October 17, 2012

Bikes and Covenants

 

This past Thursday after breakfast and dishpit duty, we had class with Eric Smith. He continues class where he left off from Wednesday taking us through the Old Testament, teaching us about the covenant history. Our reading assignments have been in Covenant History book which is a third of the Old Testament that does not have chapters or verses. This has helped to make our reading easier by aiding us in our endeavor to read bigger chunks of Scripture and to see the Bible in the metanarrative that it is written in. Through the morning session we worked our way from Leviticus through the end of Deuteronomy. 

After lunch, we had exercise time and then free time/study time. During this time I went out with Matthew, Caitlin, and Sydney for a bike ride into town. We had an amazing twelve mile ride down into town with a decent crosswind coming from the west.  We hung out in town for a little while and played checkers and ate a snack at River Pointe Cafe. I had a smoothie and a delicious cinnamon roll. Yum. It was a little bit slower on the way back as we had to go back up the hills that we rode down earlier. I love riding up the hills though, since I do not have anything like these inclines back in Michigan.

In the evening session with Eric we continued on with the covenant history, discussing Joshua all the way to the beginning of the New Testament. 

On Friday after breakfast we continued class with Eric. We turned to the New Testament and the new covenant relating it back to the old covenant by asking how the new covenant fits together with the old covenant. We discussed the Kingdom of God at length. Questions that arose included: “What is the Kingdom of God?” and “Where is the Kingdom of God?”

During the afternoon, we had workcrews. I was on the echo canyon sanding crew for the day Jon, Michael Hayes, Skyler, Carlie Rae, and Kelly. We ended up running out of orbital sanding paper, so we had to sand by hand for the last hour. During that last hour due to the lack of constant noise of the orbitals, we were able to find out more about each other by telling cool injury stories.

We finished the night off with a worship time: Michael Jester lead on the guitar, Lacey on the keyboard, Skyler accompanying on the acoustic guitar, Briana played her violin, and Isaac on the drum. Afterwards, we had a campfire and got ready for the weekend by decompressing.

This is a basic overview of two days, and it may seem a little simple, however everyday our community is being built through the grace of God and the Holy Spirit, it’s the small conversations that go late into the night, the inside jokes from class, and the meals that we have together. For those that read this: I pray that you continue to pray for us as we learn and grow during our time here, but also that we are able to take what we learn here and take it out with us back into civilization and apply it.

 

Ryan

Ryan Hartwell, 21

St. Joseph, MI

Ryan cannot pinpoint a specific time when he was saved, but two events influenced his relationship with God: Summit and a car crash. Ryan realizes the brevity of life and the importance of living it well through clear, Godly thinking. Ryan has been pursuing a career in accounting, but after feeling God’s call to Summit is no longer sure if this is the correct path. Ryan is intrigued and invested in the creation vs. evolution discussion and hopes to learn more in this area while at Summit.

• Posted at 08:38 am by Dustin Jizmejian
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