The first transition is heavy. My sister-in-law informed me that her lymphoma has returned. If you have a prayer list, please put Barbara on it.
The other transition is the end of the first block of the fall semester (each semester is divide into two blocks). The last day of my class, Intro to the Old Testament, includes 6 minute presentations. It starts with reading the summary statement that was developed through 9 classic biblical interpretation steps. Now, they can engage it creatively. Here are a few highlights.
One student is a professional ballet dancer (who met his wife in my first class 2.25 years ago). He shared his choreographed a dance (uploaded to YouTube) for his text, Deut. 6:4-9, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” He relayed that his text is about worship of God, and dance is a way for him to joyfully worship God, and clearly, he engages his strength.
Another student captured the imagination of the students by not only sharing his Lego diorama of the Song of Moses (Exodus 15) after crossing the Reed Sea, he then retold the story through classic Swedish children’s animated characters of “Bamse.” The Song of Moses was adapted to be sung with the Bamse theme song. It was winsome!
Another transition, was the retirement of Loe (a nickname from his initials), my predecessor, who taught OT for 40 years here. His retirement was honored with a seminar and the publication of the papers in a book. I had one chapter in it. The book release party was yesterday.
A small transition is that one of my favorite candies, ginger lime flavored Läkerol, is one of the many items that Anya and I have liked in our little grocery store, and then they stop carrying it. (Ugh!) But I found some today at a store in the mall. I bought 8 of them! (I had to go to the bank to wire money for Anya’s tuition. Curiously, my first payment deadline comes 6 weeks after Anya started school!)
So, a nice little something to chew on as I write this.
With blessings,
Beth
Sad to hear of Barbara’s cancer return. Seems like it is contagious these days: Sarah Rejman, my brother Jerry, Betsy Benson (wife of Todd and sister to Marilyn Simonson, now Barbara! Ugh! Yet God is still sovereign and loving and gracious – thus, we pray!
So fun to see and read of the creative Bible responses!!! Yeah!!! Keep it up!!!