Darkness cancels class but doesn't stop mobile internet!

We are admiring a clear, bright moon uninhibited by neighbourhood lights and chatting in the obscurity. What we were supposed to be doing was discussing Eph 4 & 5 in the room upstairs (if the lights would work), on our 2nd last day of teaching before students do their test preaching sessions. The darkness wasn't complete, though, one of the students had his laptop out and with his USB mobile modem was getting info on how to connect with former teachers now in Wales using Skype!

In the end after a few very busy weeks it was a relief to have a 'night off' and it was at least an hour later that we decided to give up waiting for the electricity, and try to start earlier next week to catch up.

In the mean time, we had discussed what I wanted for the 'word study' that should have been due that night, teased the person who will be up first preaching, criticized the abortion news out of the new US President's campaign, organised embroidery of motifs for IMS graduation in 3 weeks (an IBEO student does that as his profession), and talked about possible snacks for the longer meeting next week.

It was a nice relaxed time.

Pumpkin soup, anyone?

With several weeks of new arrivals I've been enjoying having people over for meals and getting to know them. This week the meal was different: for one thing there were more people - the IBEO students.

It's been a bit of a tradition that each term we have a dinner at someone's home. The Ashmores usually did it before they left, and this is the first time I've had everyone at my place (IMS students have been twice). It took a fair bit of organizing with the other work that seems to be piling up lately, but 'a good time was had by all'.

At least I think so ... introducing them at this cooler time to 'traditional winter Australian food' (pumpkin soup) and Indian food (a lamb curry with a rice pilau) may have been ambitious and maybe they were just polite... Bibiane brought a lovely fruit salad served in a large watermelon carved out for dessert, great since I hadn't got that far in preparing with my hectic week.

Because I didn't have enough chairs for us all to sit at the dining table I rearranged the furniture and we sat in the lounge, using the table for serving. None of the other teachers could make it, and one student had a family crisis but the rest of us enjoyed our time together.

Searching in vain for deep enough Bible study resources in French

My research for the Ephesians course has reinforced the disparity between the Bible study resources in English and French - nothing available at local Christian bookshop; took ages to find a Greek concordance/dictionary even available overseas or on the net; then they were either ancient (1800's), too simple, or the one that maybe would fit the bill way too expensive.

Finally all I could do was to use some of the free internet or computer based tools - but since I'm trying to pass on skills for students these are limited to the 2 with computers and the 2 uni students who know how to use them in cybercafés. For the others needing 'hardcopy' resources which are affordable there is very little options for serious study of the biblical text.... Some of the copyright-free stuff on the net I've been able to photocopy for them but they fall into the 'ancient' category!