Highlights and Lowlights:
-Last night I won a talent show. First place in Capernwray's Got Talent for reading two of my poems. "The winner is....Ginger Jack" (as my fellow students seem so bent on calling me). For some reason the talent had to revolve around the letter D. So the first poem I shared was based on 1 Samuel 16. And the second was a sort of love poem I wrote for someone here at Capernwray...although all I did was hint that the letter D might be a clue indicating the woman who inspired the poem. It was kind of fun last night being mysterious and romantic etc. as all the women (and men) at Bible school were trying to figure out who I wrote about. I suppose I enjoyed the intrigue and the attention. But, of course, it's very superficial of me. I appreciated more the the couple of people who commented on the poetry itself.
-The rest of the talent show was absolutely BRILLIANT. Very entertaining. I would almost pay money to see some of these acts. Blew me away.
-We had a really nice day of prayer on Thursday. And I needed it. So many good things came out of the day: First, my two roommates and I prayed with each other for a good while, and if nothing else (it wasn't nothing else) it was a time of significant bonding. Later a couple of missionary kids led a muslim prayer seminar. They set up a room kinda like a mosque and we prayed for all sorts of related issues (most importantly salvation the spread of the gospel) shoeless on the floor. I also went to a prayer meeting for North America. I was the only one who went...and it was led by a couple of friends who didn't do research...so we just debated about the stimulus package (which I don't even know anything about) and talked about the decline of fish in eastern canada before praying.. My funny but potentially blasphemous contribution to the prayer: "God, if the fish die, please help the Canadians to be fishers of men." I'm hoping Jesus appreciated my attempt at humor. (not humour). Probably the best part of the day was having one of the staff pray for me as a leader of my 10-day outreach team. I had been feeling very insecure and stressed (to some degree still) and was having trouble just trusting God when faced with new challenges I can't face relying solely on my own effort and resources. But Ian, he's the dean of students, was really reaffirming, and God really strengthened me as I prayed that day.
-I went on a really nice walk last night. It was really dark and I stepped in a lot of smelly and wet things, but it was great and I was in good company. We started out going to the barn to see some more baby lambs. That was a little scary, because all the grown-up sheep started waking up all around us and baaahing creepily. We then went all around the hills, commenting on the trees and dodging cars. (I say dodging cars because although there were like two, they are scary and I still haven't gotten used to which side of the road they're coming from).
-This weekend I'm going to just chill. Catch up on some outreach stuff, and read more George Eliot. and the Bible. I need to get through Jeremiah which I find tedious, especially coming out of post-chapter 30 Isaiah. I always think that and then God speaks to me. I don't know why I think that would be so incongruous when I'm reading his word.