"Good news"

This is one of the reasons I love being here.

A couple of weeks ago, our education dept. was having a meeting discussing the course, ways to improve it, etc. None of us are fans of the Biblical Foundations course. Don't get me wrong; we love the Bible, just not the way this course is presented! The students watch an hour long DVD which is basically a lecture from a man in the '90's, standing at a podium, who is translated by a man beside him. It is very dry and pretty academic and misses so much that it could be. We decided that we could write our own material just using the course's outline or Scripture choices. I volunteered to do that, with guidance from Joanna and a little help from Janet. Based on 30 years of teaching in Christian schools and some pretty amazing Bible teaching along the way, I really enjoyed this job. Last week was our first week to trial the new program, with lots of discussion and personal application built into it. The lesson was on the Tabernacle, and specifically the picture of God and Jesus that we get from it. Out of that flowed a very good discussion on personal holiness and God's expectation of us to be holy. In Tanzania, outward sin is "handled" by public remorse and discipline in the church, like sitting on the back pew until you've "atoned" for your sin. But, inner, private sin isn't even recognized as sin, for the most part. They live under a state of forgiveness until they sin and start the whole cycle over again. We talked about being forgiven forever and being seen by God as covered by Christ's blood, so our sin doesn't continue to separate us from God. This was such a new concept to the students, that Manase, our most Biblically astute young man, looked across the table at me and said, quietly and reverently, "Miriam. This is good news." I thought, that's exactly what it is - good news! Talk about having an impact; that may not be on their teacher exam, but I can bet it affects him and his teaching!