New Semester, Spring Term

This month was the start of my second semester in Seminary. Time has literally flown by and a new semester was already upon me.  After viewing my syllabus for all the classes, I realized that this was gonna be a very reading heavy semester. I have to read over 3000 pages for this semester alone... and for someone like me who never had to read in the past... there could be no greater challenge. Before heading into the new semester, me and a few friends had the chance to head down to Boston to relax from the tough J-term and rest our souls before jumping straight into a new semester. We went to old antique book stores... which clearly wasn't my choice, but it was fun. We went to Harvard, and attempted to read/study there... so technically speaking, I studied at Harvard. We also went to a Kung Fu Tea for some boba, which let me feel like I was home again. During Chinese New Year, my friends from Church invited me to their house, but before that they brought us into Chinatown in Boston and also the Boston General Market. It was my first Chinese New Year away from home, and I was able to feel the warmth and love from my friends up here. Both of these trips were a nice break from school, and a fun chance to explore Boston.

At the start of the semester, I spent most of my time reading. Greek did not take up as much time, which I regret now. There was just so much reading to be done, and I wanted to stay faithful and diligent in my studies so I planned out my weekly reading schedule. In short, I have to read around 200+ pages a week in different books, and... well... I realized I also read slow so... there goes all my free time. Thankfully, or maybe not so thankfully... we had two blizzards which resulted in two snow days. This gave us a little extra time to catch up on reading, or just to take a short break before jumping into work again. Me and some friends took advantage of the huge piled up snow and went sledding to relieve some stress. Anyway back to my reading;
because of all the reading, my Greek suffered, and this week after coming back from Reading Week, I had to really work on my foundation for the new topics. I enjoyed my reading week back at home, but I didn't have all that much studying or reading done. We are learning all the different tenses for Greek, and I honestly didn't have a great grasp on it. Now I have to spend some extra time crunching down on reviewing Greek grammar, and most importantly, verbs.

Something interesting that happened during this month was when my friend drove me home from church on Sunday during the blizzard. First, we had to drive very slowly on the highway because it was slippery and the snow was coming down really hard. Secondly, as we got off the highway and onto the road leading to my school; turkeys started crossing the road in front of us. My friend tried to avoid hitting the silly turkeys but that caused us to spin out of control. Thankfully we only spun 90 degrees and she was able to pull into a driveway before we hit anything. The turkeys just stood there staring at us before getting off the road... Who knew turkeys would just wander about like that?? Thirdly, after dropping me off, my friend drove down the hill of Gordon Conwell back to her school, but on the way, she lost control of the car again because of the snow and went off the road into a snow bank. She was unable to get her car out, and we had to wait with her for a tow truck to come. Thankfully she had a friend that came to her rescue and drove her back to her campus, but her car was stuck there. So there I waited for the tow truck to pull us out and for me to drive her car into a nearby parking lot in our campus. This was one of the most difficult things I had ever done. I myself was a new driver, so parking someone else's car was new to me. Also, the tow truck had dropped me off backwards, so I had to back up into the parking lot. If that wasn't bad enough, the back window and side mirrors were iced over, so I could not see where I was going. Thankfully the tow truck kept backing up behind me so I followed its lights and backed up successfully without too causing any incidents. At least now I can say I drove in the snow for the first time!

Another first for me was taking the Boston Commuter Rail back up to school. I was blessed with a friend driving me back up to Boston on Friday, and with some guidance from my other friends, took the commuter rail from North Station all the way to North Hamilton. This experience itself is a short testimony of God providing for me. He gave me friends that helped me when I needed them most, and always provided a way for me to come back to school. Another small blessing was my decision to come back up on Friday. I came back up so that I could attend fellowship and Church on Sunday, as well as celebrate a friend's birthday on Friday. I could have come up with my other friend on Sunday, but because of my commitment to church, I decided to come up earlier. This ended up being a crucial choice because my friend whom I could have came up with on Sunday, decided to stay til Monday. Had I stayed til Sunday, I would have had to wait til Monday to come up and miss two very important classes on Monday morning. Small things like this showed me that God was working in providing for me and keeping me faithful.

