The First Stage

The First Stage of my First Serve mission began on the 11th of February 2013!!

I travelled up to Motherwell, near Glasgow with my girlfriend Hannah to attend to Tilsley Bible College on the 11th and we were introduced to the sights of Motherwell!
At Tilsley, Hannah and I have joined with two girls, Alison and Deborah who are also doing the First Serve programme. Along with our fellow FirstServers we have incorporated with the Tilsley College students who are on their year long Bible study course. There are 11 Tilsley students excluding those doing the FirstServe at the college who are from 8 different nations.

Since arriving on the 11th Hannah and I have formed lots of friendship with the main course students and I am having a really wonderful time!! I have been placed in a luxurious double bedroom all to myself which is quite a treat!! Our typical day at Tilsley begins at 8:55 for Devotions (which usually take a form of worship and a small look at God's word) then at 9:20 we start lectures. There are small breaks in between lectures which lead up to Lunch at 1:15 or 1:30. We then have the afternoon free, however the core students are often slaving away with assignments during this time so us First Servers have chosen to focus on an assignment we have been given to write during this time also. At 5:45 we have dinner and then we keep the evening free for relaxation or other activities.

From the 12th - 15th we had lectures focussing on Wisdom and Poetic literature within the Bible, specifically looking at Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes and lectures on the History of Christian Mission in which we looked at the work of Christian Missionaries in the past such as William Carey and Hudson Taylor. It has been so interesting to learn more about these wonderful books of the Bible and to explore more of what the theology behind such books is. From the 16th untill present we have been participating in a Mission Orientation Programme in which we have more lectures per day and the subject is focussed around Mission overseas and how to work for God overseas abroad effectively!

Sorry that this has been such a long first blog, i am sorry if i have bored some people and i promise to keep the next blog much shorter!

James