Handling the doldrums

I have been in a mild state of malaise for the last few weeks, for the following reasons:

• we are presently in the hot, dry season, with a lot of dust in the air
• this time of year is accompanied by feelings of lethargy and occasional flulike symptoms
• two of my Bible students went to China, for an undetermined period
• it's the end of the service year--you know what that means

Yes, I have been getting enough rest and fluids. And, in the absence of anything productive to do aside from preaching, studying, and watching the World Cup (in which the local population has lost some interest due to all the African teams being eliminated at this point), I have decided to improve my language comprehension by watching Chinese TV drama. Since the internet signal here at my new place is very strong, having uninterrupted streaming videos is quite the luxury.

The advantage of Chinese drama, of course, is that you are hearing the language as it is spoken naturally and at normal speed. The downside is whether the dialogue is even the least bit useful in the real world that we inhabit. The first drama I watched was about this military guy who is being hunted, coercing this very pretty socialite to help disguise his identity, and you see them running on top of a train and then across a snowy landscape, being chased by a whole battalion yelling, "Stop!" "We will shoot!" "Don't let them get away!" OK, if I ever need to use those expressions in my ministry, I now know how to say them... ("Stop! I want to give you this magazine! Don't get away!")

I don't know what happened after that tense scene, because at that point my daily quota of data ran out. Seriously, though, there is a wealth of free Chinese video on the web; it's just a matter of being balanced (and selective) about watching it. Anyway, that's better, at least from my conscience's standpoint, than the awfully tempting practice of downloading current movies for free from websites such as uTorrent, leading to the question: Does Rwandan law have anything to say about downloading copyrighted material from the internet? (Answer: it's vague.)

On the bright side, my one remaining student, Mr. Han, has finished the book of Genesis in his Bible reading and has a number of questions. For example:

1. Genesis 4:17 says that Cain had a son named Enoch. Is this the same Enoch mentioned in Genesis 5:18, the one who 'walked with the true God'? How do we know?

2. If James 1:13 says that God does not try anyone, how can we explain God's testing Abraham by asking him to sacrifice Isaac?

By the way, Mr. Han has finally agreed that the way to make progress in understanding the Bible is by a systematic study. So our arrangement is this: we study the Bible Teach book for half an hour, then for the remaining half an hour he can ask whatever questions he has regarding his Bible reading (although we usually exceed this time frame).

Finally, my place is gradually shaping up. Remember the picture showing everything stacked in the living room? Well, this is what it looks like now:

I bought some 2m x 2m mats, so now it is starting to look like a living room. (Y'all know what a meter is, right? It's like an oversized yard. Just like a liter is like an oversized quart.) I also have a clothes rack for the bedroom, with two drawers, built by the same people who made the bed. So, although I still don't have a table or a sofa, have to cook on the floor (not my preferred way of doing it), and so don't feel quite comfortable yet inviting people over, things are slowly coming!

P.S.: See the latest page entitled "The varied faces of Kigali"!