August 19, 2019

Back to School Bash this Saturday! Thank you to everyone who has donated school supplies and money for our second annual Back to School Bash this Saturday from 9:00 am to 12:00 noon. Volunteers are needed to greet our guests, distribute school supplies, and serve hot dogs (provided by Sheetz) for lunch from 10:00 am to noon. Thanks also to Boone and Cook Funeral Home for providing tents in the playground.

Reverse Giveaway Tickets on Sale! Tickets are available from Tim Jenkins for our annual Reverse Giveaway on Thursday, September 19 at 6:30 pm. Each $100 ticket is a chance to win the cash prize of $5000, and comes with dinner for two. It is all hands on deck for this major fundraiser that benefits our Building Fund. Members and friends of First Presbyterian Church are urged to buy tickets and help us sell them in the community. Volunteers will also be needed to help with the dinner. Speak to Tim and Cheryl Jenkins for more information.

This Week at FPC The complete and up-to-date church calendar can be found on the Home Page of our new website: www.fpceden.org. Tuesday, August 20

9:00 am – Food Pantry ministry

10:30 am – Video Study Series, “Pleasures of God” (Daily Living Room)

4:00 to 7:00 pm – Music Room occupied Wednesday, August 21

1:00 pm – Mission Service Committee Thursday, August 22

7:00 pm – Preschool Open House Saturday, August 24

7:00 to 9:00 am – Music Room occupied

9:00 am to 12:00 noon – Back to School Bash Sunday, August 25

9:00 am – Sunday School

10:00 am – Worship Service, Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper

Sunday, August 25 Please invite someone to worship with us next Sunday as we look forward to celebrating Communion together. The sermon for the occasion will be another of Jesus Christ’s hard sayings – John 6:53-71, “No Turning Back” – a classic example of hyperbole which our Lord used every now and then in order to achieve some desired effect. The question is what was He trying to achieve when He said His followers have to eat His flesh and drink His blood if we want to have eternal life? We will answer that question as we explore the meaning of Communion in worship next week.

Tech Booth Volunteers Needed! Every Sunday we rely on a very small group of volunteers to help lead worship by providing audio and video technology support for our worship services. One volunteer controls the slides and videos on the big screen, and another controls the sound board (microphones, volume, sound tracks as needed). Please take a moment to thank our dedicated tech volunteers: Stephen Castle; Scott Flanagan; Shirley Prescott; Larry Robeson; and WC Wrangham. It is not difficult to learn. If the pastor can do it for Celebration Praise Team rehearsals every Thursday evening, anyone can do it! We will provide training. Please speak to Scott Flanagan if you would like to help!

New Pastor’s Bible Study

Starting Wednesday, September 11 at 6:00 pm (Parlor), our weekly Pastor’s Bible Study will explore a ten week Introduction to Christian Theology. Topics will include revelation, the Person and attributes of God the Father, covenants, mankind, the Person and work of Jesus Christ, the Person and work of the Holy Spirit, church, and eschatology (end time promises) – among other things. Invite someone to join us for a “big picture” understanding of our Christian faith as taught in the pages of Holy Scripture.

New Sermon Series for Fall Starting Sunday, September 8, we will focus on what the pastor is calling Practical Hermeneutics – a series of sermons designed to address difficult questions from the Bible, or how to interpret Scripture for cynics and skeptics. We will turn from hard sayings to hard questions! Interestingly, this series will take us through parts of Leviticus – a seldom read and even more seldom preached book of the Bible (like the Book of Esther that we studied earlier this year). Invite someone to worship with us – especially spiritual skeptics! September 8 Exodus 20:3-17 “Birth of a Nation” September 15 Leviticus 19:9-37 “Holiness as a Way of Life” September 22 Leviticus 20:7-26 “Sex and the Savior” September 29 Leviticus 1:10-13 “Smelling Good for God” October 6 Leviticus 17:10-14 “Power in the Blood” October 13 Deut. 15:12-18 “Slaves for Jesus” October 20 Lamentations 3:19-59 “New Mercies for a New Day” October 27 I John 1:5-2:2 “Three Purposes of the Law” November 3 Mark 7:14-23 “All Things Are Permissible …”

