Tuesday, September 25, 2007

ESL Update

Classes at the International Baptist Church (IBC) are in full swing now. I (Betsy) am co-teaching with the same teacher I assisted last year. We alternate teaching the English lesson and the Bible lesson.

It was my honor to teach the Bible lesson last week. We went through the creation account in the first two chapters of Genesis. In my preparation, I read some of Daniel Kikawa's book, Perpetuated in Righteousness. He gives ample evidence that most people groups, very early in their histories, believed in the one true God. They had different names for Him, but the earliest legends include accounts that parallel Genesis quite close. It was wonderful to illustrate to my students that God is not just "my God" or only a foreign god among many gods here in Asia. He is the one true Creator of all the universe. He has truly written "eternity on their hearts" as Don Richardson discovered in Indonesia.

We thank and praise our God for these souls that He has called to IBC. Please be praying for open hearts, the moving of the Spirit, and wisdom for all of us who are teaching.

1 comment:

Cherie said...

Certainly you two are aware of the disaster going on within the borders of your northern neighbor, Burma/Myanmar, the protests, the tortured, beaten, and executed monks and other locals stemming from demonstrations in favor of democracy.

A news story from Australia's Herald Sun, dated October 2, 2007 reads: "On September 29, ASEAN chairman Singapore PM Lee Hsien Loong wrote to Senior General Shwe: 'We are most disturbed by reports of the violent means that the authorities in Myanmar (Burma) have deployed against the demonstrators, which have resulted in injuries and deaths. The videos and photographs of what is happening on the streets of Yangon (Rangoon) and other cities in Myanmar have evoked the revulsion of people throughout Southeast Asia and all over the world,' he wrote."

The news here today is that several thousand of the protesters, including Buddhist monks, have been executed by the military and their bodies dumped deep in the jungle.

I wonder if your other readers would be as interested as I am in a blog post from you guys since you are nearer the region and obviously your country has felt a more personal impact than have we in the west. What is the response of your neighbors, your co-workers, your churches, your media? Your response? Do you have families and students from Mayanmar?

I think you may be able to give a different perspective to those of us following the story here in the U.S.