Greetings! I hope you are all doing well as we move into the holiday season. Life has been rather lively here. We just completed two solid weeks of filming on another online course. This one is an introductory Bible study course designed to help anyone to be able to study scripture in a deeper way on their own. We taped all the teachings but it will be next year before we will complete all the post-production and the other course materials. There are over 50 sessions totaling about 25 hours of finished video content. For reference, the previous one we completed this summer was about 8 hours of video in total. I quite enjoy working on set and am also looking forward to getting to sink my figurative teeth into all the post-production coming over the next several months. Beyond that, I am also excited to be able to participate in helping to create a tool for stoking passion in people for the Bible.
On another exciting note, I have a fresh group of students in my photography ministry circle. We have been doing some great evangelism in the city of Lausanne and my students have the most passion for photography I have ever had in a group. It has been a true joy to be able to guide them deeper into the art of photography while simultaneously blessing people around the city. One encounter from a few weeks ago has really stuck with me. Two of my students and I were walking by one of the older church buildings in the downtown area. People use the steps of the church as a place to sit. Two girls sitting on the steps caught both my and one of my student’s attention. We went up and asked if they would like a photo. They didn’t speak much English but agreed. I took the photo and while it was printing, we tried to talk more, but the language barrier held strong. As we gave them the photo the student who had also noticed them said to the girl on the left “You have a beautiful smile.” Those words shattered through the language barrier. Either it just happened to be English she understood, or the Spirit was translating. She covered her mouth as she took the photo with her other hand. She was so touched by our gift she exclaimed “Thank you, thank you!” in a thick French accent as her eyes teared up. We never got her name or had a chance to have a conversation, but I will never forget the look on her face when she received the photo. I don’t know her story, her background, or what was going on in her day but what I do know is that it was not a coincidence that our paths crossed.
Like I mentioned earlier, life has had a few extra twists and turns. One came in the form of a little furry foe. I live in a large house with a number of the other staff here at the base about a 3-minute walk from the main campus. The house was built around a century ago and shows its age in many ways. I quite like the charm and quirks of the old house. However, we do have to remain vigilant in deterring mice. Recently, a rodent got into our cereal cupboard, and so I set a trap trying to catch it the following evening. The next morning I came down to check the trap to find it triggered, bait gone, and no critter. I looked around the cupboard and suddenly locked eyes with a HUGE rodent staring back at me from the top corner of the interior. It didn’t run, instead, it just sat there staring at me. I don’t know what gave me such a burst of bold courage, but a carefully retrieved a kitchen knife from a nearby drawer. I crept back to the open doors of the cupboard and moments later the pest passed away. Seconds after I vanquished the vermin, while the knife was still sunk in, I looked over my shoulder as one of my housemates walked into the kitchen. I was blocking her view of the interior of the cupboard so it was not immediately apparent what had just happened. With a healthy helping of cheerfulness and German directness she stated “Good morning Ben, what are you doing?” “I just killed the rodent that got into the cereal,” I replied. “Oh, your trap worked?” she inquired innocently. “No, with a knife,” I responded trying to hold back laughter. The news quickly circulated around the base and was the source of many laughter-filled retellings of the morning’s exploits over the next few days.
As you may have already seen, I got the chance to take a train day trip. I decided to go and see the Abbey of St. Gall up in the far northeastern corner of Switzerland. The abbey was established over a millennia ago and has a long and storied history. As I spent the day wandering the grounds and buildings, I found myself thinking about all the nameless people who worked on the abbey. Faithful, visionary, and diligent work for centuries upon centuries were required to create the marvel that sat before me. The vast majority of people who worked on the abbey never got to see it completed and many of their lives have been lost to history, but they had the vision to work toward something greater than themselves. What they accomplished continues to live on and inspire people to seek the Lord to this very day. While we don’t build elaborate cathedrals any longer, I was touched by their diligence and dedication in building a monument to glorify the Lord all these centuries later. I couldn’t help but contemplate how I could echo this concept in my life.
As always, thank you for coming along with me in this adventure of faith,
Ben