Exciting things happening!

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There's so much happening right now that it's hard to comment on it all.  I'm so pleased with where we are as a school.  The students are doing so well.  Last week we took the students to the smokies for a fall hike (picture above).  The colors were amazing.  Here are just a few of the things of interest happening now:

1)  Nathanael and Abigail Weigel have received the financial support they needed to remain here through Christmas.  Thank you for praying and giving!  Let's continue to pray that God would meet their remaining tuition needs.

2)  Julia has taken over the task of managing the foodservice for the school.  The ESBS staff/students plan and prep all of the meals we eat together.  Julia is now managing that effort.  It's a huge undertaking and she's doing an amazing job!

2)  We're collaborating with other SBS locations to post free podcast lectures for every book of the Bible. www.thesbspodcast.com  We're not even finished with the project and already the demand for the material is UNBELIEVABLE.  Just this week there have been close to 5000 downloads from the site, over 22, 000 so far this month, and 282,000 since we began last year!  Amazing!

3)  Now for the really exciting news...Julia's pregnant!  Julia and Tom will have their second child in May of next year.  

Praying through the Psalms

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I'd like to use this blog to introduce you to the various aspects of the school that you may not already be aware of.  Here's one:

Each week we take 45 minutes in the morning to pray through a Psalm together.  The Psalms are raw and honest snapshots of the human condition.  They're full of emotional expressions to God, and they're wonderful examples of how to come to God honestly and openly with your feelings/fears/joys/sorrows etc. and then, through reflection on God's character, pray yourself into a place of peace and fellowship with Him thats rooted in His steadfast character.

Praying through a Psalm is a great way to have a devotional "quiet time" with God.  Essentially this is what we're training the students to do through this aspect of the school.  We want them to be able to use the Bible devotionally as well as academically.  Each week this time blesses me...it lifts my eyes off of my own difficulties, and onto a Holy, awesome, unchanging God.

rappelling

Subscribe in a readerWe took the students to eagle rock (the pinnacles) to do some rappelling.  It was a great day and everyone had an awesome time.  Fall break begins today.  We're a fourth of the way through the year.  Its crazy how fast the year goes by.  The students are all doing very well.  We're having an excellent year.

PRAYER NEED:
-please pray for Nathanael and Abigail's financial situation.  They still need tuition money for next quarter. ($540).  I firmly believe that this is where they are to be.  They are both doing really well.  Pray that God would provide the money before next week's deadline.

peace

Romans

Subscribe in a readerThis week Mark Masucci is teaching the book of Romans.  Mark's been a regular guest lecturer here since we began the school in 2006.  Typically he teaches Romans in the fall and Matthew in the spring.  He's an incredibly gifted and trained teacher, and he's someone I look up to tremendously.  He's been teaching in an SBS environment for 15 + years and has recently completed his Masters of Biblical Studies from Regent (Vancouver BC).

Mark and his wife Dawn live in Montana and oversee the SBS International Project.  SBS International is responsible for ensuring that the various SBS locations across North America (of which we are one) have the resources they need to run doctrinally and logistically sound schools.

The book of Romans is often a life changer for many of our students.  After seeing the impact Galatians (a similar letter) had two weeks ago I'm excited to see what God will do with this awesome book.  It's pretty cool to think that TODAY someone in this classroom will probably learn something that will forever change the way they look at God, themselves, or their world.  What a powerful thing to be a part of.

Galatians...the gospel of freedom!

Subscribe in a reader This is Daniel.  He's 22 and comes to us all the way from Norway.  He was the first student to sign up for this years school, and has been planning to do this program since October of last year.  We're so excited he's here.

The past few books have been huge for him, and the lights are really coming on in his heart as he begins to see more clearly the implications of the gospel of grace.  The reality of the finished work of Jesus on his behalf, that sets him free from the burden of having to earn God's love through any good deed that he does, has really been sinking in.

Just today he was excited to tell me that "Galatians is really making sense," which is a big deal, because its a difficult book to understand, and he's hearing it in his second language.  He specifically mentioned to me today how cool it was that the promise God made to Abraham (1800 BC) had something to do with Jesus (Galatians 3:6-10, 16)...which means, among many other things, that even in the OT the implications of grace were in play, and that God was saving people in the OT through faith/grace not through law keeping...this is a huge revelation, and just one of the many gold nuggets to be found within Galatians.