Tuesday Study Series – 10:30 am in

the Daily Living Room From David Grogan, Director of Presbyterian Adult Christian Education … THE PLEASURES OF GOD: MEDITATIONS ON GOD'S DELIGHT IN BEING GOD. In this study, John Piper fully discusses the question: "What brings delight to the happiest Being in the universe?" The answer is crucial to joyful Christian maturity, because it is by knowing what makes God glad that we can drink deeply – and satisfyingly – from the only well that offers living water. August 20 "The Worth and Excellency of God's Soul" August 27 "Our Pleasure in God's Well-Placed Pleasures" September 3 "God's Pleasure in His Eternal Son" September 10 "God's Pleasure in the Display of His Glory" September 17 "God's Pleasure in All That He Does - Part 1" September 24 "God's Pleasure in All That He Does - Part 2" October 1 "God's Pleasure in All Creation - Part 1" October 8 "God's Pleasure in All Creation - Part 2" October 15 "God's Pleasure in Election" October 22 "God's Pleasure in Bruising His Son"

New FPC Website and Email Addresses A reminder that we have a new website and staff email addresses:

www.fpceden.org

Beth@fpceden.org Peter@fpceden.org

Preschool News From Lorraine Benthin, Preschool Director …

Preschool Teachers return Monday, August 19th

Preschool Open House/Orientation Thursday, 8/22, 6 pm – 8 pm

Children will visit classrooms on Friday morning, 8/23

Preschool will be starting back on Monday August 26th

Please be in prayer for the children and staff as we begin this new year.

Some items that we could use this year are CD players and a small TV (19" or less) with a DVD player. Used items would be perfect!

Thank you always for your love and support of our Preschool Program. Lorraine

Walk for Life – Rockingham Pregnancy Care Center Help raise money to support the Rockingham Pregnancy Care Center in their Walk for Life next month (Saturday, September 14).

Sunday, November 3rd

3:00 pm

Exclusive performance

of

The Raleigh Ringers is an internationally-acclaimed concert handbell choir based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Since its founding in 1990, The Raleigh Ringers has been dazzling audiences with unique interpretations of sacred, secular and popular music, including famous rock ‘n’

roll tunes arranged just for handbells

Limited open seating $20 per ticket for more information and to purchase tickets

please email Pam Cundiff pam@edentravelconsultants.com

Missionary Update from Stephanie Black

August 2019 News: Rain in Rangoon

Dear friends and praying partners,

‘Mingalaba!’ from Yangon, Myanmar (the city formerly known as

Rangoon, Burma). ‘Mingalaba’ is one of the small handful of

Burmese words I’ve learned in my two weeks here. It means

something along the lines of ‘auspiciousness to you.’ It’s basically a

cheery hello, and I both hear it and use it a lot. So many friendly,

helpful Burmese people. So many mingalaba’s.

I’m in Yangon teaching biblical hermeneutics to sixteen MTh

students, all men, at the Myanmar Evangelical Graduate School

of Theology (MEGST). Everyone I’ve met is absolutely lovely. And

I have a feeling that Yangon can be lovely, too – at some other

time of year. It’s monsoon season, with a typhoon nearby thrown

in. I’m spending a lot of time trying to avoid rain, walking in rain,

planning around rain, and/or getting wet in spite of my umbrella.

I’ve been looking longingly from a distance at some of Yangon’s

IMMEDIATE

PRAYER REQUEST

I'm scheduled to fly

home through Hong

Kong on Friday night.

Watching the news to

see if I should buy a

one-way ticket via a

different route instead.

Please pray for reliable

information and wisdom

tomorrow to make the

best decision. Thanks!

major tourist sites, including the iconic golden Shwedagon

pagoda, which I can see out the window from MEGST. So far I

haven’t found a long enough break in the rain to visit it. Instead I’m

on an indoor tour of Yangon’s restaurants. One local speciality is

laphet thoke, fermented tea leaf salad. Sounds crazy, I know, but

it’s actually amazingly good.

Each morning I walk 5-10 minutes from my hotel to MEGST’s

location in a high-rise building at a busy intersection, picking my

way along the crumbling sidewalks, which of course are streaming

with rain water, and through the relentless traffic. I climb five floors

up a narrow dark stairway, and suddenly I find myself in MEGST’s

lively main office. MEGST purchased several apartments across

three floors in this building and opened them into each other to

create their campus. It’s a little circuitous getting from one part to

another – up some steps, down others, through one classroom into

another – but I’m starting to figure it out. By the time I get to my

classroom at 8:30am my students are there waiting for me.

We have three hours of class each morning. It’s hermeneutics

(biblical interpretation), so we’ve been talking about how to make

use of historical-cultural background material in interpreting the

Bible; how to do word studies; differences in interpreting different

genres in the Bible (narrative, epistles, prophesy, Revelation, etc.);

the unconscious filters we each bring to our own interpretation of

the Bible, and so on. Monday we talked about wisdom literature

and the book of Proverbs and I enjoyed getting them to share with

me some traditional proverbs from their various regions of

Myanmar.

