"A day in the life"
For those of you who have been wondering what a “typical day” here at CBTS looks like, here’s one answer (Wesley’s). (Hopefully Tommy and Charlie will follow this up with their own installments soon.)
5:15 AM My alarm goes off, and I hit the snooze button. It's a bad habit, but waking up early, for someone who has never been a morning person, is something you have to ease into, I think. :)
5:50 AM By now, I’ve showered and shaved and am at my desk in my room. It’s still dark outside, and the house is quiet and very cold. I’ve started trying to read 2 Samuel in Hebrew for the past few mornings, partly in order to keep my Hebrew fresh. My Holladay lexicon is out in front of me, and I’m reading by candlelight because I still haven’t gotten used to the harsh fluorescent lamp on my ceiling (fluorescent is the only kind of electric light we have in our house). Today I make it from verse 13 through verse 18. I’ve also been trying to read something theological before breakfast, and today it was a little of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics (which I’ve never read till now). Barth writes like a preacher!
6:50 AM I sit down with Charlie and Tommy to a breakfast of French toast. When we say grace this morning, we pray for Bethlehem Baptist and All Nations Christian Fellowship.
7:20 AM We’re turning the keys to lock the metal-barred door to our house (Ndu and CBTS’ campus have been known to have their share of robberies, so better safe than sorry) and hitting the trail to chapel. From where we live at the edge of campus, it’s about a ten-minute slightly-uphill walk to chapel. The dirt path slopes up past other faculty houses and corn fields. We take care to avoid the cow patties---livestock range freely on campus, sometimes a little too freely as when, earlier this week, we faced some longhorns grazing next to the woodshed between the dirt path and our house and staring at us as we walked carefully past them, brandishing long sticks we picked up on the way.
This morning, on our walk, the sun was shining---a welcome change from all the gray weather we’ve been having during this monsoon season (dry season is just around the corner; we’re bracing ourselves for the clouds of red dust!). It slanted through tall trees on the far edge of campus and fell on the hedges of the gardens next to the corn fields where several women were stooped, weeding. We passed goats eating grass and said “Morning” to several students as we walked past the women’s dormitory and into the main part of campus.
7:30 AM Chapel today was a time of testimonies. Divine, one of my students in his second year of the Diploma program, gave one of the most moving. For the past two years, he has battled Hepatitus B and probably needs a liver transplant but that, sadly, isn’t likely to happen. Divine stood on the chapel stage while the VP of CBTS read his testimony. Divine’s voice is still too weak to read---he’s just recovering from a recent severe bout with bad symptoms. But, thankfully, he is feeling better and is back in class. He’s been doing quite well in my Theology class. His testimony this morning was full of God-centered reflections on the meaning of suffering in the lives of Christians.
8:20 AM Between chapel and my first class, I have a small window of time, so I came back to our house to do some last-minute prep and grab a cup of coffee.
9:10 AM My first class of the day starts now. It’s a course on the book of Acts, for students in the second year of the Certificate in Theology program. Today they---all 50 of them---handed in their first paper. I assigned a one-pager that was supposed to be half summary of Acts chapters 1-4, half personal reflections. After collecting the assignments, I lectured on the opening of Acts 8 and how this represents a hinge moment in the book, when Jesus’ promise in 1:8 that his followers would testify to him beyond Jerusalem---in Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth---begins to be fulfilled as the church is scattered through persecution. Students, as always, were full of questions, and it was a good class.
10:00 AM I joined the faculty and staff in the faculty lounge for a cup of tea. This daily ritual is a good place to connect and hear the latest campus news. This week, the main conversation topic is that the “Dorcas Sisters”---a group of faculty wives---are selling one of their cows. They’ll take it to a butcher in the village who will slaughter it, and faculty will be able to buy beef at discount prices! As I left teatime, I ran into Ngi David, a graduate of CBTS and new pastor in the village of Kakar. Charlie and I met David last summer, and it was wonderful to see him again today and hear an update on how things are going.
10:25 AM I arrive at the main academic building for my second class of the day, Systematic Theology. Today there’s no lecture. I give them a quiz on the attributes of God and give them a reading assignment in preparation for Monday’s lecture when we’ll start looking at the doctrine of the Trinity.
