Colorado: Day 7

Our last day in Boulder was our busiest. After breakfast, Seth led us in a Bible study. He talked about Object studies - Bible studies based on specific objects or subjects in the Bible. On this day, we talked about wells. We went over the story of Abraham's servant finding a wife for Isaac at a well, and how Isaac's son, Jacob found a wife at that very same well. There was a similar story for Moses and how he met his wife at a well too. And then we went to the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. In fact, they had their conversation at the same well where Isaac and Jacob's wives were found. What was the subject of their conversation? Marriage. Interesting. We went into the study a bit deeper than I can explain here, but I definitely plan on doing more object studies in the future.

After Seth played us a beautiful song on his guitar that he wrote, we went our separate ways for a bit until lunch time. The group brought our pizza and juice to Georges' office and had lunch with him. We ate while he told us stories of his ministry in Middle Eastern countries and of his opposition, both physical and spiritual. Georges is such a wonderful man. I think we all could have stayed in his office and listened to him talk forever. We shared a great time together at lunch and posed for a few pictures afterward. Georges and his son, Pierre were leaving that day for a foreign country. I'm not sure which country, but I think it was one of the 'stans. We said our goodbyes and thank yous to George and left him to finish up his work at Horizons before he had to leave.

After lunch, the group decided to go into downtown Boulder and sing praise songs. So we packed all nine of us and Seth into the van and made our way there. After walking a bit, we found a bench in the middle of a mall, similar to Kalamazoo's downtown mall, actually. Some sat on the bench and some stood around it as we sang some wonderful songs unto the Lord on that beautiful afternoon. Seth taught us a very diverse selection of songs from all over the world, and we joyfully sang them. A few people came up to us and seemed interested and excited about our singing. It was great to just stand there and praise God. It really lifted our spirits after the attacks of the previous night's speaker.

After about an hour or so, we made our way back to Horizons. A few of us decided to read an entire book of the Bible. We chose the book of John, which ironically (or not so ironically), I was about to start reading anyway. We went into Georges' then vacant office and took turns reading chapters from that gospel. It was a wonderful experience. We finished in about two hours, just after dinner began. We went down and ate our last excellent Horizons dinner and went over to CU to listen to the last speaker of the week.

The last night was all about Sunni and Shi'a differences in Islam. A lot of people were very interested in that topic, and it had been brought up all week by the visiting crowd. I think he was the first speaker we had heard that week that didn't appear to have a distinct agenda to change people's minds about Islam. He simply told of the differences in the two sects and the problems and disagreements that have occurred between the two. He spoke nothing of Christianity.

After the speaker, everyone was invited to a dinner hosted by the MSA. It was a nice, formal dinner with fantastic food from different Middle Eastern countries. It was so nice getting to know more people there and continuing our conversations with the friends we had made over the course of that week. We stayed for an hour and a half, I believe, just talking and enjoying the company of others, learning from our differences and our similarities. I think the dinner was my favorite moment of the week. I just felt completely at peace and full of joy. One, by one, people from our group said goodbye to our new friends and trickled back to the Horizons house for the last time.

It was getting close to midnight and most of our group was finishing up packing and getting ready to leave in the morning. Justin and Matt took their sleeping bags up to the Upper Room and slept there for the night. Kennie had met some Afghanis and hit it off with them almost immediately. He stayed up all night hanging out with them and had a great time. The rest of us went to bed, some sooner than others, and got ready to leave for home the next day.