Still Bach'ing

Still bacheloring. Of course, I forgot Lena's cell phone at home and ended up calling Lena's dad to get the number where Lena is staying. He has our fish and aquarium now and reports that they are well but that we need to buy some more frozen fish food; he's about to run out. It's not available in Zhytomyr.

I had my cookie ministry today. While I was cooking, I got to have two good discussions with students. One student is reading Lewis's A Grief Observed. She had some questions about the difference between joy and happiness. Olya also came in and we were able to arrange for her English classes next week. She can speak now. I am so happy for her!

The cookies took a lot longer to make but they turned out OK. I had to work the desk at the UEC tonight while Vitaly and his crew led the student outreach. They had a nice crowd so I hope everything went/is going well.

I am finishing up Richard Hughe's Reclaiming a Heritage: Reflections on the Heart, Soul, and Future of Churches of Christ. And now that I am finishing Noll's work on early American theology, I am beginning to see that the emergence of the Churches of Christ in the 19th century was a part of a larger, broader movement of throwing off authoritarian religious control, returning to the Bible, and reading in through that Scottish "common sense" lens. In other words, Barton W. Stone, Alexander Campbell, and David Lipscomb weren't the only people thinking in this direction. They just came to different conclusions than many others. I am also continually impressed by Barton Stone and Lipscomb and less and less impressed with Alexander Campbell's extreme rationalism. Lipscomb was quite a person, especially in his opposition to war, his concern for the poor, and his devotion to Christian education. It's too bad we weren't told more about him while I was a student at Lipscomb.