Goats with brains

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Eph 4:29-32

At church we were exhorted not to give over to the habit toward hardness, neglecting to acknowledge God.
We did not learn Christ that way. Rather, we learned Christ by putting aside our childish ways - we learn the ways of God mostly clearly by practice, not solely book knowledge.

In worship, we sang of our dependency upon our Savior alone (Rock of Ages):

+Rock of Ages, cleft for me,Let me hide myself in Thee;Let the water and the blood,From Thy wounded side which flowed,Be of sin the double cure;Save from wrath and make me pure.

+Not the labor of my handsCan fulfill Thy law’s demands;Could my zeal no respite know,Could my tears forever flow,All for sin could not atone;Thou must save, and Thou alone.

+Nothing in my hand I bring,Simply to the cross I cling;Naked, come to Thee for dress;Helpless look to Thee for grace;Foul, I to the fountain fly;Wash me, Savior, or I die.

+While I draw this fleeting breath,When mine eyes shall close in death, When I soar to worlds unknown,See Thee on Thy judgment throne,Rock of Ages, cleft for me,Let me hide myself in Thee.

http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/r/o/rockages.htm

**When I saw the title of this hymn in our bulletin, I was like darn, I really dislike that song, thinking it was the contemporary Rock of Ages (Rock of ages; Jesus your the rock; rock of ages...). Wow, when ever I hear that song or bring it to mind I can't help but think of the worship pastor from Fairlawn Nazarene up on stage singing her heart out, but basically convulsing as she shouted the words. Really weird, but hillarious! Praise God we sang the rich, desperate version of this tune on Sunday!

I went with IFL and the international students to the apple orchard in the afternoon. Ivan accompanied and together we watched goats traverse across a bridge, took pictures with pumpkins and had coffee with donuts and apple butter.

Dwayne and I joined one of our church's small groups in the evening for worship. Together we broke bread as a welcome, sang songs from the morning worship time, reviewed Pastor Jason's sermon on Ephesians and spent a time in sweet prayer. The members of the group are earnestly seeking to work out their salvation with fear and trembling. We came to a concensus over wanting to trust completely in God's character over imagining or worrying what our future or current circumstances should look like.

Prayer:
Dwayne and I are considering going with a group from the church to Mississippi for a long weekend. He and I are thinking about meeting one-on-one to build each other up in the faith.

Ivan is studying for the GRE and TOEFL. The application process for him to become a perminant student here is tedius and he hasn't been too encouraged through interacting with admissions.

Our Numbers Bible study is going to do some outreach in the city. We're deciding when and what to do.

Many projects are on the horizon and their deadlines are quickly approaching. After this week there are three full weeks of classes and then finals.