Teaching – October 11th – 14th
Fresh from my victory over the bull, close enough for me anyway, this week was teaching time at the Bible School in Nidubrolu. There was some miscommunication over the subject matter. Jyothi apparently had understood that I was going to be going through the whole book Ephesians, where as I thought I was only doing the second chapter of Ephesians as well as some other studies preferring to give the students a bit of variety. Due to the fact that what I thought was equal to what I prepared there wasn’t much choice but to do it my way, though hopefully I learned my lesson. This week then, we studied the first part of Ephesians chapter two paying particular attention to what this section teaches concerning the Means of Grace and sanctification. We also had a slide show on the Church Fathers. The slide show we did only for one hour a day so that we could focus more on the biblical studies and consequently only got through to Clement of Alexandria. Then once we had finished with Ephesians we studied parts of John 16 specifically concerning the work of the Holy Spirit and the importance of Christ’s ascension.
The classroom was stuffed full of students overflowing unto benches beyond in the entrance hall. Jyothi was telling me later that normally they split the men into two classes making use of the second smaller classroom so that the classroom is not so full. On top of the combining of the two classes, there were a number of visitors. This Jyothi again told me later is pretty normal. He explained that many of the pastors who are students here invite their friends to come along for class and Jyothi rather than telling them to leave lets them sit in on the lecture for the day. Usually he said they have four or five visitors a day.
Dave Beckman ( WELS missionary ) who happened to be in Guntur at this time also, showed me around the WELS headquarters trying in vain to “impress” me with their awful waste of money. Worst of all was their air-conditioned classrooms. I joke of course. They had some very nice facilities including a computer lab for their pastors. We lack this quality of facility but due to our decentralized methods and our greater reliance on our district leaders especially in the BELC we are able to work with quite a few more men, albeit not as intensely. There are naturally pros and cons to both methods.
On my way out of the hotel one day I saw a couple of other Caucasians sitting around in the foyer. I didn’t think too much of this, until later that day when I was at the internet café around the corner and found a document on the desktop “Lutheran . . . ” I was naturally curious and since they left it there I didn’t think anything of taking a look. The document was full of a number of links to www.evangelicallutheransynod.org which made me wonder if those men weren’t here from this church. However I haven’t seen them since so I haven’t been able to confirm this.
I have two days left here in the Guntur area, visiting churches in the evening. Very late Friday night ( Saturday morning ) I will catch the train back to Chennai. A couple days in Chennai than off to Nellore followed by the Cuddapah area. I will finally return to Chennai on the 30th of October.
