Teaching in Lubumbashi - Day 1

Monday – August 16, 2010

We woke up this morning rested and refreshed, and eager for our day of teaching. We went down for breakfast at around 7:45 as we do every morning and enjoyed a banana, omelette, a hot dog, hard boiled egg, with fruit juice and coffee. It has been a good breakfast every morning, but I told Todd this morning that I am already getting tired of eggs. I can only take so much!

For our four days of teaching we had tentatively planned to teach the following: Todd would teach on Biblical Interpretation and the Doctrine of Election and I would teach on The Art of Preaching and Pastoral Qualifications and Responsibilities. We divided up our time into half days and had a general outline of what we thought we would teach every day. Things did not turn out that way!

We were picked up at 8:30am to travel the 1.5 km to the school where we were conducting our teaching. We met in a secondary (grade 6-12) school compound in one of the classrooms. Some of the men were there or arriving as we pulled in, but we had to wait as the room was swept out. They are on “holiday” right now at school, so the room has not been in use since June and needed to be cleaned. Since a number of windows were broken, quite a bit of dust had probably blown in. We could see a bit of segregation between the men of the ELCC and the CCLC as we waited outside, and when it was ready for us to go in we saw the same segregation with the locations that chosen for seating. Still, everyone was being amiable toward one another, so we were thankful for that.

The attendees listen intently to Todd as we begin our morning session.

Todd opened the session at about 9:30 by introducing himself. We discussed the schedule a little bit and then began the study of Biblical Interpretation. Todd presented several rules of Biblical Interpretation, and then discussed them at length. He used Scriptural examples in order to show the dangers of not following the rule and how important it is. During the morning many questions were asked by the men there. This is probably the best way to determine if the people really understand what you are teaching so we generally encourage questions. Some of the questions varied from doctrine to application. It seemed like some of the questions were motivated by the issue separating the CCLC and the ELCC. They asked about being wronged and forgiveness. We concluded at 12:00 for a two hour lunch break. Over lunch we discussed what to do in the afternoon. Todd had not come close to finishing his presentation on Biblical Interpretation, and I was supposed to be up for the afternoon. We decided to have Todd finish discussing Biblical Interpretation in the afternoon since it was so important and because of the questions that had come out in the morning.

The men and women of the CCLC and the ELCC who attended our first day of teaching.

The afternoon session was again full of questions. We discussed the topics of Conversion and Election at length as well as the importance of Infant Baptism. All of this came out of Todd’s presentation through examples of Biblical Interpretation. It was a very profitable presentation and included some deep discussion.

After closing our afternoon session, we drove to Pastor Yumba’s office so that we could print off my lessons for the following morning, as well as a few other things. While we were there, Pastor Yumba was showing a pamphlet that covered the teachings that we had spoken about throughout the day, which was translated into French. We all felt that it would be good for all our pastors to have a copy, so we asked if Martin could make enough copies for everyone. He said it would cost about $100 to print them up and said they could have it ready by the end of the week. It may be the best use of $100 since we have been here.

The printing office was interesting. There is a computer desk, a table with printers stacked haphazardly on it, a glass case which is used for a counter full of printed materials of various kinds, and an empty table with chair around it. On the computer desk is an old computer which Martin uses for his printing and copying business. Although there are several printers at his disposal, they are all inkjets and they don’t move very quickly compared to what we have in the states. It took a while first of all for his computer to recognize my flash drive, and even when it did, it took just as long for it to bring up the pdf I had saved on there. We were only printing 22 pages, but it took about an hour to get that accomplished! But it did the job and we were thankful that Martin was willing and eager to help us out, even at the end of a long day!

Martin, our printer, is at work behind his computer desk.

Tomorrow will be another day of teaching. We pray for the Lord’s continued blessing.

In Christ,

Nathanael

“Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.” – Hebrews 4:14