I want to say thank you to all you friends who stop by this site and read my latest ideas. I apologize for not being more regular at writing. I’m sure many of you are wondering what I’ve been doing since I finished working for En-Gedi at the end of 2006 (due to financial changes in the ministry).The thing I’ve felt most called to do is to write. Just as we were making the decisions regarding En-Gedi last year, I had an opportunity to move much more in this direction. A woman who is an author and has worked in publishing for many years contacted me about submitting some book proposals to Christian publishers. That has been my project this past spring.
Praise the Lord, two proposals were accepted by Zondervan, and so now, for the next couple years, I will be working on writing two books. The first is a devotional book on Jesus’ teachings in their Jewish context. The other book will be a Bible study of 26 Hebrew words, with one week on each word. The plan is for them to be published in 2009, so it will be a while until you see them. But I’ll be posting snippets from them as I write. I already posted a little of the introduction of the book on Hebrew words, called “A Taste of Hebrew.”
In other news, in just a week, I’m going to Israel again (for the sixth time). I’ll be there for a six-week Greek course taught by the Biblical Language Center. I’ve done this twice before to study Hebrew, in an intro class and then later an intermediate class. The creator of these classes is Randall Buth, an outstanding scholar of biblical languages who has also done a lot of thinking about Jesus’ words in his Hebraic Jewish culture. He and David Bivin, another knowledgeable author in this field, will be teaching the class. (See Jerusalem Perspective to read some of their work.) So along with Greek, I’m sure we’ll be discussing the implications of the Greek text of the Gospels and what Jesus might have been saying in Hebrew.
In the fall, I’ll also be helping to teach introductory Hebrew at Western Theological Seminary, in my home town of Holland, MI. This seminary (of the Reformed church) has adopted the innovative approach developed by Randall Buth for teaching Biblical Hebrew – teaching it as a living, spoken language, rather than dissecting a text with grammar rules. The human mind learns much more quickly this way, with much greater comprehension, than by the teaching methods of a hundred years ago. They are the first seminary to decide to overhaul their teaching approach, and since I’ve studied with Buth, it makes sense for me to help.
You can see that the Lord has had his hand on my life through all these changes, with some huge new challenges in writing and teaching. I really covet your prayers for protection and strength for the coming days. And please keep in touch! My email is l t v e r b e r g @ g m a i l . c o m (without the spaces) if you want to drop me a line.
God’s richest blessings –
Lois
Life at the Wellspring 
