rainy Bible studies

I went to the 3-self church for afternoon Bible study. Not as many people were there (about 30), as there was a baptism at another 3-self church which many chose to attend. About 60 people were being baptized, I heard. I joined the same group as last week, with "L", "E", and "HL". I learned that "E" and "HL" have one child each, but each are divorced. They came to Christ after they got divorced. Their faith in God and fervor for reaching out to others, in spite of their past, is encouraging. One lesson "E" finds important in her marital experiences is to not focus on others' faults, but instead focus only on your own life and what areas you need to improve. Too much energy and time, she feels, is wasted sitting around waiting for others to compensate for wrongs they've done to you.

"E" went over the "wheel of the Christian's life", with Christ as the center, and witnessing, prayer, obedience, and God's word as spokes. We talked mainly about obedience (suen4 fu2) to God, how we please Him by obeying Him, and testifying of our obedience to God. This group goes through a lot of Bible verses in their studies.

Matthew 12:46-50

2 Corinthians 9:13, 8:9

Philemon 21

Mark 9:50, 12:29-31, 16:15, 14:8

John 9:31, 12:24

Acts 16:6-7

Psalm 106:15

Ezekiel 36:37

Luke 5:26

Acts 19:17-18

1 Corinthians 13

Philippians 2:16-17

Colossians 1:25

Isaiah 38:7

Judges 6:17, 36-40

Romans 12:1

Numbers 13:23

It started raining very heavily during our Bible study. Heaviest rain I've seen here yet. We finished our Bible study and then ate some meals that were left over. Apparently, the church bought several lunch boxes, but not many stayed to buy and eat.

I learned that a trip to the orphanage yesterday that I wanted to go to had been postponed for next week, due to the chamber concert. However, the chamber concert was cancelled by a last-minute schedule conflict on the performers' part. Unfortunately, 50 people who didn't receive the news in time showed up anyway for nothing.

As I left church, it wasn't raining as hard, but still coming down steadily. I went early to the evening BS, but no one was home. After walking through the rain to find out what was going on, I eventually learned it had been cancelled, since most people couldn't make it. It would've been nice to have had a cell phone then, I thought to myself.