The Beginning

Greetings from Airdrie, Scotland! I’m Brenda Gladfelter and I was nominated by the rest of the students here to begin this record of our semester in Scotland. There are five of us here for this semester of CTI (Covenanter Theological Institute). There is Brenton Green, Stephen Steele, Heather Miller, Jasmine Martin, and me of course. I don’t think I’ll give you a full introduction to all of them. I’ll let them do that themselves when it’s their turn to write to you all. It would be a big job to describe them all; they’re all very interesting individuals, haha. I wouldn’t do them justice at all.

So, as I said, I am Brenda Gladfelter. I am a student at Geneva College where I’m studying history. I’ve been to Airdrie 3 times before, once just visiting and twice on mission trips, and I really love it here. I wanted to come for the semester both because of what is being taught and because I really wanted to spend more time here. Who knows, maybe I will move here in the future!

You may be wondering what exactly this CTI semester is all about. The courses we are taking are Covenanter History, Biblical Theology, Reformed Evangelism, and Ministry Practicum. As Andrew Quigley described it to us on the first day, these courses work together to teach us where our church came from, the theology of our church, and how those should be applied. He put it a lot better, but that’s basically it. We’ve all been here almost two weeks and we’re coming to the end of our first week of seminars. The seminars are led by Dick Knodel and Andrew Quigley. Beth Bogue also leads one for the girls.

To wrap up this first post I’ll just say that everything is going well and we’re learning a lot and having fun too. I could probably say a lot more, but I’m being forced to write this right now by a crazy Irishman so that is all I have for you at this time. Stay tuned for more on our semester written by one of the others.