Another Classless Sunday

Due to illness, vacation and sundry unforseen events, the class has dwindled to one and a half students—but not permanently! Just last Sunday and this Sunday. So, for that reason, there will be no class this week—the 12th of September.

However, that being said, we’ve only got 8 weeks left and I don’t won’t us to fall too far behind, so there will still be a lesson—it’ll just be delivered by email instead of taught in class (somehow seems appropriate that Lesson 13 should be different, eh!). It’ll be on the forms of the future case verbs—regular and irregular.

Ah, but not to worry; I’ll do a review at the beginning of class the following week.

For those who missed lesson 12, I’ll be posting it here along with L11 sometime today—I’ve already posted the last two Why Learn Greek’s. I’ll also email all the relevant material to everyone—including book scans and WLG’s. Please read these carefully, too—there is a fair bit of information on these that hasn’t necessarily made it into the Lesson notes. If you think I’ve forgotten to send something, or have any questions about any of the stuff I do send, just let me know and I’ll get back to you a.s.a.p.

Oh, and to Colleen and Raewyn, if there was anything particularly instructive that we mentioned in class that isn’t in the material I send, could you please let me know and I’ll post it here for everyone? I seem to recall there was something that came up that I wanted to advise everyone about, but can’t for the life of me remember what it was!

Okay, all for now. See everyone in two week’s time.

God bless,
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Been a While

It’s been a while since my last posting…

I’ve been very busy with my day job, Sandy leaving for Alaska on business, my son David’s visit, and getting the next lesson ready. Whew!

Two Sundays ago, we had the infamous Test 2 and the results were as varied as the writing times. Due to unforseen circumstances, we ended up having only TWO people write the test in class! The others wrote it at home on the honour system. A trustworthy bunch.

Last week, although I didn’t post, I did add the last two Why Learn Greek illustrations. We had another one yesterday before Lesson 10, but that hasn’t been posted yet—will be soon; when I post the L10 notes.

Okay, that’s it for now. See you next Sunday.

God bless,
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Getting Testy

Hope you’re all studying for the vocabulary test on Sunday the 15th of August!

What? Test? When did this happen?


Since I last updated this blog, we’ve had one day of review and two Sundays off. Ostensibly, the two weeks without lessons was in order to study for the big Vocabulary Test coming this Sunday, but, actually, the main reason was that my son is visiting me from Scotland and I needed some time away from preparing for lessons and writing blog posts so I could spend it with him. Which I’ve done now—So let the games begin!

About the Test: There are 167 words—verbs and nouns—on the vocabulary list we used for the last review. All of these words will be on the test. However, you will only be asked to provide one correct meaning for each of these words and, for the nouns, the correct article.

Easy-peasy? Yes indeedy!

See you Sunday.

God bless,
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Regroup, Reorganise and Review

We’ve regrouped!

We had a full class for Lesson 9 last Sunday. Trish was back from her marvellous (and highly successful) mission to Fiji, there weren’t any walk/runs for Colleen, and Larry and Joc were not baptising half a dozen young people. It was great having everyone altogether again.

As for L9, it has now been posted on the blog. In fact, all the reorganising of the Pages Tabs I mentioned before is now complete. I’ve grouped all the lessons so far into pairs and posted the pairs on individual pages. For example, Lesson One has been combined on the same page with Lesson Two to give Lesson 1 & 2. This gives us room to post five more lessons before we have to re-reorganise again.

I’ve also added the latest Why Learn Greek illustration—we’ve got 10 of them on there now. Schweet!

As for next class, everybody—including me—thought it was about time for another review. It’s been many months since the first one (way back before Lesson 4!) and we’ve covered a fair bit of ground since then; especially with regard to vocabulary. So, next Sunday is Number Two Review Day!


God bless,
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Quick Update

Okay, seat-belts on—this is gonna be fast…

Lesson 7 & 8 are now posted and I’ve started combining Lessons to save space (see L1 & 2 tab above this post). With our last vocabulary list, we’ve now touched on 1/3 of the words in the Greek New Testament! Yippee!!! Well done all.

Am still working on the homework for L8, so don’t worry, Trish, there’s still time for you to finish the L7 homework—that’s if you’re back from your Fiji mission, of course.

…done!


God bless,
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On Sons and Runs

My bit of a rest might have come to a close, but I’m still not able to devote all my time to preparing for Greek class. There’s been a development…

My son David flew into Auckland Airport two days ago to begin a two month visit to Godzone. He’s 17, lives in Glasgow, Scotland with his mum and brothers—and I haven’t seen him in over 6 years. Needless to say, this will distract me greatly. Let me apologise in advance: Sorry all, but again you’ll have to wait till late Saturday to get the next Lesson notes!

Last Sunday’s class went off without a hitch. Larry and Joc didn’t have any problems with the magic world of the Greek Present Indicative or the conjugation pattern of the –ω verbs. Even the movable nu made sense. So now everyone is set to tackle the slightly different –εω verbs and learn the paradigm form of 1st declension nouns.

Sandy also had time at the end of class to give a quick lesson on memorisation…but I can’t remember how that went.

Okay, I’ve added the latest Why Learn Greek and will get Lesson 7 up sometime today. Happy reading!

Oh, one more thing—I forgot to post Colleen’s latest championship time in the Mangawhai run/walk last Sunday. Despite freezing wind and driving rains she pulverised the 9km course in 1 hour, 11 minutes and 31 seconds. Outstanding! Well done, Colleen.


God bless,
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A Bit of a Rest

I’ve been enjoying a bit of a rest this week. Not only have I just finished the homework assignment for Lesson 7, but I haven’t even started preparing Lesson 8 yet. Not to worry, though, the reason I’m not rushing to get everything done is because in order to accommodate everyone’s real life events, Lesson 7 has been spread out over two weeks.

Last Sunday, Larry & Joc had to attend several baptisms at their church and were unable to make it to class, so Colleen, Raewyn and Trish had to take the plunge into verbs without them. This Sunday, the situation will be reversed; only Larry & Joc will be grappling with Lesson 7.

Colleen is going to be busy breezily slaughtering a field of 700-plus competitors in another Sport Northland Run/Walk. Be kind, Colleen, for they know not what they do.

As for Trish, she won’t be at class because she’s in Fiji on a 10-day mission with Marine Reach Ministries. She’s an optometrist and will be staring into dozens of eyeballs in many skulls of poor people living in small, rural villages. It’s a great service she’s doing and we all pray to the Lord that she blesses and is blessed mightily!

Raewyn didn’t have anything else on, but rather than sit through the lesson again, she decided to do some home-study that day. Thanks, Raewyn, for allowing us to mess with your schedule. We hope it won’t happen too often (I for one am shocked, SHOCKED, to discover people have lives outside of Greek Class! But, of course, we must forgive them, mustn't we…?)

Okay, I’ll be getting L7 posted soon, but will wait until Monday to put up the latest Why Learn Greek—don’t want to spoil the surprise for Larry & Joc.

Oh, one more thing—Sandy, my beautiful and lovely wife and assistant, has created a Paihia Baptist Church website and, naturally, she’s linked to this blog there. I’ll put a link up to the PBC site, too, but you can go there and have a look by clicking here if you can’t wait for me to finish my loafing arou bit-of-a-rest.

God bless,
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