Narnia Elementary School and ReachGlobal are teaming up for a 1-2 year missions opportunity as a teaching assistant for Narnia’s English language program working with grades 3-5 (ages 8-11).
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Getting in to the Book of Acts at a Seminar on Preaching
My calling is not so much to “teach at a seminary” as it is to help the church better read and apply the teaching of Scriptures to every day life. So I’m glad whenever I get the chance to teach or preach in the local church. Even better are opportunities to help pastors hone their Scripture reading and preaching skills. I recently had the opportunity to lead a preaching seminary for about 15 Slovak pastors or teachers.
[Read more…]Highlighting Personal Impact: Clara, the Book of Psalms and the Slovak Church
In this post I’m going to tell you the story of Clara, who is a collage of four different students (all young ladies) who wrote research papers or Bachelor’s theses for me in the last couple of years. For each of them, the process of researching and writing turned in to a love for God’s Word and a desire to dig deeper to discover more about the depth of God’s lovingkindness and faithfulness as Scripture reveals it to us. You should be aware that since it’s a collage of my students, it’s a little idealistic. Still, it represents some of the things I love about teaching and real encouragement I’ve received from four different students.
Highlighting Personal Impact: Roman
Seeing fruit from ministry can be a real encouragement that puts some spark in our not always exciting everyday activities. I had one of those moments recently when a former student talked at our church about going to Tanzania with Wycliffe as a Bible translator.
Reading and Living God’s Story
During my research stint with The Creation Project I had the luxury of being contractually obliged to read in areas that I normally don’t have time to explore. One result is a deeper appreciation of the relationship between reading and living God’s story.
The Refining Fire of the Junior High Classroom
Narnia Elementary School is a big part of our lives since both Elisabeth and Max attend school there. And it’s a big part of our ministry since Jana teaches there and it’s an outreach of our local church (where I’m an elder). So when Narnia was having trouble finding native speakers for the English program I decided to volunteer.
And a Good Time Was Had by All
From the Bannockburn Gazette…
“Todd and Jana Patterson, missionaries to Slovakia, visited the Growing in Grace Sunday School class at the Evangelical Free Church of Naperville on Sunday, October 4th. Todd finished a five week series on the book of Genesis and the class hosted the missionaries along with their two beautiful children, Elisabeth (7) and Max (5), for a pot-luck dinner. Afterwards John and Lois Rabb invited them for an afternoon of conversation … and a good time was had by all.” [Read more…]