Pretty much the day was spent surrounding this Bible study. (By the way, I put the notes online...) First I tried to print out 25 copies of the notes, but discovered that after the 8th or 9th copy, the printer toner seems to run out and the printed stuffs start getting lighter and lighter until it really prints almost nothing. So much wasted paper, I thought. But, recognizing that this is just another attack to derail the Bible study, I could only trust in God and not panic about it. Not long afterwards, I took the toner out, shake it a bit and put it back. Long and behold, it printed well again! Wow...so I just printed the notes one by one using the back of the supposedly wasted paper, and finished printing all 25 copies. I don't know why I wanted to print 25 copies, actually, especially since recent fellowship attendance has been around 10 to 15. When I got to church, there were around 7 or 8 people, and it was kind of depressing. But I didn't panic or anything. Long and behold, cars started to arrive, and by the time we were all on the stage sharing, there were exactly 25 people in the fellowship. No kidding. Three more people showed up in the middle of the Bible study, though, but still it was a miracle to me. As for the Bible study itself, I felt really awkward and nervous in the beginning, maybe because there were a few new people in the group, or because the questions are hard to discuss. But once we got to studying passages from the word of God itself, things went pretty well, I think. We had good discussions, and even if we sidetracked, it was all sort of related and always not for too long. I even find myself sharing things that I haven't thought of before... In any case, I think everyone learned something, and that's the important thing. But I was completely drained afterwards... I sent one of the group members May home, and she talked about how she have trouble understanding the Bible the way we did in the Bible study. I can only tell her my point of view and my experience, and hopefully that was helpful... Now I'm back home, alone, hoping not to get depressed.

Random notes...

• No, I will not let something so small yet so offensive that Francis did to depress me. No, I don't need to dwell on it at all. No.
• After fellowship, mom went to the three-moms meeting, some people went to Ben Thanh, and I went home. Seriously, I've had enough of Viet-Thai food for now... I skipped the mccf dinner yesterday as well because they went for Pho...
• One thing about the Bible study is that I think I depend too much on the reactions of the group members. If they were engaged and responding, I think it's going well; but if they start sighing or put their heads on the lap, I think it's going badly. Surely there's some element of truth in it, but in reality, I was reading too much into it, I think. And I shouldn't use these as a gauge for success...need to look to God and ask, "do You approve of this?" As an aside, there is this sense that I simply cannot convey the encompassing beauty and regularity and complexity of God's creation, so there's always something more to be desired...
• There's now an event for every evening of the week, apparently...though some of these only happen biweekly, and some I don't necessarily have to go...

  Monday: myf in-depth Bible study.
  Tuesday: mccf pre-study.
  Wednesday: myf brothers prayer meeting.
  Thursday: myf pre-study.
  Friday: mccf fellowship meeting.
  Saturday: myf fellowship meeting.
  Sunday: mccf prayer meeting.

  Am I overloading myself?
• Thinking about my academic career... I think I mentioned before that I'm at a point where I'm simply not interested in researching math anymore. After some more thoughts, I think it's mainly because of the things that I'm researching about right now, not particularly about math in general. I'm sure there are other areas of graph theory that I would be very interested in doing researching in, just not the things I'm doing right now. That's probably why I've been so reluctant about doing research... So is there a future for me in the academic career? I'm guessing no, at least not in what I'm doing right now. A teaching career would be nice, too, but I have too little experience for that.

I'm grateful to God for...

• having me as His workmanship, taking care of every detail of my being, and being proud of making me;
• leading me through the emotional and spiritual ups and downs of this Bible study, completing this major task in the first time since I returned to serve Him;
• bringing so many people to the fellowship today, spreading His message all around;
• keeping me back from falling deeply into temptations today; and
• bringing peace when I'm a nervous wreck.