Sabbath

No pics today.

Last night we had a Bible study after dinner. Nathan covered some of the many reasons why the trinity doctrine, besides not being mentioned in the Bible, is not logical. I followed that today with a sermon tracing the history of the doctrine, more on where it falls short, and what is revealed in scripture- that God uses family terms to describe the Godhead and that many sons will be glorified, and The Son is the Captain of their salvation. God will share His glory with man.

(For those of you not familiar with my religious beliefs, the simplest way to explain this is that I believe that the Father and the Son are God, and I believe in the Holy Spirit, just like the early Church, and just as the Council of Nicea declared in AD325. However, I do not agree with the conclusion of the Council of Constantinople in AD381, that the Holy Spirit is "worshiped and glorified together with the Father and Son." There you go, I am a heretic. At least I was after 381- before that I would've been OK.)

La Nu Nan translated into Burmese for the tapes that are sent to Burma and also to the brethren in the Karen refugee camps (here in Thailand). I speak a little, and then shut up while La Nu Nan does the translation, and so on. It is important to keep things very clear- simple. Turns out that it takes longer to prepare that kind of message than one where you have plenty of time and almost limitless vocabulary to explain everything. It will be a challenge, but a good one- for me- to boil the Bible's basic truths down to their fundamental components in not too many words.

At least some of what I will be preparing here for the students I will also write up in a form that can be translated into Burmese for use over there. In talking with Lallian, I learned of another challenge in Burma. He is of the Mizo tribe, and the Bible in the Mizo language is translated from English, not the original languages. Therefore, some errors are carried over, as well as possible new ones due to being 2 languages away from the original. In any case, that Bible has done a good work. Most Mizo are Christian, in a country that is Buddhist.

I hung around at the school after the service, straightened up the library a bit, and showed some of the little ones nature videos on my computer. Big hit. I was surprised at how many of the animals they could identify in English. After dinner, May Yu La (age 6) came up to me and said "Movies!" So we sat down for another half hour or 45 minutes.

Maybe tonight I will have my forst normal night of sleep since arriving (remember, it is 12 hours ahead of EST). It is only a little after 10 and I am drowsy. Good sign. Someone staying across the drive here at the farm is serenading me and the chickens (just about everyone plays a guitar and sings).

Rock-a-bye. Good-night, all.