God’s Masterpiece

Rehoboth International School recently celebrated Annual Day with the theme God’s Masterpiece. The picture shows all of the current staff, and you can see some of the kids performing in the pictures below.

“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2:10

I was struck by a message I heard on this passage not that long ago, and led me to reconsider my understanding of why we do “works”. As I was growing up I learned that we are saved by faith, not by works. However, I also had the notion, somehow, that works were a bad thing since we are not saved by works. This verse puts everything in right perspective. We were created by God, and his will is for us to do HIS good works. The misunderstanding lies in the fact that we mix up doing OUR works to earn salvation, with doing HIS works because that’s what we were made to do. Our destiny is to do what we are made for, and this adventure we have begun to work in India is not about us. God will, in HIS time, open the doors for us to get there.

I was really encouraged when I visited MissionFest here in Vancouver and met up with my colleagues at Heritage at their ICOS booth. Recently the government of BC has allowed several schools through a consortium to offer a BC Dogwood graduation to anyone around the globe taking their online courses. This may have great benefit to students at Rehoboth International School and potentially beyond to get a graduation that has International recognition. RIS is struggling with getting the government of Kerala’s release to get accredited. Many independent schools in Kerala are now at a critical point on how to deal with students entering their graduation program. RIS is considering several possibilities.

I was also at the Indian consulate last week, and while there’s still no progress to report, I was encouraged to make an appointment to meet with someone in the diplomatic office. Please pray the consulate gets back to me soon to schedule an appointment as I haven’t yet had a response to my email. One interesting piece of news is that Shri Rajan Mathai has just been appointed the High Commissioner in London and he is a Malayalee. He was born in Thiruvalla, the same place where I was born. Also, the TMM Hospital where my parents, Gilmour and Lila Davies, worked has recently opened a new casualty in a branch at Ranni. They have named it in memory of my Father. My Father was born in Bangalore, which makes me third generation with Indian connection, and I hope this will strengthen my case for getting my OCI visa.