Preaching First

I preached the first sermon of the year at College just now. It was the culmination of 5 days' work since getting back last Wednesday. I spoke about doing our duties wisely and faithfully based on Luke 12:42. I might have preached for 45 minutes and I felt the anointing strong. Thank you Lord for using Your servant as an instrument of Your glory and Your Word. I did not expect to be given extra duties though I imagined there would be some changes when we lost two colleagues during the end of the year vacation.  One was transfered to another Campus, the other passed away suddenly. So on top of the Chaplaincy, I was appointed head Warden, a heavy duty job since we are a residential college and this year we have increased intake allround with 20 families. I counted all the family quarters on Friday when I was given the list of names and there are 21 quarters but two are uninhabitable due to fallen ceilings and rain sipping through. I wonder why nothing was done during the break. So for the past two days I had been busy receiving students with families and deciding on how to place them according to their needs. Some families come with four or 5 children. One family with 4 children are given one room and I don't know how they would cope with 6 people in one small room with children at Form 2, Primary 5 and Primary 1 and one kindergarden.
No wonder the first thing the Lord laid in my heart when I was appointed acting principal in Jan 2016 was to launch a building fund for family quarters. We got RM15,000.00 from one single donor but when my appointment ceased, so died the vision for family quarters. As the Chaplain I am in charge of 8 services through the 4-day orientation with morning and nightly sessions culimating on a Friday's Day of prayer and fasting which I had to arrange the order of service for the whole day. As there are only 7 lecturers I had to preach twice instead of once on Wednesday and Thursday plus today's first Sunday service of the year. I have been also given an extra paper to teach taking over one of the courses taught by our deceased colleague.

So there will be last minute preparation during the orientation week with two slots of briefing from the Warden and Chaplain to prepare as well. This year will be a year of added responsibility as Luke 12:48 says that for those given much, more will be expected. I am glad I turned down two invitations to attend a Bible translation workshop next week. I prayed whole month on this but at the end I turned it down to focus on my College work. Second I also turned down an invitation to a gathering to prepare for a Seminar in April to be conducted by a well known international speaker. I might just attend that if I have some free time, but besides my full load I am also teaching two intensive modules in our HQ-run BTh programme in a fortnight's time and an MA course in April. I am super glad I managed to get my commentary on John's Gospel done up to chapter 10 on the Good Shepherd. I have printed the first draft and editing it over coffee at KFC, Ranau. This has been my week.