Anyway back to the Hamilton adventures and what I learned from them...
My adventure in Hamilton being a Bible Worker actually began in Palmerston North. Finally got to go back to my Home Town!! Had a wonderfully blessed weekend, turned out that Sabbath was a regional day so I got to see many more of my friends than I would have been able to otherwise. Got to have 'deep and meaningfuls' with most of my favourite people (Sorry to the ones I missed!) and even had the lovely surprise to discover that one of my favourite people from Australia was in town - being one of the guest speakers for the regional day - so got to have an 'unexpected and therefore extra special, not nearly long enough' chat with her.
On my last day in Palmerston I went out to my old school, LAC. First surprise was that it's been repainted - no longer pink! A definite improvement!! Saw lots of my old students - you've all grown up sooooo much!! And again had a lovely time visiting with as many people as I could squeeze into the couple of hours I had there before I had to head off to the airport. The interesting thing though was that as I was leaving I could look back at the school without regret. I totally enjoyed my 12 years teaching chemistry at LAC, learned a lot, made some wonderful friends and grew as a person, but I have absolutely no desire to go back and do it again, there or anywhere else. As I drove away from the school I was left to ask "God, What next?" (Not counting Korea in the 'What next?' because that is just an one year adventure, not the rest of my life.)
Interesting things that happened in Hamilton:
1. This is my only complaint, the car that I was lent to drive by the excellent people I stayed with while I was in Hamilton (Hi Vivienne, Hi Maurice) was a very nice European car, which means that its blinker switch was on the opposite side of the steering wheel to what I am accustomed to. (The same side as on American cars.) After driving it for a month I am finding it rather difficult to adjust back to normal cars and find I keep flicking on the wind-wipers when I want to go around a corner. Not exactly helpful.
2. I meet an internet friend in the flesh for the first time (Hi Linda) we had a grand time getting to know each other - she is currently learning Korean in a course she is doing, I love serendipity. On our last meeting I dragged her out to the Mormon Temple with me, because I was curious. It was a 'dah' moment for me - should have expected it, but I didn't, the whole tour of the visitors centre was an indoctrination exercise. Interesting and sad, Interesting to see how they present there beliefs without mentioning any that a traditional Christian would find odd in this introductory session. Sad because the lady who talked to us was obviously sincere and quoted scripture often, but some was twisted to imply things it doesn't actually mean in the Bible and some was just misquoted, additions to the actual Biblical text which I must admit rather shocked me.
3. Linda also showed me that my faith and trust in God was not as strong as it ought to have been. We were comparing our beliefs (Linda is not a Christian) and as part of the conversation she said something that suddenly made me realise that she had more faith in her Goddess than I have in my God. The conversation came around about the same time as the discovery that all my references had been lost by the Australian office and I was left questioning if I was actually going to get to go to Korea seeing as I still had to obtain all the references again and get approval to go from two committee's and then the tickets could be purchased and there was only two weeks to do all these things. One of the things I learned at AFCOE was to 'rest' on God and let Him take care of my problems. And here I was fretting about small things like references and committee's when God made the entire world in one week, and I had two weeks for my problems to be sorted out. So after hearing Linda talk I had to silently apologise to God for my lack of trust and faith and give the problem back to Him. And it all worked out, 3 more sleeps :-D (Thanks Linda for the insight.)
4. In Hamilton I got to do some work with the full time Bible Worker there for a few hours each week. Jeremy and I knocked on doors, did surveys, invited people to have Bible studies and conducted some Bible studies. All good but what I particularly enjoyed was working with the church members. The reason I got to go to Hamilton is because their Pastor (Michael Falzarano) wanted me to train his church in the Cycle of Evangelism, they are doing a big series later in the year and he wanted me to do the introductory training, get people revved up to go out and invite their friends to the meetings, to be someone different than the people they usually see. So I got to do a 10 min segment before the service each week talking about different aspects of the Evangelism Cycle and what practical things people could be doing at each stage of the cycle. On Sabbath Afternoon's I was able to teach interested church members how to answer tricky Bible questions that they might be asked. I also got to do a couple of other sessions, How to Give A Gospel Presentation' and 'Writing Your Testimony.' Plus I got to join a couple of small groups for their Bible studies and run a couple of sessions. I loved it!!!!!!! I loved teaching again, I loved interacting with people who wanted to know what I had to teach them, I loved knowing that what I was teaching was the most important thing in the world. What I would like to do is work with the members of our church, teaching them how to deepen their experience with Jesus and how to present Him in the most attractive way to other people. Whether that is by travelling around churches and spending a few weeks in a place then moving on and doing it again, or by teaching at an AFCOE (that would be awesome) or being an Evangelist/Revivalist, or in some other way.
5. I got to preach the sermon one week, did my testimony, based it around the Parable of the Sower with the hard/thorny/rocky and good ground. Tried to show how God has taken my hard/thorny/rocky heart and is slowly and laboriously turning it into good soil. At the end of my sermon while I'm standing at the door shaking hands one man says "Thanks for the great sermon, I only slept a little bit." ... ummmmm what do you reply to that?? I smiled and nodded. Am choosing to take it as a compliment ... What was very cool though was that a few of the children and young people seemed to be impacted by it and one mother told me that her often rebellious young son stayed behind after the sermon to have a little prayer before leaving. Seriously, our testimonies is the one thing that we can share that make Jesus real to other people, when they see the changes that Jesus has made in us, the victories He has given us, the truths He has taught us and how that transforms us, it makes them want to know Him too.
6. Another thing I learned: I have always been one of those people who enjoy the 'special' speakers and watch with a touch of amusement all the people who 'flock' around the speaker afterwards. Well I would have been very lonely with out those people. I meet some lovely fantastic people in Hamilton and have determined that from now on I will join the 'flock.'
7. Finally, (Not the final thing I learned, just the final thing I plan to record here), I found out why people had been giving me strange looks when I would tell them I had spent four months at AFCOE learning how to be a Bible Worker. Here in New Zealand AFFCO is the name of a big freezing works up north. (In case you don't know, a freezing works is basically a factory where animals are slaughtered and processed for eating.) I learned to say instead that I had been to Amazing Facts for four months and taken their Evangelism course. Then the next thing I would be asked was "Did you meet Doug Batchelor?"
Now I am going to go and have one of those sleeps. Wishing you all a lovely day.
Cheers
Cat
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