Festival of Praise with the Prophets

Yesterday I did what I had never done before in my 8 years of teaching ministry. I taught my final class on the Prophets in the Chapel because for the last class of the Semester I wanted the students to enjoy themselves with songs and praises. So I called it Pesta Pujian Para Nabi. We started with a song and I lectured for 1 hour on 7 or 8 prophets giving brief summaries and key verses from Hosea to Zephaniah.  I had to skip Malachi due to time constraints. Then in the 2nd session I lectured on Zechariah 4 and elucidated 7 principles of leadership. I have enough substance to write paper on Zechariah for the SBL next year in Berlin or Boston. We shall see. We sang several more songs. Some students volunteered and I sang my favourite song since the Youth Conference last month, Yesus padamu kuberseru (Jesus to You I call).
In the final session I lectured from my book on Zechariah 4. I gave out the notes in English but translated it to Malay as I went along. We ended at 12.25pm just enough time to walk down cross the stream to the dining hall for lunch. As it was an exhausting effort,  I slept soundly from 1.45pm to 3.30pm. I am glad my students are extremely responsively. Two of them shook my hands after I sang my song and several thanked me afterwards. Over dinner the night before, one student who is not in my class lifted my spirits as she encouraged me to eat more to be ready for my last lectures on the prophets.