During this time, God also continued to speak to me and answer my prayers. God was especially evident in providing for me when I needed a car. So, background, all throughout the J-term I was

Room where we meet for CHARIS (Young Adult Fellowship)

looking to buy a car. I had never bought a car before, nor did I know anything about cars to begin with, so you can imagine how lost i was during the whole process. Actually, truth be told, I wasn't putting as much effort as I really could have into diligently searching for cars. Thankfully, God brought beside me friends who helped me on my search for cars. They would recommend different cars that fit my budget and slowly taught me how to go about purchasing cars. However, no matter the number of cars that were brought up, and the number of people that I contacted, I was unable to buy a car. The sellers were either scams, unresponsive, or sold their cars before I had the chance to meet up with them. It came to a point where I started to wonder if God was trying to tell me something from this. The main reason why I needed a car was in order to attend church and do mentored ministry there (Mentored Ministry is a 1 credit class that requires me to serve around 10 hours a week at a church or organization, and meet up with a mentor at the church weekly). I would need to drive out for fellowship on Friday nights, Sunday mornings, and also meet up with different people for mentoring/discipleship. At the time I had not been very intentional about building relationships, and was not even sure how I would serve at the church. It seemed all I was trying to do was fulfill requirements for school and go along a schedule that I believed was best. I realized how silly and selfish I was being, and my need to give up the situation to God. He was calling me to faithful patience and to open my heart to this new church. So, two weeks before what I thought was the deadline for the paperwork to apply for Mentored Ministry was due, I decided to give up the situation to God.
I basically let God decide whether or not he wanted me to serve. If He wanted me to do mentored ministry, then provide for me before the deadline, and if not, then close that door. During this time I also decided to be more diligent on my end and spent time each night proactively searching for cars and contacting sellers. I was also more intentional with talking with people and getting to know more than their names and what their occupation was. After a week, there was still no luck with the car and I realized that the deadline for the paperwork was actually due the next week on Monday. I did however start building relationships at CBCGB, and was able to learn more about the people in my fellowship. On the topic of the car, I started to resign myself to accepting that God may be calling me to build deeper relationships first, and not just want to do things the way I thought it should go. Then, on Friday night during fellowship, as I talked to one of my colleagues from Gordon Conwell, who also attended my church and had been guiding me and helping me connect with CBCGB, she said something that blew my mind. She said she had been praying, and that she wanted to give me her old car!!
Now backstory on this: She had previously been considering whether to fix her old car or buy a new one, and resigned to just fixing her car. After fixing it, her parents decided to come alongside her and assist her in buying a new car. At this, she now had two cars, and so she needed to sell the old one. She started praying about what to do with the car and God kept putting me in mind. After confirming with God that this was his will, she approached me with the offer and I was blown away. I was right about to accept the fact that God was probably calling me to not serve yet, and then here He was, providing for me right when I needed it most. I was literally speechless, and couldn't think of anything to say. Imagine Me, speechless, I love talking... and now... I had no words to say. After arranging how things would work out, we left it off to a later date to deal with all the paperwork for the car, but I was still so shocked at how perfect the timing was. The paperwork for my class to start mentored ministry was do the coming Monday, which gave me time to talk with my mentor on Sunday about how I would serve. Now that I would be getting a car, I would be able to make it out to church to serve and meet with my mentor. Everything was falling into place, and I praise God for providing when I needed it most. The way how God worked perfectly, in bringing her to fix up her old car and me in patiently waiting while faithfully searching, helped me realize again that He knew best and had always been providing for me. Thinking back, I can now see his hand working in keeping me, teaching me to be patient and showing me just how much he was working in my life.

Lastly, things have been going amazing between me and the girl that I am seeing. We have been learning more and more about each other, as well as seeing where God might be leading this relationship. She has been a blessing in my life; an ear to listen, and a shoulder to lean on. If you want to know more, feel free to ask me, I'd love to share how we are doing and how blessed I feel for having her in my life! Please continue praying for us ^^.