These students include pastors, youth ministers, missionaries,

Bible school teachers, and Bible translators. They’re passionate

about the Lord and eager to learn, but as a whole not quite at the

level of academic or English ability I was expecting. MEGST faculty

members tell me that most of their top students still go outside

Myanmar for their MTh program (which usually comes after an

MDiv degree, and is often a sort of pre-PhD). My students are the

ones who did their previous studies somewhere else in Myanmar

and have come to MEGST for an academic top-up.

View of Shwedagon pagoda

from MEGST window. I just

haven't found a relatively dry

time to get there yet!

My experiences in Africa, Asia

and beyond are an ongoing

journey of discovery - about

God, about myself, about

culture, about the gospel. Thus

'Theology on Safari'!

Read more on my blog

In the next year or two MEGST will cap its annual student intake,

becoming more selective so that they can more and more serve as

a center for advanced theological training for Myanmar. In that

sense they’re modelling themselves on the larger, more

established school in South Asia that I visit each year (not

named here for security reasons). A number of the MEGST faculty

studied there – including the current head of MEGST’s Biblical

Studies department, who was my MTh student at that other school

more than ten years ago! I'm excited to be part of what God’s doing

in this next phase of expansion of theological education into a

much less resourced part of Asia.

Meanwhile my current students are struggling a bit to keep up with

the course content, and struggling a lot to keep up with my English,

nobody's first language and probably the third or fourth language

for most of them. Several times each class period I say, “Turn to

your neighbor and say, ‘I think what she meant was…’” They

laugh and then chat for a few moments in Burmese or Chin or

Kachin or Karin, or who knows what else, and try to clarify

anyone’s confusion, and then we move on. I’m not sure they’re

learning everything I’d hoped, but I can tell that everybody’s

learning something.

I'm so grateful for the opportunity to be here, helping shape this

group of Christian leaders from all over Myanmar, these "faithful

ones who are also qualified to teach others" (2 Tim 2:2). And I can

see the strategic value of helping MEGST continue to grow into the

advanced regional training center it is becoming. But I certainly

couldn't do it without you. Thank you for being here with me

through your unstinting support and whole-hearted

encouragement!

blessings,

Please Pray!

For the continuing

development of

MEGST as a regional

center for advanced

theological education

For my preparation to

teach in South Asia

for the month of

September

For continued

progress as I write the

first set of online

orientation courses for

Theologians Without

Borders – two done,

one more to go by the

end of August

For my own heart to

remain tuned to God's

generous, scandalous

love for me in spite of

my sin and

selfishness – such

Good News to share

with students and

colleagues!

Thanks for praying!

MYANMAR EVANGELICAL GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY

My walk to work each morning. Setting out from my hotel... Trying not to get run over by traffic... Waiting to cross

the big scary intersection... Arriving at MEGST's entrance and climbing the stairs to the fifth floor...

And finally I'm there! Nem (on right in left hand photo) staffs the front desk and makes sure I get lunch each day.

I asked a couple of the faculty and admin guys to show you the traditional longyi they all wear. (Except the guy

in the middle has quickly thrown on a tie because he has to speak in Chapel today!)

Hermeneutics class with my hardworking students

And yes, I'm managing to have a little bit of fun! Top left: Out exploring on Saturday morning. Top right: Laphet

thoke, Burmese fermented tea leaf salad. Bottom left: Lunch at the colonial-era Strand Hotel, where Kipling

wrote 'The Road to Mandalay'. Bottom right: Visiting a local market stall with my new MEGST friend from New

Zealand.

I have a new house in the US!

Thank you for praying for the Lord to provide

a place to be my long-term homebase in

Richmond, VA. We prayed for the right

townhouse in the right location, at the right

time, at the right price. This is it! I found it at

the beginning of July, closed by the end of the

month, and will be there from October through

mid-January getting it organized. God is good!

UPCOMING TRAVEL

30 Aug-24 Sept: South Asia

26-28 Sept: EPC Mid-Atlantic Presbytery, Wilmington, NC

October: Richmond, VA

(available to visit your church in VA/NC/SC!)

1-2 Nov: Ladies' Fall Retreat,

EPC Presbytery of the Mid-Atlantic

4-14 Nov: Chiang Rai, Thailand

19-25 Nov: ETS/IBR/SBL Meeting, San Diego, CA

December: Richmond, VA (available)

Christmas: Hilton Head, SC

1-18 January: Richmond, VA (available)

Stephanie Black

Designation Number: 57005

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