Busy Days

Greetings,

Things have been quite busy since I got back from Ethiopia a month ago. The week after I got back we had “Spring” break (we are in the southern hemisphere so the seasons are backward). That was convenient timing because I was able to use that week to try to fix the server which had been acting up for several weeks. I have mostly gotten it running normally now. I did upgrade the software on the server from Edubunut 7.04 to Edubuntu 7.10 and then Ubuntu 8.04. This new version of the software will be supported with updates for five years and will stay on the server for some time.

Once the break was over I started teaching a new class. This class was supposed to be taught by a teacher who ended up going to Virginia Theological Seminary (my alma mater) to enroll in the M.T.S. program. So this class had not been taught at all until half way through the semester. So what was this topic? Nothing too hard… just “God, Creation and the Trinity.” I am teaching this to second year students in the English diploma program. I am already teaching them church history. This is very hard. The student’s want a simple but complete explanation about the nature of the Trinity; however, that does not exist.

My other classes are going well. I am making progress with the first year students. We have moved into the era of Constantine and the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity. We spent a great deal of time talking about the structure of the Roman Empire, numerous emperors and their persecution of the Church. It has been slow going but I think that they are learning a fair amount and getting to understand the early church. In my second year church history course we are moving pretty slowly as well but have spent most of our time talking about the Reformation after Luther posted the Ninety-Five Theses. Right now we are just finishing up talking about the Reformation in England and Scotland. Next we will talk about the Council of Trent, the Roman Catholic Church’s response to the Reformation.

My other theology course, Ecclesiology and Mission Theology with third year diploma students is going well. It is also moving a little slowly. We just spent several weeks looking at church leaders and government. We spent a lot of time looking at the meaning of apostles, disciples and elders and the Biblical and theological foundations of the terms.

Tomorrow is a holiday in Tanzania. It is the equivalent of Washington’s birthday - it is the birthday of the first president of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere. This coming Sunday I will be visiting the village of Zigelli again. This was the village I visited last November and I am eager to see it again. I will share that experience with you soon and more pictures.

Thanks for your interest!

This entry was posted on October 13, 2008 at 9:24 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.