I’m alive.
Now that we’ve got the important things out of the way, I can tell you more about life here. They let me into Belgium (even though I had to wait a couple of hours in line at passport control), and one of the CTS students assigned to pick me up from the airport met me. They have this ministry at CTS where part of it was picking up students from the airport. Honestly, I was very grateful. I’ve checked into my dorm room and am now somewhat settled in. I still can’t believe that after twenty years I find myself back living in a dorm room. (Hallelujah, God is good! I have my own room.)
Oh! In case some of you don’t know this, CTS stands for Continental Theological Seminary. And technically it’s not in Brussels. It’s in a town/city called Sint-Pieters-Liew. It’s a bit outside of Brussels.
I have been to Brussels only once in the last ten days for an outing with a bunch of the students prior to the start of school. I had a waffle with Nutella. That was nice.
Monday we started classes, and all of a sudden I was overwhelmed. My master’s program does classes per module, so one at a time. The course meetings happen over one week, five days of 4 hour classes. And not to mention the boatloads of reading. I felt like I was swimming in readings. My first class was not an introductory class. It wasn’t like dipping my toes in, trying to test the waters. Historical Development of Major Theological Themes. The name is as overwhelming as the class itself.
After my first class was done, I came out of the building with a headache.
I loved it.
Yes, I lived and breathe the readings for a whole week. I’m pretty sure I dreamed of Athanasius and Schweitzer and Niebuhr and N.T. Wright other guys who took the time to think through things like trinitarianism and Christ’s nature and all that. (For those of you who are dying to ask if I’ve met any men here, I have. They’re all theologians, and most of them have been dead for a long time. Ha!)
My professor is super smart, great teacher, and Spirit-filled. Also, he’s very encouraging. He’s also pastored a church for 32 years, and so I love how he was able to bridge the theological development and the different arguments with preaching and teaching and practical Christian life.
Life at CTS is different, but I feel like I’m adjusting well enough. To make sure the seminary was able to run and continue offering classes for a low cost, the students have to work around campus. So there are people assigned to wash dishes, to clean toilets, to vacuum different areas of campus. I was assigned to the library. Yay! So the ones assigned to the library have to clean the library, but pretty much what it means is we become the librarians. I. Love. It.
Also I love that I’m not cleaning toilets.
Sort of.
We also have dorm chores. So we’re assigned cleaning tasks to clean our common living areas. I was expecting this, since I realized a while back that I was going to a seminary and not so much a university. There’s always some kind of service elements in a seminary. But that doesn’t make me miss Ibu Tarni any less. (Ibu Tarni was my housekeeper in Jakarta who would come once a week and clean my apartment.)
So life is different here at CTS, but I’m enjoying it.
Let me leave you with a quote I had scribbled down in class. It’s been living rent-free in my head for a couple of days now.
“Theology that doesn’t bring you to an encounter with God is pretty useless. An encounter with God that doesn’t have substance to it is not the fullness of what God wants to bring us.” (Dr. David Courey)
Hope you’re all doing well!
May the odds be ever in your favor,
T.