Time Flies

It's travel weekend, which means I get a few extra days of freedom to relax and catch up on sleep and reading and of course my body decides this would be a good time to come down with a cold... I can't believe I've been back at school for five weeks already and the term is half over! I feel like there's not a lot to tell because it's mostly been routine - classes, Bible reading, walks; I'll hit the highlights as I think of them so they may or may not be in order of occurrence.

My favourite lecturers this term have been Hans Peter Royer and Rob Whittaker. Hans Peter talked about "Turning truth into life," and he brought together a bunch of ideas and connected them in ways I'd never thought about before. In general he was just really honest about how the truths he taught about, like being 'in Christ' and 'praying without ceasing,' played out in his own life. Rob Whittaker talked about John 13-17 in the upper room during and after the Last Supper and Jesus' teachings during that time.

We had dorm life and played a sweet game called 'Progressive Charades' which is a cross between charades and telephone. One group performs a scenario for another group who performs it for another group, etc. until the last group has to guess what it was they were watching. Each group only gets to see the group right before them before they act, and the scenario gets gradually more confused and funny.

On Sunday night Melanie, Emelie and I decided to sleep outside on the balcony to see how our sleeping bags would work and if they'd be warm enough. It wasn't as cold as I thought it would be, but my feet got too cold and I couldn't get comfortable so I eventually went inside at 4am.

I went on a long walk with Angela, one of my friends from outreach. She's been asking some intense questions about God and faith but she's got some significant roadblocks to belief so please be praying that she would keep thinking about what she's heard and seen and that God would draw her to himself. We've also been going running together as I'm trying to get my knee back in shape, and the time spent warming up, cooling down and stretching can be a good opportunity for conversation.

We had about four inches of snow on the ground for three weeks now, and it's beautiful! I'm glad it's not so much that it makes walking difficult because I'd be really sad to lose my walks in the forest.

Next week we are doing a media fast, which means no email, no Facebook, no mp3 players, no computer games, etc. One point of fasting is to get rid of the distractions that keep us from focusing on God. Another is to see what we have been distracting ourselves from or suppressing. John Piper says "We all ease our discomfort using food and cover our unhappiness by setting our eyes on dinnertime. Which is why fasting exposes all of us—our pain, our pride, our anger," and I think the same could be true of technology. I can put up with something for now because in a bit I can go check Facebook and see what all my friends have been up to or maybe I'll have an email from home. It'll be interesting to see what surfaces during the week. The fast goes from Wednesday at noon until the next Wednesday at noon.

That's all I can think of for now. If you think of me, pray that I get over this cold fast and that I can catch up on sleep because I haven't been sleeping the greatest. Have a great week!