was he a man or was he God and
man". It was worth seeing, Yusuf Ismail (a muslim) was utterly destroyed
in the debate although I don't think many people realised that. He was
chucking out irrelevant little arguments that were off topic and not even
intelligent so I was quite disappointed by the Muslim representation at
the debate. Lane-Craig, however, was worth listening to; he had really
planned his argument well and structured the way in which he would address
the problem carefully so Ismail was on the back foot from the get go.

That was Saturday evening though and work has, as anticipated, picked up.
We wrote a Hebrew vocabulary test this morning and - praise God -
everything that I'd studied I was able to recall, unfortunately I somehow
managed to miss a chapter's worth of vocab which was a bit frustrating but
I have no one to blame but myself; I had even told people which pages we
needed to learn.

I've been trying to fight off some sort of flu-like thing but I seem to be
losing so I'll probably need to go to the doctor pretty soon. The number
of commitments just seem to be mounting up, next weekend is the weekend
the second year guys go to Hermanus and spend time with the CESA Bishops
but there's a lot of stuff that needs to get done and a weekend away right
now is not good timing.

Nevertheless, life goes on and it's encouraging to see exam timetables
coming out because I know that there are only a few weeks left of term
which will bring the first half of my GWC career to an end - what a
thought!

I suppose the first thing that I'd like you to pray for is my health, it's
quite annoying being sick and totally impractical if one wants to get
stuff done. The second is time management; I suppose it happens around
this time of a semester every time but I'm looking at what needs to be
done and the time in which there is to do it and I'm not sure how it's
going to be possible. Thirdly, plans for when I have finished studying,
I'm not sure where I'll be going and whether I'll be studying further so
please keep that in your prayers as well. As always, I am exceedingly
grateful for your prayers.

In Christ,
James Cuénod

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

James Cuénod's Newsletter 2010-05-01

James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To those
interested who are dispersed abroad: Greetings. Grace to you and peace
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Before I talk about news perhaps I should just comment on my last
newsletter. Some people thought that it had a tone of despair about it. On
reading it again I don't really see it but I'm don't suppose I'm the
person to ask about identifying that sort of thing. However, as the author
I have the priveleged position of being able to comment on what was going
through my head at the time. I may have been writing it too soon after a
lot of stuff had just entered my head and I was still trying to sort stuff
out but I'm loving college and I am finding it to be a superb experience.

As for recent news, the calm before the storm in terms of work load is
coming to an end. Acts and Evangelism assignments are due pretty soon and
once they're done Homiletics will take their place. Thankfully I did my
major God & Humanity assignment last term. I'm reasonably on top of my
reading and other work so now it's just a question of getting this other
stuff done as well as the readings that are remaining.

There's a chance that I'll be preaching on the 23rd of May so please keep
that in mind and in your prayers. Exams will also begin in about 4 weeks
so I'll need to start preparing for those as well.

As for Hebrew, I've taken a number of books out of the library. I'm
finding one text book particularly helpful and I think I'll be able to
wrap my mind around it if I spend enough time on it. I realised that last
year where Greek came easily to me and many of my peers sat struggling
with it, the reverse is often the case for Hebrew. Please also keep my
Hebrew in your prayers because I can't really be sure whether or not I'm
getting it until we are more thorougly examined on it.

Friday night youth (grades 1-5/6) is going... To say well may be a slight
exaggeration. It's very difficult as most of the children are coming from
broken homes and their parents aren't Christians so often they're being
dumped there for baby sitting and they aren't interested in listening to
the leaders. Please pray for Errol (who is in charge) and the kids who
come. The group is really on the brink of being shut down. Senior youth
(grades 7 and up) is going well though and I thoroughly enjoy attending
it. This morning I joined the family that runs the youth (the couple has
three children) and we went to a nearby township to help at a soup
kitchen.

I am finding my mind incredibly stretched on all sorts of issues. So I am
loving just sitting and thinking and reading and discussing things with
people. I've had a great time listening to the way other people think and
seeing how culture affects our understanding of things and how the gospel
speaks into it.

Praise God that I've got this oppurtunity to study theology and please
pray that I would come out on the other end more devoted to Him than ever
(over the academics of it or anything else).

In Christ,
James Cuénod

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

James Cuénod's Newsletter 2010-04-14

James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To those
interested who are dispersed abroad: Greetings. Grace to you and peace
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

It pains me to begin by saying that I am sorry that I haven't sent out a
newsletter for over a month but no matter how much I consider how I should
begin this email, it seems like the only appropriate opening. Last term
became rather busy towards the end and I think everyone here was just
tired after the length of the term. Two weeks off was barely enough for
recovery and so I think those of us who don't live here have mixed
feelings about being back.

In the holidays I managed to take my mind off college for a while but we
did have some work - in particular Hebrew - that we had to get done. The
other thing that I worked on during the holidays was a sermon for a prayer
meeting. The prayer meeting was this morning and so I delivered the sermon
today.

