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Looking forward to Bible college?

Friday, 07 January, 2005

On Sunday Ben and I decided to go visiting and attended the Christians in the Media church in Annandale (where Haydn goes). Though the church is denominationally Anglican, the service had no creeds or confessions and donations to the offertory could only be made via a clear perspex box near the door. A lot of regulars were away on holidays however we did get to catch up with Andrew Barry (who lead my first Bible study group at UNSW which consisted of me, Haydn and Cade, among others) and Da Vin (sp?). Da Vin, like Andrew, did MTS at UNSW but a few years after. Unlike the rest of his cohort, he put off going to college for a couple of years and re-entered the workforce. It was good chatting to him about his MTS experience and his particular insights to what it will be like for him, a single male, entering Moore, living at Chappo house and having all the relationships around you change.

He said, “It must be easier for married people.”

“Why do you say that?” I said.

“Well, it's because there is that one relationship for them that will never change when all the others do.”

I'd never thought of it that way but he's right; even though everything else is changing for me at the moment, my relationship with Ben is constant. I found the thought comforting. I am looking forward to college because

• I'll get to learn more about God and the Bible and how to read it properly and protect myself from error;
• I get the opportunity to study New Testament Greek and Philosophy (even though the prospect is also extremely scary);
• I'll get to hang out with all these cool people every day;

but at the same time I'm not looking forward to college because

• I'll have to meet all these new (potentially scary) people and do the “get-to-know-you” conversation fourteen billion times;
• it will be the first time I'll be in an environment where married people outnumber single people (yes, it's scary for me too!) and where guys will outnumber girls;
• I will have to do exams (haven't sat an exam in 10 years) and essays;
• I'm afraid I'll really suck at college and the competitive streak gained from going to St. George Girls' High school which I've vainly tried to suppress for 10 years will re-surface and make things nasty for me;
• just about everything about my life will change because of it.

I don't know what it's going to be like, surrounded by 100 other people who are also going through this process of change and feeling stressed/awful as a result. Perhaps I'm being too dramatic about it—as Richard says, during these sorts of periods, above all you need to trust God. “Trust God with what?” part of me cries. I think he means that I need to trust God that what is happening is good and that he is in control of it and that I don't have to worry or be anxious about it because he knows what he's doing.

Talking to Da Vin also made me aware of the myriad of opportunities in which married people can minister to single people. He said that there were always single college students over at his place trying to escape college because, when the place you sleep is the place where you study, you don't really have anywhere else to go (particularly if your family live outside Sydney).

And at Elwin's 25th, Braddon (who wrote “An Essay on Hymnody”) said that he found college hard because he didn't know very many people whereas others, who had been through the MTS treadmill, knew lots of other people. In my shyness, I want to not be cliquey and just hang out with the people I know.

I am lucky, though, in that I do know a heap of people who will be starting college with me (Tho, Pete, Brendan, Fell, Dani, Loren, Amy, Stu, Da Vin, Dave D) and that I know a heap of people who are already there. God is good to me; I just need to trust him.

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