Our Lord and Maker, the creator of Heaven and earth, is so righteous, loving and kind. Everyday, I am humbled by His nature and the more I learn, the more I love Him. The task was difficult at first; putting aside my own ideas of grades, my own pride of excellence and intellectual stimuli. But I praise God for the Holy Spirit’s power to convict and ability to “turn my eyes to Jesus.” His love is overflowing in me, that I am learning how to TRULY love others.
I am sorry to be away for so long. Though my thoughts have been with you, perhaps more than they should be, I have not been able to communicate with you. Let us blame it on a busy schedule, technical incapacity of my laptop and homesickness. All things aside, I am well by His grace and I hope you are, too. And, yay, I am currently using Internet in my room to post this (twelve hours after I originally wrote this).
Alas, I have ten days left of this second term. Time has traveled so quickly and I realize more and more how precious and fleeting this life is. I am currently in the library, which I am stowed away in whenever it is open late. It is embarrassing to share, but this is where my peers go to find me. Not to worry though, my nose isn’t always in books. My calendar also has social events, ranging from Sunday night dinner & a movie at my fellow SoCal family’s home to tennis filled afternoons. But, true to form, most consider me a busy gal.
It is hard for me to form words describing the past month, but there is one situation: Doctor Ed Banzuelo, the former President of Febias Bible College, was the speaker of our Spiritual Emphasis week last week here at PBTS. The Banzuelo lot is such a profound testimony of “Ministry and Family” (over fifty years of service of our Lord, two Pastor sons, and a CE daughter married to a Pastor, and still they travel weekly to Cebu at 71 years old), that I was humbled and encouraged. But when he mentioned Pastor Casiano and visiting CPC Wilmington in 1989, I was stoked. Long story short, one of his son’s names is Jonathan Edwards (which I divulge is the same name of my, God-willing, future son in the not-to-worry-Dad DISTANT future). But after diving into Calvin’s Institutes and Treatises, I am swayed.
Tidbits aside, the feeling is coming over me to share– I am homesick. I have been the past month or so, but as I have shared with a few, the Lord continues to show me kindness and comfort. The moments are usually short but intense, leading to moments of reflection. Life of a missionary. Aye. Continue to pray for me, my dear family, as the Lord reveals His will for me through His Word and other situations. This life is difficult, and even more so without you; but I have not lost hope. I can not, for my hope is in Him.
Love & Miss.
<3 Amy Grace
PS
Geneva, November 27, 1545(There is MUCH more, but I should finish a research paper now.)
Catechism of the Church of Geneva
Concerning the Faith
Minister: What is the chief end of human life?
Child: That men should know God by whom they were created.
M: What reason have you for saying so?
C: Because he created us for this, and placed us in the world, that he might be glorified in us. And it is certainly proper that our life, of which he is the beginning, be directed to his glory.
M: What then is man’s supreme good?
C: The very same.
M: Why do you hold this to be the supreme good?
C: Because without it our condition is more unhappy than that of any of the brutes.
M: So then we clearly perceive that nothing worse can happen to man than not to live to God?
C: It is so.
M: What then is true and right knowledge of God?
C: When he is so known, that his own proper honour is done him.
M: What is the right way of honouring him?
C: To put all our trust in him; to study to serve him all our life, by obeying his will; to call upon him, whenever any need impels us, seeking in him salvation and whatever good things can ber desired; and lastly, to acknowledge him with both heart and mouth to be the only author of all good things.
M: Now to consider these thing sin order and explain them more fully-what is the first head int his division of yours?
C: That we place all our trust in God.
M: How is this done?
C: When we know him to be mighty and perfectly good.
M: Is this enough?
C: Far from it.
M: Why?
C: Because we are unworthy that he should exercise his power to help us, or for our salvation show us how good he is.
M: What then is needed further?
C: Just that each of us should affirm with him mind, that he is loved by him, and that he is willing to be his Father and the Author of his salvation.
M: Where will this be apparent to us?
C: In his Word, where he reveals his mercy to us in Christ, and testifies of his love towards us.
M: Then the foundation and beginning of faith in God is to know him in Christ? (John 17:3)
C: Quite so.
M: Now I would hear from you in a few words what the sum of this knowledge is.
C: It is contained in the confession of faith or rather in the formula of confession, which all Christians hold in common. It is commonly called the Apostles’ Creed, because from the beginning of the Church it was always received among all the pious, and because either it came from the lips of the apostles or was faithfully collected from their writings.
M: Repeat it.
C: I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried: He descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead, he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almgihty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost; the Holy Catholic Church; the communion of saints; the resurrection f the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.
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