10, 800 Books

I am reminded how wealthy we are in America with resources. Material goods are so plentiful we begin to expect the choices to be available. I find myself saying at times, “I can’t believe they don’t have (fill in the blank)” or “there was only one choice available.”

Now as we are studying in the seminary I realize how wealthy we are in education and resources in America also. The Lord has definitely blessed the Philippines with many great thinkers and educators and schools. However, we are trying to find sources for our research paper, and it is not so easy to find!

I was told there are only three small Christian bookstores in Davao. The bookstores I have been to are NOTHING like the Barnes & Noble of my home culture. In Manila OMF has much more literature available, but our prof. had to bring those down with her on the plane and they will go back with her. The internet is a tremendous help, but many resources I would like to view are only available for purchase. Of course to ship those may be impossible, may take too long, or may be too costly.

I am truly thankful that there are 10,800 books in this seminary library, though it is much smaller than many I have studied in. We are even more blessed to have access to the SIL (Wycliffe) library (yet with a bent toward translation studies, naturally). I am thankful for the USA and Canada for the wonderful libraries and resources and bookstores available. The information highway is outstanding. I am also thankful we happen to have sources in English, our first language. Really I hope reading this causes you to stop and thank the Lord for all our education and resources!

P.S. I am so full of new knowledge and learning I can't even begin to tell you all we have learned about the history of the Church in China, India, Japan and Korea!! Maybe another day. We better do homework!