New Inductive Bible Study curriculum

I wrote in a previous post about the topic of ending Bible poverty.  After that, a number of people contacted me to ask if I still had the multigenerational, inductive Bible Study materials that I’d written for KKI South Africa in the 1990s. Sadly, I didn't have it, as all of that curriculum was lost in a major computer crash about a decade ago. So I took some time last week to re-create some sample resources, together with a few pages explaining how we used this curriculum to teach young people and families how to study whole books of the Bible for themselves. It's available now as a small A4 manual that will serve the KKI ministry around the globe and help to motivate more young people and families to engage with the Word of God. At the moment, it's available only in English, but we may be able to produce it in other languages over the coming months.

Walking the animals...

I'm used to walking the dog; it's long been one of my favourite things to do - from walking my Irish Setter, Rusty, when I was a teenager... to walking my Border Collie, Kylie, when I lived in Cape Town. Walking a dog in a quiet location is an ideal setting for prayer and reflecting on what I've read in the Bible that morning. So, taking my neighbour's English Setter puppy, Buba, for a walk on the mountain (second video below) is a familiar enough scenario for me. What's been a little different for me this week is that I'm house sitting for friends and their Tabby cat, Tommy, likes to accompany Border Collie, Brandy, on her morning and evening walks (first video below.) Drivers of passing cars look twice when they see me ushering both a dog and a cat to the side of our country road, and more than a few smile and wave at us.

From people of all nations to animals of all kinds...

Our week of meetings with YWAM's Western Europe Leadership team came to an end on Friday night. Saturday was full of airport runs as everyone headed home to the different nations of Europe…. and my friends left for Canada, where they'll visit family and run an LDC taster week. I'll be house-sitting and dog-sitting for the next ten days while they're gone. What this means in practice is that I'll sleep at Villa Rehoboth with Brancy (border collie) and Tommy (tabby cat) and do most of my coaching from there during the day. But I'll drive home to Alhaurin every day to check on my own cats and take Buba (my neighbour's English Setter puppy) for her walk. So it'll be a real "animal week" for me over the coming ten days.

As if to kick start my animal week, I had fun this past weekend at the Málaga pet fair, which happens in October every year. Dogs, cats and other animals of all shapes and sizes are there, and my Spanish gets a great workout as I chat with pet owners and breeders from all over the province. The agility demonstrations are one of my favourites (the border collies always win!) but there are also some amazing displays by the canine units of the Guardia Real (military police) and Málaga's Policía Nacional. Vendors are giving away so many free samples of premium dog and cat foods, that the entry ticket is more than compensated for! My own three cats, as well as my friends' and neighbour's dogs are the beneficiaries this week :-)

Coming from all nations...

How many of these flags can you name?
Hint: they're all  European.
Click to enlarge the photo.

This morning I was reading in the book of 1st Kings chapter 10 - the story of how the Queen of Sheba came to visit the kingdom of Israel (vs 1 - 9) because King Solomon's fame had spread far and wide. In fact, verse 24 tells us that people from all the nations of the world were coming to see and hear for themselves the wisdom that God had put in Solomon's heart and the blessing that this was bringing to the whole nation.

While our western nations are no longer so clearly God-honouring nowadays, it's nonetheless true that people are coming to us from all around the globe. Refugees are coming because they seek justice and safety; international students are coming to seek knowledge and education; businesspeople are coming to seek wealth and opportunity. In many of our nations, especially in the major cities, we have a unique opportunity in the 21st century to share God's wisdom and truth with people from all over the world.

When Jesus was on earth, He told His disciples to "go into all the world" with the gospel and spread the good news to the ends of the earth. In those early days, you needed to travel to another nation or region to be a missionary; in our modern world, the nations are coming to us and you can probably find people of different nationalities and languages making their home just a few miles from where you live.

What are we doing to welcome the nations and peoples that are coming right to our doorstep? If you live in a university town, you have an amazing opportunity to reach out to foreign students, welcoming them to your country and sharing the love of God with them. Some of them are coming especially for the purpose of learning English (or the language of your nation) and would be thrilled to have you reach out to them and chat with them over a cup of coffee. Others are coming seeking work, and we find them in shops and airports around our nation. Still others are fleeing injustice and coming because they seek to start a new life. A friend of mine in Birmingham told me that their church now has bilingual Sunday morning services - in English and Farsi - because there are so many asylum seekers in their area, and they're beginning to see some of these people coming to the Lord.

People can't experience God for themselves until they have first heard the report of His fame. Often a friendly conversation with a local Christian can be the first step in that process. And later, like the Queen of Sheba in the story I read today, they'll be able to say, "The report I heard is absolutely true…. but I didn't fully believe it until I experienced it for myself."

God is sending us to the nations…… and He's also sending the nations to us. How can we maximise this incredible opportunity that He is giving us?

Heading home tomorrow

Friends at church this morning told me that I seemed to have brought a week of warm sunny weather with me from Spain. Looking at next week's forecast, it seems like I'm taking that warm weather back home with me again!! The Road to Growth Seminar seems to have gone well, and tomorrow morning I'll be flying back to Málaga.

Further travels...

Two weeks after leaving Australia, I'm now in Scotland. I spent ten days at home in Spain, catching up with some coaching, and preparing for this trip to the UK, where I'll be teaching a  discipleship seminar this weekend. The theme is "Road to Growth" and we will be considering different ways of growing in our own relationship with God, as well as keys to reaching out in a friendly way and sharing our faith with others. I'll be here throughout the coming weekend, and will fly back to Spain again next Monday.

Last day in Australia

Click to enlarge photo

Today was my last day in Australia. With all the meetings behind us, we could enjoy the pleasant sunny day by taking time to walk along the Strand (the long beach area in this photo) and visit the local botanic gardens with their palm trees, parrots and butterflies. It was also time to say goodbye to old friends and new, as the local YWAMers began the first of hundreds of airport runs. As for me, I'll be up at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning and heading to the airport for our morning flight from Townsville to Brisbane. Then onwards to Singapore and Zürich, before finally flying back to  Spain on Tuesday evening.

Here are a few more wildlife photos from last weekend. Can you tell that the wildlife sanctuary was one of the highlights of my free time during the week?!