Class is Now in Session

What does it mean to be an image bearer? How does God's covenant relate to all of creation? What are our responsibilities to to the places we call home? Am I going to finish this paper on time?

These are just some of the questions that have been filling our thoughts over the past couple of weeks as we dove into the first two classes, God and Nature 1 & 2. Professors Sylvia Keesmaat and Brian Walsh have been challenging us to consider how we are called to interact as Christians with the earth and all its inhabitants. After going through scripture and learning about God's desire for us to live redemptively with creation, we explored what that looks like in our lives today. In one of the assignments, in classic CCSP "out of the box" style, we even got to see each others' creativity come to life through dance, poetry, photography, and art!

In addition to class, these past two weeks have given us reason to celebrate! Brindley, one of the student life coordinators, had a birthday, so we feasted on local Belizian burgers and homemade fries (her favorite meal) and topped it off with cake made by a friend of the program. We also decked the veranda with streamers and hearts for Valentine's Day, which is actually a huge holiday in Belize, and we had a fun night of Valentine's-related games, discovering our love languages, and eating Ms. Flora's delicious brownies! It's great how celebrating and eating delicious food often go together.

Professor Keesmaat is also very knowledgeable about gardening, so having her here has been very beneficial to our garden. With most of the seedlings in the ground now, and some new seeds directly planted into the garden bed, we're expecting to see quick growth of our plants. Also, Professor Walsh is an avid birder, and he's managed to get a lot of us excited about waking up early to go to a nearby riverside to view some of Belize's birds. We're already starting to pick up on the calls of some local birds.

We are now looking forward to this weekend, when we will stay in a Mennonite community. We had a Mennonite fashion show, to make sure everyone had something appropriate, and it appears as though we have quite a modest bunch! They pass the test with flying colors...well, with neutral colors, anyway.