I received useful feedback from the lecturers immediately afterwards.
Looking back I realised that I had no conclusion which I think they should
have been much harsher with me about but the main thing that they said I
had done wrong was to not exegete a passage. A point, I thought, that was
true but not fair since I had preached a topical sermon by design (my
topic was prayer and God's sovereignty which I tied into Matthew 6:10
"Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven"). Additionally, I managed
to call the leader of the service by the wrong name and so I have a number
of useful pointers for next time. People seemed to appreciate my
communication though for which I am grateful.

This term looks to be the one with the real work (as only one of our
subjects is not continuing from last term). We have a new subject; youth
work, with the lecturer who took us for small groups and I enjoyed his
style (while not academic, he wasn't trying to be).

Judging by the amount of time I have spent wracking my brains for content
for this paragraph it seems unlikely to be of any real value so I figure
that I'll stop here as far as news goes.

I really need prayer for discipline in my reading this term so that I can
keep up with it and get through assignments. Right now Hebrew is pretty
much the bane of my existence so heavenly assistance would be greatly
appreciated and in spite of having preached on prayer today, I realise
that my prayer life is lacks vitality so please pray that I would pray.
Having said that, you are in my prayers.

In Christ,
James Cuénod

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

James Cuénod's Newsletter 2010-03-08

James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To those
interested who are dispersed abroad: Greetings. Grace to you and peace
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

The longer I stay in Cape Town the more removed from the people I send
this newsletter to which in turn means that I forget how much you don't
know about what's going on here. It's been about three weeks since my last
newsletter and, when I think about it, quite a lot has happened.

One of the great things about being at GWC is that the college's
affiliation to CESA means that we are able to get a variety of speakers
(especially international speakers who are somehow linked to CESA). For
example, we had the privelege of listening to Dick Lucas (a preacher in
the UK) a couple of Fridays ago. He spoke exquisately about application
and a preacher's audience and spent a long time answering questions. One
of my favourite answers that he gave was a story about when he went to
speak at a school in the UK (which was, not surprisingly, pretty
secularised). He went up and spoke out of Genesis three explaining that he
didn't much care for the story since it was clearly not informed by
contemporary music or beliefs. He wanted to write to the publishers and
have it altered to, more accurately, say, "It was the cool of the day and
man was walking in the garden. Adam wondered where God was and called out
saying, 'where are you'. But God was naked and ashamed so He hid in a bush
and he answered, 'I'm hiding'. To which, Adam responded, 'why'. God
answered Him, 'I was naked and ashamed so I hid in this bush and you're
never going to find me'." Lucas continued, telling us how he would also
then alter some New Testament stories like the lost sheep, which was - of
course - about the good flock of sheep looking for the naughty shepherd
who had run away. Finally one of the staff listening to his talk laughed
which gave Lucas the chance to say, "Thank you very much, you're
absolutely right; what I have just said is entirely ridiculous. We are not
searching for God as culture would have us believe; He is searching for
us". I'm not sure what else he said but it sounds as though it was a
pretty good sermon to a relatively hostile audience.

We also had Steve Timmis (the author of the book "Total Church" which is
about not just meeting on Sundays but as Christians, sharing our lives
with one another). He had some interesting things to say and left me with
a lot of food for thought although I'm still struggling to think of
practical ways of implementing what he was talking about in our
indivualistic society.

Last week Thursday the Evangelism class got the oppurtunity to go out to
Capricorn (a nearby township) and witness. It was wonderful to see and
hear others explaining the gospel to people who were quite receptive.
Please keep our evangelism in your prayers (not just those who were spoken
to on Thursday; a group of us go out to the beach front on Wednesdays).

On an extra-curricular note, I mentioned in my last newsletter that we
would be playing against the St. James soccer team (which is an
established team and represents the flagship CESA church). The game
happened and despite my involvement, we won confortably with the result of
4-2.

Today Des Inglesby (the area bishop) spoke in Chapel. It was a sobering
reminder of the weightiness of our calling and the importance of not
slipping into the mindset that we were saved and therefore always will be.
There is a need for us to actively seek to grow in Christ. Please pray
that complacency would not set in with myself or my peers but that we
would spur one another on. I've been reading a book called "Worldliness"
subtitled "Resisting the seduction of a fallen world". It talks about 1
John 2:15 which tells us not to love the world or the things in the world,
the book exhorts Christians not to fall into the trap of being like the
world. Please pray for this not only for me but for Christendom. May the
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of
the Holy Spirit be with you all.

In Christ,
James Cuénod

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

Book Giveaway

A great looking tome of a book is available in a give-away on at
http://jcrylequotes.com/2010/03/06/meet-the-puritans-book-giveaway/
so if you're interested in getting a hold of Meet the Puritans by Joel R.
Beeke and Randall J. Pederson then follow the link

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

James Cuénod's Newsletter 2010-02-15

James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To those
interested who are dispersed abroad: Greetings. Grace to you and peace
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

It has been quite warm the past while down here in Muizenberg and yet, I
have still managed to be snowed under, at least I have not melted in the
face of the workload (although I'm slowly withering).