11:20 AM I walk off campus and into the village to the post office to mail a letter home. (Hope you receive it okay, David and Tamara!) Letters par avion usually take 2-3 weeks to reach the States from here.
11:45 AM I’m back at our house starting to grade the stack of papers I picked up in Acts class today. Some of them are disappointing. It looks like a good number of my students have just collected a lot of verses from Acts and reproduced them verbatim for me. Groan! Some of their personal reflections are good, though. Eventually I’m interrupted by the doorbell. My student Randolph pokes his head in and asks if I’d be willing to look over the outline for an exegesis paper he has to submit for Dr. Yong’s Pauline Theology class. I say yes, and he thanks me and invites me to watch the volleyball match students and faculty will be playing in at 4 o’clock today.
12:35 AM Charlie, Tommy, and I sit down for lunch. It’s a salad made from cabbage, orange slices, and mayo with shepherd’s pie---or as Tommy thinks they call it in England, “mash and bangers”---as the main course. Yum! Our cook is so good.
1:20 PM Back to grading papers. I mark them for a while, and then, since it’s Friday and I’m done with classes for the day, I decide to do some pleasure reading. I’ve just started Philip Hallie’s Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed: The Story of the Village of Le Chambon and How Goodness Happened There.
2:30 PM I spend most of the rest of the afternoon writing emails to family and friends. When we were in the town of Bamenda a few weeks back (about a six-hour drive from Ndu), we got a cellphone and a USB cable, and we’re able to get online with it. For now, it’s free(!!!), but we’re told that could change without warning, so we’re keeping our ears to the ground for news.
4:10 PM I leave the house, and it’s still beautiful outside. Dry season must be coming quickly. The sky is blue, the sun is shining, and for once, I don’t take an umbrella with me. I roll up my sleeves and enjoy the warm weather as I walk up to our office. When I get there, I see Charlie who’s been there for a while meeting with his Hebrew students to help them with their assignments. I hear him explaining how you make masculine Hebrew words plural to his student Jonathan. I record some grades in my Systematic Theology grade book, grab some textbooks I’ll need for class prep over the weekend, and head down to the volleyball courts to watch the match.
4:35 PM I talk for a while with Paul, the CBTS student body president, while I watch the game. Paul is 46 years old and has three kids. He’s served as a pastor in the Cameroon Baptist Convention for many years and has come back to school for theological training. He’s a sharp guy, and he tells me he spoke with Charlie earlier this week to invite the three of us over to his house for dinner this coming Tuesday night---a dinner of “country chop” (=Cameroonian food), as they say in pidgin.
5:00 PM I head home and meet up with Charlie back at the house. Tommy is up at the Yongs’ hanging out with Sam.
6:00 PM Our friend Emmanuel the tailor stops by. He has brought the shirts that I asked him to make for me. Last Sunday, Charlie and I went with him to the “big market” in the village where I picked out some very African-looking fabric and asked Emma to make me a long-sleeve and short-sleeve shirt. He gets here on Friday, I try the shirts on, and they look great. “I’ll stop by on Sunday,” Emma says as he leaves. He likes coming over once a week to visit us, and we’re glad to have him.
Soon we’ll make dinner and then maybe watch a movie. Another week---our fourth here at CBTS---has come and gone. The weekend will be a nice break. We’ll probably grade papers, play with the Yong kids, have students over to visit, and go to church on Sunday. Then it will be time to start all over on Monday. It’s a good life here. Thanks for reading this. More from Tommy and Shep soon, I hope!
-Wes
5:15 AM My alarm goes off, and I hit the snooze button. It's a bad habit, but waking up early, for someone who has never been a morning person, is something you have to ease into, I think. :)
5:50 AM By now, I’ve showered and shaved and am at my desk in my room. It’s still dark outside, and the house is quiet and very cold. I’ve started trying to read 2 Samuel in Hebrew for the past few mornings, partly in order to keep my Hebrew fresh. My Holladay lexicon is out in front of me, and I’m reading by candlelight because I still haven’t gotten used to the harsh fluorescent lamp on my ceiling (fluorescent is the only kind of electric light we have in our house). Today I make it from verse 13 through verse 18. I’ve also been trying to read something theological before breakfast, and today it was a little of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics (which I’ve never read till now). Barth writes like a preacher!
