Saturday afternoon, update:

Hello LJ

I haven’t’ posted a general update for a few weeks, so it’s about time I did. I think I started writing one and somehow it got deleted.

So let’s start with a big thing. Last Saturday I signed up to do the Preliminary Theological certificate from Moore Theological College. I’m doing the first unit right now, which is “introduction to the Bible”. Thankfully, I can do it online. I can work at my own pace, and each lesson has a quiz at the end of it, so I can judge how much I’m remembering.

After I did the first lesson on Monday, I took the quiz and realised the value of taking notes. I was relying too much on my memory, but now I take notes and I’m doing better. I finished lesson 2 yesterday and it was a hard one, but I was surprised when I did the quiz this morning how much I had been able to absorb.

I do my studying first thing in the morning. I start the day with my quiet time, then make a cup of tea and get into it. I have up to six months to do each unit but I don’t want to take that long. There are 22 possible units and if I do one each 6 months I’ll take years to get it done. On the other hand, I don’t want to rush so much that I forget half of what I’ve learned.

I think my biggest problem is going to be keeping myself motivated. I’m really good at starting things and not so great at completing them. I’m going to need to pray about this a lot, because I don’t’ want to start this and then give up half way through.

Well, that’s enough of that for now. Let me tell you about my day so far. I woke up feeling tired. I hadn’t slept as good as I would like too, and I was grumpy. I had a nice quiet time, I’m doing a devotional series from Anne Voskamp called “on the way, lenten devotions”. They are available for those who pre-ordered her new book, way maker, which I did a few weeks ago. Yay, audible! It will be coming out on March 15th, just a few days away.

at 11 o’clock I joined a zoom call from a bible study site called “tending together”. The topic of the call was “knowing god”, and I really enjoyed it. The speaker gave us some tips, such as when we read a passage of Scripture, we should ask ourselves what we learn about god from that passage. she also talked about something which I am finding particularly helpful, which is writing out my prayers. It is helping me to stay focused when I pray. My prayer life has been a bit faltery since my dear friend and prayer partner went to heaven in November, but writing my prayers is a good strategy for me.

After the call was over, I brailed out the words for the hymns we are doing tomorrow. There were 3 out of 5 that I didn’t have brailed out, so I got them done and sang through them all. One of the ones we are doing, “the Lord’s my shepherd”, took me way back in time, because we sang it at music camp way back in 1987. Another one, “glorious things of thee are spoken” is a new one for me, and I quite like the melody of it, which was adapted from a piece of music by Haydn. The other ones we have sang before so I think they will be fine.

When I had sung them through, I practised them on the keyboard, just in case Jenny our organist can’t be there tomorrow. The challenge for me is having to play the melody lines, not just playing chords as I’m used to. I’m working on it, though.

This week I haven’t been very well. I had a cold and a splitting migraine. I couldn’t even go shopping on Thursday, thankfully Sarah went for me. Because I wasn’t well, I didn’t do much this week, just a lot of lazing about, reading, a bit of journaling each day, playing my keyboard, but no singing because I couldn’t. I’m so glad to have my voice almost normal again, yay!

This is getting quite long enough. I’m trying to think if there is anything else I need to write about … and there isn’t much. things go on here in the usual sort of way. Geoffrey and his girlfriend are still staying here. That isn’t ideal, but not much I can do about it. We bought a dish washer, which was supposed to help with the mess in the kitchen issue … but they haven’t shown me how to use it and they don’t seem to use it much. They just seem to leave things until my cleaner comes each week … and I try not to let that annoy me. Also, they still leave recycling stuff piled up on the floor near the bin in the kitchen. I’m not going to write any more about this as I don’t’ want to spoil my good mood. “What can’t be cured must be endured”, and all that. So, full stop, new paragraph and let’s change the subject, shall we?

Things at Church are going well. Last week we had a speaker from the Missionary Society. He talked about the work that was being done, and mentioned a couple that our Church is supporting, who are missionaries in Uganda. I enjoyed listening to what he had to say.

I am still loving being in the choir, I won’t write too much about that now as I have written about it a lot in
previous entries. Last week during choir practise, I had a play of the organ. I’m more of a piano player than an organist, so I leave the pedals alone, but it sounds good anyway. I should be fine to play it if Jenny can’t do it for whatever reason. Miriam knows how to set it up, so that’s good.

Well, I think that is definitely enough from me for now. I need to write these more often, so you don’t get one big bulky entry all at once. Thanks to those who read these, God bless each of you.

Love from,
Rishie, Bilbo and the virtual family.