As promised, here is a picture of Derrick and me. This was taken at World Mission Workshop (WMW) in Lubbock, Texas this past weekend. For those of you who do not know, WMW is a type of seminar for anyone interested in mission work in the whole world. Missionaries come and speak to those interested to let them know about their experiences and to show them what kind of mission opportunities are out there. It’s a great time for missionaries to kind of have a reunion...that’s usually how I see it! I like to go to see all the missionary people I know and to meet new ones and to hear what’s going on in the world. Well, I know that I said I would talk about my future this time....it’s going to have to wait. We had a poet laureate, Robert Pinsky, visit our campus last week for a lectureship and I was involved in most of that, so I feel that I need to report on that because it was such a wonderful experience. First of all, a poet laureate basically means that he's considered the king of poets in the States. Robert Pinksy seems to be a non-practicing secular Jewish person. So it was very interesting to have him speak on our campus. I thought it was a wonderful experience. He wrote a book about the story of David which many of us have been reading in our classes, so he gave a lecture on that book. I was able to speak with him a little before the lecture because I was in charge of the registration table at the VIP reception. It was a small enough reception to where I felt comfortable to mingle as well. He asked me about my future plans and I explained to him my aspirations to be a missionary in Belgium, because said Europe needs God. AT this point, I did not know his religious affiliation and he caught me off guard by asking "from a secular point of view, why does Europe need God?" That started our Pinsky-Brazle 'debate', lol. It was fun. After the lecture, during the question-answer section, I stood up and asked him "Earlier you asked me a question from a secular point of view, now let me do the same....From a secular point of view, how do you see David's spiritual life and his relationship with God?" I think it caught him off guard, lol, but he answered well and we’ve enjoyed our discussion. The next day I also got to bring a 2-3 minute presentation about what I had learned from the book and the lecture. If you are interested in reading this, I will type it up and attach it to my next post.
I think that's all for now. God bless you all!