6:50 AM I sit down with Charlie and Tommy to a breakfast of French toast. When we say grace this morning, we pray for Bethlehem Baptist and All Nations Christian Fellowship.
7:20 AM We’re turning the keys to lock the metal-barred door to our house (Ndu and CBTS’ campus have been known to have their share of robberies, so better safe than sorry) and hitting the trail to chapel. From where we live at the edge of campus, it’s about a ten-minute slightly-uphill walk to chapel. The dirt path slopes up past other faculty houses and corn fields. We take care to avoid the cow patties---livestock range freely on campus, sometimes a little too freely as when, earlier this week, we faced some longhorns grazing next to the woodshed between the dirt path and our house and staring at us as we walked carefully past them, brandishing long sticks we picked up on the way.
This morning, on our walk, the sun was shining---a welcome change from all the gray weather we’ve been having during this monsoon season (dry season is just around the corner; we’re bracing ourselves for the clouds of red dust!). It slanted through tall trees on the far edge of campus and fell on the hedges of the gardens next to the corn fields where several women were stooped, weeding. We passed goats eating grass and said “Morning” to several students as we walked past the women’s dormitory and into the main part of campus.
7:30 AM Chapel today was a time of testimonies. Divine, one of my students in his second year of the Diploma program, gave one of the most moving. For the past two years, he has battled Hepatitus B and probably needs a liver transplant but that, sadly, isn’t likely to happen. Divine stood on the chapel stage while the VP of CBTS read his testimony. Divine’s voice is still too weak to read---he’s just recovering from a recent severe bout with bad symptoms. But, thankfully, he is feeling better and is back in class. He’s been doing quite well in my Theology class. His testimony this morning was full of God-centered reflections on the meaning of suffering in the lives of Christians.
8:20 AM Between chapel and my first class, I have a small window of time, so I came back to our house to do some last-minute prep and grab a cup of coffee.
9:10 AM My first class of the day starts now. It’s a course on the book of Acts, for students in the second year of the Certificate in Theology program. Today they---all 50 of them---handed in their first paper. I assigned a one-pager that was supposed to be half summary of Acts chapters 1-4, half personal reflections. After collecting the assignments, I lectured on the opening of Acts 8 and how this represents a hinge moment in the book, when Jesus’ promise in 1:8 that his followers would testify to him beyond Jerusalem---in Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth---begins to be fulfilled as the church is scattered through persecution. Students, as always, were full of questions, and it was a good class.
10:00 AM I joined the faculty and staff in the faculty lounge for a cup of tea. This daily ritual is a good place to connect and hear the latest campus news. This week, the main conversation topic is that the “Dorcas Sisters”---a group of faculty wives---are selling one of their cows. They’ll take it to a butcher in the village who will slaughter it, and faculty will be able to buy beef at discount prices! As I left teatime, I ran into Ngi David, a graduate of CBTS and new pastor in the village of Kakar. Charlie and I met David last summer, and it was wonderful to see him again today and hear an update on how things are going.
10:25 AM I arrive at the main academic building for my second class of the day, Systematic Theology. Today there’s no lecture. I give them a quiz on the attributes of God and give them a reading assignment in preparation for Monday’s lecture when we’ll start looking at the doctrine of the Trinity.
11:20 AM I walk off campus and into the village to the post office to mail a letter home. (Hope you receive it okay, David and Tamara!) Letters par avion usually take 2-3 weeks to reach the States from here.
11:45 AM I’m back at our house starting to grade the stack of papers I picked up in Acts class today. Some of them are disappointing. It looks like a good number of my students have just collected a lot of verses from Acts and reproduced them verbatim for me. Groan! Some of their personal reflections are good, though. Eventually I’m interrupted by the doorbell. My student Randolph pokes his head in and asks if I’d be willing to look over the outline for an exegesis paper he has to submit for Dr. Yong’s Pauline Theology class. I say yes, and he thanks me and invites me to watch the volleyball match students and faculty will be playing in at 4 o’clock today.