Summer school went really well and Hebrew even began to make sense. We
wrote a test on the Friday and I'm satisfied with the result thereof. To
close off summer school we also arranged that it would be a full moon and
a number of us hiked up Lion's Head to watch the sunset and the moonrise.
Sadly, our meteorology is not as good as our astronomy and the cloud cover
provided a convenient shelter from the scenery (the cloud only actually
blocked the sunset and the moonrise - we could see the Waterfront and bits
of Table Mountain). Before the hike, however, I joined some GWC friends
and we went rock climbing (outdoor) and so I feel like quite an
adventurous sort of person right now.

The following Monday brought with it commencement camp which was a great
oppurtunity to get to know the sea of new faces swarming around the
college. It was, as last year, a thorougly enjoyable time. That Wednesday
we returned to the college and got to work, leaving the first years behind
for another day at Rocklands (the campsite).

The courses have started much more smoothly this year than they did last
year and I can really say that I'm looking forward to all my courses. We
have Acts, Hebrew Narrative (which is a course on how to read Old
Testament narratives), Biblical Hebrew (the Language), Greek (in which
we're translating and discussing John), Homiletics Theory (preaching), God
and Humanity (looks to be a brilliant course on the Doctrines of God and
of Man and their relationship).

The workload for these courses is reasonably heavy but quite doable. My
problem is that whenever I'm given required reading I seem to find a
hundred prefered readings to do instead which tends to slow me down. The
other activity that has hampered my newsletter sending and has made me
feel slightly more like the rugged outdoorsy and adventurousy type of
person is soccer. Many of the CESA churches in the area have soccer teams
and they challenge one another to friendly matches so, in the words of
GWC's team manager "we're gonna form a team and train hard and beat those
guys". Which is what we've done (except the beating; that comes this
Saturday).

As of now though, I have managed to stay precariously balanced on top of
the ball but I'd like to get a bit ahead and start doing more of my own
stuff (without it causing me to lag behind). Please would you pray that I
manage to get a good routine of work and personal study going and -
something that I got from our Ephesians Bible study at church - "Pray on
my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth,
to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel ... that in
proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak." (Ephesians
6:19-20).

In Christ,
James Cuénod

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

James Cuénod's Newsletter 2010-01-25

James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To those
interested who are dispersed abroad: Greetings. Grace to you and peace
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I must say, it doesn't seem like an entire year has elapsed but it sure
does feel good seeing the new first years and realising how far we - as a
second year group - have come. I've only recently got my internet access
back online and unfortunately, I got to the library about 20 minutes too
late last Saturday to send out my first newsletter. Despite the great
difficulties and the seemingly insurmountable problems that faced me,
though, here is my first instalment regarding 2010.

The academic year began with what has become "the usual" GWCesque bumpy
ride like a motorbike shuddering to life – once it's going it can work
quite well but if you can't get it to stand up you'll probably have a bit
of a problem. "No one knows what happened to the sound key last year," "Oh
you actually need the key to your room," "No, you've already collected
it... Oh wait, here it is..." etc. Luckily I was spared from the majority
of the strange and wonderful things that can go wrong around here. My
concern was the sound key but, thankfully, it has been found (I will
refrain from mentioning where). And of course, what is the start of GWC
without languish week (I know, it's because Hebrew word plays aren't that
impressive either). If you didn't follow that; it's the summer school or
"language week" (Greek for first years, Hebrew for second years). It's
lovely to see the first years awestruck at the quantity of memorisation
required, knowing that they have not even seen one twentieth of what
they'll have to have memorised by the end of the year.

I've been shuffling through Hebrew. I won't say that I'm succeeding just
yet (we wrote a test today which didn't go quite as I had hoped –although
that may have something to do with the fact that the language we're trying
to learn is bunch of darn squiggles that all look the same and are
entirely foreign). I've learnt just how closely related Greek really is to
English based on this past week because Hebrew is totally backwards (yes,
another weak attempt but I am a bit tired).

We received a large consignment of first years this year (even larger than
my first year group) so learning their names is taking some time
(especially those who hide in dark corners when perfectly good social
events are taking place – such as table tennis at tea time – which should
be a required recreational activity). You may remember that last year we
began each day with a chapel service and Gavin Millard was our guest
speaker, doing Jeremiah. This year has had a less smooth start with John
Child taking one, Doc Seccombe stealing John Child's spot for the rest of
his sermon from the previous day and the John Child finishing off on
Friday. This week, however, we have Edwin Ngubane from a CESA church in
Benoni who was pretty good this morning.

I guess after the first week I don't have much to say, so I'm sorry if
that was a tad verbose (it was probably because I don't really feel like
going to work on my Hebrew). Please pray that I manage to take in the
Hebrew as I did the Greek and to understand its abundant set of rules and
even more numerous set of exceptions. My plan at this point is to simply
survive Hebrew so please pray that I develop a really thorough
understanding of it (our lecturer – who came out from Australia to lecture
us in Hebrew this year – has done a good job of illustrating the use of
Hebrew in exegesis and has made it suitably exciting for us so you can
thank God for that).

Other than that, please pray, once again, for my spiritual growth to
exceed mere intellectual growth. It is such a tragedy to hear of so many
qualified atheists who have mastered theology and yet have not been
mastered by its subject. I look forward to this year and all the exciting
opportunities it brings.

In Christ,
James Cuénod

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