Update from New Staff Training

For the last 3 weeks I've been at New Staff Training, both taking classes and seeking to find a clearer calling about where I should request to be placed for my ministry assignment for the next few years. I've also gotten a lot of time in being active on the beach (even though its really cold most days, surprisingly... one day was actually colder than it was in Vancouver) and connecting with other people here like me, who have been called to reach the world's college students and are about to be scattered throughout a largely unbelieving (sometimes, misunderstanding) world.

Our classes (Christian Theology and Bible Study Methods) have challenged me to live in a more Biblical way, not through a series of correlating rituals, but by recognizing what every passage in the Bible says about 1) man's fallen condition and inability to save himself and 2) God's role in redemption as a completion of man's fallen condition.

The classes have been great and, in many ways, are the biggest thing causing my faith to stretch at the moment. There are some lectures I think are lame, mainly ones about the end times and ones about calvinism/armenianism, but all in all, they've been a great source of encouragement to me. I feel like Bodie from The Wire, having grown up around "the game," knowing many of the basic concepts about it, but when you get taken under a kingpin's wing, like a Stringer Bell...well... you just take off. No longer a dope boy, not quite the big boss. More like a Lieutenant, somewhere in between.

Anyways, I've got about 2 weeks left here and am both really enjoying my time here with everyone and hopeful to get back to NC soon!

Thanks so much for your prayers and support!

-Daniel