I’m feeling blessed beyond measure these days and am grateful for it all! I’m in awe continually at God’s provision and orchestration of this move to California and would like to give you a quick snapshot of life as I know it now.
I love my new home and my three new roommates! One of my roommates is also the owner of the house, Sharon. Her warm welcome and hospitality has favorably contributed to my smooth transition. Not to mention that it’s as if she was in my head when she decorated my room! I instantly felt at home when I first saw it. In addition, we both share a love for flowers. In fact, fresh cut flowers from one of the many blossoming plants in the yard are a constant companion in our home. That for me, my friends, is like God placing an extravagant garnish on my dinner plate for life. I’m learning a lot about God’s extravagant love for me – and this is just one tangible expression of that.
My other two roommates are also incredible women of God. Most of you know the amazing story of how I got connected with Sarah. But if not, it’s worth taking your time to check it out this previous blog post. She has proved to be an invaluable gold mine of wisdom and knowledge. I’ve made her my “go to girl” with any questions I have regarding things I’m learning at school since she’s now a second year student and has great experience in things I’m only now being introduced to. We come from very similar backgrounds, so I’ve found she can often relate easily to my questions. She’s quite gracious in answering them as well. And my other roommate, Beena, has instantly become my school buddy since we’re both wading through the first year of BSSM together! She also has amazing insight and wisdom of which I’ve already gleaned from as we’ve processed our classes, assignments and life in general together. We’ve realized that all three of our personalities are very similar. In fact, our habits are so similar that we all have pretty much the same sleep schedule. This is a huge gift and creates an ideal study environment. So thankful!
BSSM is not a traditional school so I’d love to explain it as best I can here. There are about 900 students enrolled in the first year program at BSSM. We have classes in the afternoon, Monday – Thursday. It’s kind of like a yearlong conference because all 900 of us gather in the church sanctuary for class each day. We’re so blessed to have the senior church leaders (Bill Johnson and Kris Vallotton) speak to us on a weekly basis. We also have two Bible teachers and a couple other Bethel leaders that teach us regularly. And from time to time we have guest speakers from around the world.
In addition, we have the privilege of receiving instruction in a more intimate setting via our Advanced Ministry Training (AMTs) classes. These are six week classes that focus on a certain topic. I’ve just finished my first AMT: Healing – Kingdom Foundations taught by Kevin Dedmon. It was amazing! God healed several people during every single class! Thank you, Jesus! The longer I’m here, the more I realize what a rich spiritual inheritance is all around me. I’m soaking it all in, believe me!
As you can imagine, one could easily get lost among 900 classmates. So they’ve done a superb job of not allowing that to happen by placing us in Revival Groups of about 70 students. Each Revival Group has a pastor as well as a team of Interns (3rd year BSSM students) that we meet with throughout the year. I’ll meet with my Revival Pastor one on one at least once this year. And I’ll meet with my assigned intern one-on-one between 4-6 times this year. I meet with my entire Revival Group once a week as well as my small group of 4 amazing women who are also in my Revival Group. So I’m spending time with my Revival Group family at least two days a week during a portion of the school day.
In addition to receiving great teaching and fostering community within our Revival Groups and other BSSM students, we’re each assigned to an outreach for the year. One of the things I really appreciate about Bethel is that they go beyond teaching in the traditional sense (with the main focus being head knowledge) and actually create a way to implement what we’re learning. Our outreach ministry is one of the major ways we get to be activated i.e. we move from book knowledge to applying what we’re learning to real life. They’ve created a safe environment in which we get to take risks – meaning we get to practice taking steps of faith with honor and love. We get to do all of this under the love and guidance of people who are a little further in the journey than we are and who have great experience. I’m really excited about my outreach for the year! It’s called Sidewalk Sunday School! It’s basically what the name says – we take Sunday School to the sidewalks of the city and tell children about the Good News through a variety of means including drama. We’ll be in interacting with and loving children along with their family members. We just began participating in Sidewalk Sunday School a couple weeks ago and it’s off to a great start! I’m looking forward to sharing more with you about that in the near future.
All of the activities I’ve described to you take place during school hours. Beyond that, I attend two church services a week – one of which is a service where we simply sing/pray/worship God and follow the Holy Spirit’s leading in how He’s ministering during the service. Because our first ministry is to God, we worship with extravagant joy and gratitude almost every day at school and during every weekend service. It’s pretty amazing. We also have a hefty load of reading we’ll be doing outside of classroom time. By the end of the year I will have read 3,167 pages from assigned books – all of which I’m excited to read! This doesn’t include our Bible reading which entails about two chapters a day – also super excited about this Book. :) As you can see, between homework, school, church, site seeing, the occasional extra things that come up and hanging out with my new friends, I keep a pretty full schedule.
While I’ve learned a lot already in my short time here, the thing that has most impacted me thus far is the culture of love and honor that Bethel has fostered and truly lives out on a day to day basis. I’ve witnessed it from the senior leadership to the prayer servants who minister at the end of each service. God’s grace and love in this place is so thick that transformation is bound to happen to anyone who spends time here. My heart swells with gratitude for what I’ve been given in this season and for what is yet to come. Stay tuned – more exciting updates are sure to follow!
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