12:35 AM Charlie, Tommy, and I sit down for lunch. It’s a salad made from cabbage, orange slices, and mayo with shepherd’s pie---or as Tommy thinks they call it in England, “mash and bangers”---as the main course. Yum! Our cook is so good.
1:20 PM Back to grading papers. I mark them for a while, and then, since it’s Friday and I’m done with classes for the day, I decide to do some pleasure reading. I’ve just started Philip Hallie’s Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed: The Story of the Village of Le Chambon and How Goodness Happened There.
2:30 PM I spend most of the rest of the afternoon writing emails to family and friends. When we were in the town of Bamenda a few weeks back (about a six-hour drive from Ndu), we got a cellphone and a USB cable, and we’re able to get online with it. For now, it’s free(!!!), but we’re told that could change without warning, so we’re keeping our ears to the ground for news.
4:10 PM I leave the house, and it’s still beautiful outside. Dry season must be coming quickly. The sky is blue, the sun is shining, and for once, I don’t take an umbrella with me. I roll up my sleeves and enjoy the warm weather as I walk up to our office. When I get there, I see Charlie who’s been there for a while meeting with his Hebrew students to help them with their assignments. I hear him explaining how you make masculine Hebrew words plural to his student Jonathan. I record some grades in my Systematic Theology grade book, grab some textbooks I’ll need for class prep over the weekend, and head down to the volleyball courts to watch the match.
4:35 PM I talk for a while with Paul, the CBTS student body president, while I watch the game. Paul is 46 years old and has three kids. He’s served as a pastor in the Cameroon Baptist Convention for many years and has come back to school for theological training. He’s a sharp guy, and he tells me he spoke with Charlie earlier this week to invite the three of us over to his house for dinner this coming Tuesday night---a dinner of “country chop” (=Cameroonian food), as they say in pidgin.
5:00 PM I head home and meet up with Charlie back at the house. Tommy is up at the Yongs’ hanging out with Sam.
6:00 PM Our friend Emmanuel the tailor stops by. He has brought the shirts that I asked him to make for me. Last Sunday, Charlie and I went with him to the “big market” in the village where I picked out some very African-looking fabric and asked Emma to make me a long-sleeve and short-sleeve shirt. He gets here on Friday, I try the shirts on, and they look great. “I’ll stop by on Sunday,” Emma says as he leaves. He likes coming over once a week to visit us, and we’re glad to have him.
Soon we’ll make dinner and then maybe watch a movie. Another week---our fourth here at CBTS---has come and gone. The weekend will be a nice break. We’ll probably grade papers, play with the Yong kids, have students over to visit, and go to church on Sunday. Then it will be time to start all over on Monday. It’s a good life here. Thanks for reading this. More from Tommy and Shep soon, I hope!
-Wes
posted by Charlie, Tommy, and Wesley | 10:12 AM
4 Comments:
Sunday lunch is...
Taco Soup
Chips and stuff
Apple slices
Frosted Banana Bars
Just thought you might want to know what you're missing in the morning - I'm sure you will have something delicious as well. We will also be serving MN Twins baseball...nothing better than great fall baseball! I might even take a peek at the final round of the Ryder Cup - you know me and Sunday afternoon golf! :)
Thanks for the detailed update Wes -
We'll miss you all at lunch - Tommy, Mari will read the comics on your behalf and pretend to fight over them with her brother or SOMEONE!
TTFN!
Anie just told me this sounds like a school lunch - oh well...she thinks it's the "apple slices" - guess I'm a dork!
Wesley,
Great post! It sounds like things are going really well there so far and like the three of your are enjoying many blessings and some good ministry opportunities - we're praying that the coming months will hold more of the same. It was fun to get a peek into what your days look like! We miss seeing you around but are so excited about the great things going on at CBTS.
Haley & Roger
Hey friends! Just popping in to say hello...it's always interesting to hear about what your life is like over there. We are picturing ourselves possibly in similar situations in a few years, if God wills.
What we had for lunch is not nearly as exciting as what the Holsts were having...we are, however, hosting a group from Grace Church this weekend for NatCon, so the food will improve then. We've got four people staying with us, and there are some others from Grace staying with the Kirks or at hotels.
That's the most recent from us!
tabbs
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