First day
Well, we’ve just about wrapped up the first day of classes of our second semester here at CBTS. As I type this, it’s 3:00 PM, Tommy is asleep in his room (I think)---it’s that new early morning schedule we’re on again now (breakfast at 6:45 AM; chapel at 7:30; first class of the day at 8:15)---and Charlie is teaching Hebrew. A faculty and staff meeting starts in half an hour (and will probably last four or five hours, if last semester’s track record is any indication).
All in all, the day has gone well. The campus is alive again. After a deathly quiet Christmas break, students are now bustling here and there, ringing our doorbell constantly to greet us after the long hiatus, and there’s a fresh energy to campus now that classes and student clubs, etc., are meeting again.
Last night we had a vespers service in the campus chapel that included a foot washing ceremony. The faculty washed the feet of maybe a dozen students who volunteered to come to the front of the chapel. I remember doing something similar in college, and, while sometimes things like that can feel a bit forced, this service was meaningful and very moving for me. I think that washing the feet of Cameroonians, many of whom wear sandals and flip-flops in the dry season here, is much closer to what it would have been like to wash feet in Palestine in Jesus’ time, than is washing the feet of Americans who shower every day and don’t have to trek through dirt and clouds of powdery red dust every day. At any rate, it was a good reminder of why we’re here---to serve students and to commend to them a model of “servant leadership” that is miles away from the heavy-handed “big man” leadership style that prevails in many quarters of the Cameroon Baptist Convention (not to mention the evangelical church in the U.S.!!!). I had to fight back tears as I helped an African friend who eagerly and lovingly volunteered to wash Tommy’s feet.
God, this semester make us humble followers of Jesus who took up the towel and water basin for his disciples!
--Wesley
P.S. Some readers might like to know that the three of us, and our friend Ally, will actually get to watch the Super Bowl (instead of just downloading real-time text updates). We’re planning to travel over three hours to the village of Mbingo, where some other missionary friends of ours who have satellite TV. They’re going to record the game in the middle of the night on Sunday, and then we’re all going to make a pact that we won’t check email, internet, or answer any phone calls so we won’t know the outcome of the game, and then we’ll watch the recording of it on Monday night. There will be other people there, and we’ll have snacks, stay overnight at these missionaries’ house, and then head back to Ndu on Tuesday morning. As you might imagine, Tommy is very happy about this arrangement. Just don’t expect to hear from him until Tuesday.
All in all, the day has gone well. The campus is alive again. After a deathly quiet Christmas break, students are now bustling here and there, ringing our doorbell constantly to greet us after the long hiatus, and there’s a fresh energy to campus now that classes and student clubs, etc., are meeting again.
Last night we had a vespers service in the campus chapel that included a foot washing ceremony. The faculty washed the feet of maybe a dozen students who volunteered to come to the front of the chapel. I remember doing something similar in college, and, while sometimes things like that can feel a bit forced, this service was meaningful and very moving for me. I think that washing the feet of Cameroonians, many of whom wear sandals and flip-flops in the dry season here, is much closer to what it would have been like to wash feet in Palestine in Jesus’ time, than is washing the feet of Americans who shower every day and don’t have to trek through dirt and clouds of powdery red dust every day. At any rate, it was a good reminder of why we’re here---to serve students and to commend to them a model of “servant leadership” that is miles away from the heavy-handed “big man” leadership style that prevails in many quarters of the Cameroon Baptist Convention (not to mention the evangelical church in the U.S.!!!). I had to fight back tears as I helped an African friend who eagerly and lovingly volunteered to wash Tommy’s feet.
God, this semester make us humble followers of Jesus who took up the towel and water basin for his disciples!
--Wesley
P.S. Some readers might like to know that the three of us, and our friend Ally, will actually get to watch the Super Bowl (instead of just downloading real-time text updates). We’re planning to travel over three hours to the village of Mbingo, where some other missionary friends of ours who have satellite TV. They’re going to record the game in the middle of the night on Sunday, and then we’re all going to make a pact that we won’t check email, internet, or answer any phone calls so we won’t know the outcome of the game, and then we’ll watch the recording of it on Monday night. There will be other people there, and we’ll have snacks, stay overnight at these missionaries’ house, and then head back to Ndu on Tuesday morning. As you might imagine, Tommy is very happy about this arrangement. Just don’t expect to hear from him until Tuesday.
posted by Charlie, Tommy, and Wesley | 12:31 PM
2 Comments:
The superbowl sounds like fun! I hope the Colts take it all the way.
Kyle, that's what i'm takkin'boot.
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