On Friday morning I felt the beginnings of a very bad cold. I taught my Apologetics class at 11.00 and asked Elizabeth Almanza if she would kindly do the devotional at the faculty meeting as I was feeling unwell. As usual she willingly agreed.
By 4.00 pm I was decidedly unwell but we proceeded with the faculty. This term we have about 86 students, which is up by about 11 on last term. This is partly due to the weekend with Pedro Arana which attracted many people including students from the university who want to know if our lecturers can teach them at the CU. Elizabeth, an ex-member, assured them that we could do so out of our term time. Silas and I will be glad to help. As Pedro had come at the end of the first week there was still time for many who had come to his course, attracted by the cheap offer of Bible Society materials which he had brought, to matriculate with us during the second week of term.
The Pastors’ Breakfast also had an effect with more pastors enrolling for the Pastors’ Course on Saturday mornings and also coming with their young people to encourage them to matriculate.
By the evening I was getting worse as I prepared to teach my church history course. As Lourdes tried the automatic locking system and finally entered the car by turning the key, we realized that there had been an electrical failure in the car at some point while we were having our tea. I rang a taxi and then rang Elizabeth to aske her to ask the students to wait as I would be late. When I arrived down the key to the door into the offices would not work and so I had to teach without giving out handouts which were in my office. Fortunately Maritza Casas was in my class and during the tea break she opened the door and I was able to give out the handouts before the second class. I had also forgotten my reading glasses, which did not help.
By Saturday morning I was really bad with the cold. The main door to the auditorium would not open as the key turned endlessly in the lock, as did the key to the offices. At last by a flook it turned and I was able to enter my office by the back door in order to collect the handouts for the eleven students in my History of Doctrine course. Fifteen students turned up! This was their last opportunity to enter the class. It ranges from technical to Licenciatura levels and is really too wide a spectrum which will have to be changed in the future.
By this time I was really feeling under the weather. The students brought me a glass of lukewarm water for my cough, which I both loathed for its taste and greatly appreciated for their kindness and its effects. At the end of my class I went home to bed.
Reading Robert Letham’s book on The Holy Trinity which had arrived too late for me to incorporate many its insights into my course, I realized that I would have to change the last twelve pages of the course. It is a most useful and highly recommendable book.
By Sunday morning I was feeling a bit better and was able to preach briefly in Pan de Vida where I had agreed to replace Ruben Mendoza who is ill with stones in his kidneys and awaiting an operation in June! Charles Pecharovich’s wife charo was out and feeling well that morning, though she is still far from good health. In the afternoon I rested briefly before going to Manantial de Vida at 5.00 pm to replace Abraham Rengifo, who although he was present, had had an eye injury following an incident on the football field in Ite the previous weekend which had prevented him from much activity, including reading, during the week.
Both services were enjoyable, although the preaching was less than inspiring as I coughed my way through it. But the Lord was good and some people were blessed. As we arrived home we discovered that our telephone wires were down yet again (a constant hazard here as they cross fields where every time trees are pruned the lines are cut). Monday was spent in bed with Robert Letham’s book contemplating the changes to my History of Doctrine course. Lourdes rang Blanca Valenzuela (cell phones are marvellous when they are charged and have credit) to apologize because we would not be going to the Bible Hour and discovered that she was with Ruben Mendoza and they were both awaiting their medical appointments in the hospital, Ruben for an echograph and Blanca for a X ray of her foot, which gives her continual problems.
It is now Wednesday and the changes have been made to the course. Neither the car nor the telephone have been fixed as yet. Nor is my cold completely cured, despite my absence from the Bible Hour last night. I rang Paul Durand, the preacher this term, to apologize for my absence and ask about his wife, who was teaching one of the courses in the Womens’ Study Fellowship this term until she had to go into hospital for a gall bladder operation last week. She is now home and recuperating.
My cold/flu is one of the least of the illnesses which are plaguing us at the moment. Yet the long weekend was good. I learned much about doctrine from my reading and about the practical help which God gives in difficult times as I preached.
PS Obviously our telephone line is now working again
No comments:
Post a Comment