Second Week Finished!!

Now that the second week of classes is over, I pretty much have a good grasp of how everything is going. I am slowly making progress through each of my classes, and as mentioned last week, have a pretty good set schedule for myself. This week was pretty calm, and like usual I had to do a bunch of reading and spend many hours studying Greek. I will say that studying Greek has been very fun, and now that I can translate some small sentences, I can see how useful this skill can be in really digging deeper into the bible. Up til now I have learned around 72 Greek words which apparently make up ~50% of the words in the New Testament. We also learned basic grammar for nouns/pronouns, and just learned prepositions yesterday.

One thing I did not expect from graduate school was the amount of self-teaching that I would have to do. Most of the time us students are reading the material and teaching ourselves, and then some of the information would be reinforced during class. We would be expected to know most of the reading/study materials, but not have it reviewed or learned in our classes. This was new to me, but not too difficult. The class I have to read the most in is Systematic Theology. Right now my professor is trying to give us a view into different races and their feelings with how the church is going. This goes into different struggles and difficulties that multi-ethnic churches have faced with things like a dominant white culture in the christian community.

Besides just classes, community building and my spiritual formation has been improving; I am constantly challenged by my friends and professors.Tonight me and a few other brothers will be starting our very first soul care group which is basically a group where we can pray for and support each other beyond just academics. I also thought it would be fun to join the choir (something I have never done before), which meets today for the first time, so I am excited to see how that will go. I have also been attempting each night to attend a group prayer/worship time at 7PM, and on Thursday I was finally able to make it. That was one of the most spiritually uplifting times that I have had during my time here. I always liked singing or listening to worship, but ever since I have been here, I haven't experienced too much of it. That night was truly refreshing and through one of the songs, God spoke to me in telling me that I was welcome here! I have also recently been awoken by how blessed I truly am to have the opportunity to be here at this seminary. If it were not for the prayers and financial support of everyone back at home I would not be here right now. My school had finally posted up all the financial costs for the semester, and just looking at it, I realized how blessed I was that I had people willing to support me through it; so THANK YOU!


On a side note, I had Jamaican food yesterday which for me is something rare whenever I try new food!

First Week of Classes

First week of school is finally over and I can say that I have never read/studied so much in my whole life. I used to be a computer science major in undergrad and so reading was never really something I had to do a lot of. Even on the off times where I had to do readings for classes, I was able to pull through with minimal reading and my good old friend "Sparknotes." For the first time I am taking my studies and reading seriously, and God has really been so evident throughout this time. Just being able to sit and peacefully read or study is something I could never see me do, but God has given me peace and strength to pull through. The one class that takes up most of my time is Greek. Besides the 4-5 hours I spend on it daily, it is a really interesting class and I actually enjoy learning the new vocabulary and grammar. I even got a bunch of index cards and cut them out into ghetto flashcards to practice with! My other classes are also all very interesting and challenge me in different ways. Spiritual Formation class has really challenged me on my relationship with God, and Old Testament Survey has brought me to dive much deeper into the Old Testament. During my systematic Theology class, my professor opened up with three questions that I had to think about for a while: "Where am I? What am I doing? Who am I?" Each class brought a new challenge for me, and I could feel God working through each lecture and book reading. I generally spend all my time in the Great Hall which has comfortable couches and desks to work at because my room is kinda dark and gloomy. My usual schedule so far has been: Class in the morning from 8-9, Greek from 9-12, Lunch from 12-1, Greek from 1-2/3, Reading until 5/6, Dinner for like an hour, and then back to more reading til around 10/11.

Besides just my studies, I have been trying to get to know different students and build community. It has been a little hard to get to know people because for some reason Gordon Conwell literally feels like a ghost town right after classes are over. I have no idea where all the students disappear to, but they are definitely not studying in the public spaces (my guess is that they are hiding in their rooms or the library), so getting to know many people has been hard. Instead, I find myself spending a lot of time alone which has been a weird experience. During these times I have had a good chunk of that time with just me and God. Either through worship in the Prayer Chapel or just personal quiet times with God, I have felt him giving me peace and comfort through and through. I've also been able to focus on making deep meaningful relationships as to just knowing the whole student body.

Overall it has been a very fruitful and new first week. Many firsts including eating weird food that I never would even touch back at home... but what choice do I have up here :/ But on the bright side, I have tried many new foods, and found out that I like eating cannolis.

New Student Orientation

I finally arrived at Gordon Conwell and moved everything into my dorm room. This is officially my first time dorming so everything is still very new to me, but I will say that my room is pretty nice. There is a Living Room, bathroom, one single room, and one double room. I have one suite mate who lives in the single next to me, and I live in a double by myself. It took a little while to get adjusted and unpack everything, but now that its all done, I can't wait to get started. I already have reading that needs to be done before class, so I already bought all my books and have started to read them.




















Upon arriving, this whole week has been New Student Orientation. We basically spent the whole week going over many many different things that we would need to know being a new student. Our schedule was jam packed with different activities and socials to get us familiar with the professors and each other. Each professor warmly invited us, and some of them even invited the new students to have dessert with them in their own houses. We also spent time getting an overview of Old and New Testament, along with learning about Soul Care. They taught us a general overview of the "CASKET EMPTY" project which is a schematic that goes through the whole bible. There was so much new knowledge to be learned, and I really felt challenged to rethink the bible as a whole over and over again.




During this orientation God also reminded me of my initial purpose in coming to Seminary. I had heard his calling, and to this my response was to give up control of my own life to Him, and let Him lead me. This was something that I somehow forgot and lost during the busy summer I just had, and so it was really refreshing to be reminded of this. Besides that, throughout my time here, I have been facing a lot of culture shock. Jumping from an Asian community to where I am now was definitely something that needed adjusting to. The people were different, the campus was different and even the food and water was different. I felt like a small fish in a BIG LAKE, and it was a bit hard initially to just put myself out there. Thankfully, everyone here has been extremely kind and intentional about making relationships and getting to know each other. I was also able to spend a lot more time with God than when I lived in the big apple. There is a good amount of time where I can just relax and enjoy my time with the Lord in my dorm room or out in nature.

So Gordon Conwell was originally a monastery, and this was a symbol left behind from them.
WHEN YOU SEE IT:



(What do you see?)
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Answer: Lego Jesus