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WALKING AROUND THE AIIAS CAMPUS

AIIAS stands for Adventist International Institution for Advanced Studies, the Far Eastern Division’s Seminary that also has a graduate school giving advanced degrees in Business, Public Health and Education. It’s set on a tract of land (40 acres?) surrounded by a wall with barbed wire on top of it. It is an oasis of order and care in the midst of the chaotic muddle that surrounds it. I’ve not (yet?) been very systematic about touring, but will take you along on my Sabbath morning walk. First, here’s an overall view of my house…..
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Faculty housing is on two sides of the periphery of campus, and all are like this - duplexes with the garage between, and adjacent kitchens at the back of the house. They’re all made of masonry that’s been plastered inside and out. I’ll do another post just about the house, later on…..

When I walk out the front door and turn left, this is what I see….note the wall on your right - we’re at the back of campus, far from the busy road that runs by the entrance out front. On the left are the houses, lining the peripheral campus drive.
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At the corner, there was what looked like a garden shed of some kind, but a small picnic area with table outside - Friday afternoon on the way to supper with the Mora family, I saw a group of young people here. Sabbath morning, there were clothes and other things on the table and benches, which made me wonder if it really WAS a garden shed, after all. A bit of a mystery.
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Faculty members do not have to do the lawn and garden care, since AIIAS hires a firm to cut lawns and trim bushes, etc. But there are some very distinctive yards, so I suspect that anyone interested can plant, decorate and otherwise work on their grounds. Here’s one that reminded me of some yards that we saw in Apison….
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Others had lined their yard with flowering shrubs….
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this one had a bunch of small beds scattered about the lawn area ....
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while it appears that this one has concentrated on flowers from bulbs….
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I think that if I lived here, my garden would look a bit more like this one, though…..
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Of course, I haven’t been to the local market yet - it may be that vegetables are so plentiful and cheap that I’d simply get them there. I’ll try to get there and post photos - I hear it’s terrific.

Standing outside the faculty homes and looking toward the campus, this is the view….
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Couldn’t you get used to that…..? The campus really is quite beautiful….

After my circle around the double line of faculty houses, I went out the front of mine and turned right this time…...again, note the peripheral wall, now appearing on the left.
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The drive takes us past a number of other faculty duplexes, and where it turns to enter campus, we see the two newest married student housing buildings…..
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Once we’ve made the right turn headed toward the entrance, we pass the brand new church/auditorium, where services are held on Sabbaths, and where convocations for the educational institution are held…..
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Inside, there’s an immense volume, with lots of ventilation from all sides - here’s a shot forward to the platform from about the middle of the seats…
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Turning to look at the back of the auditorium, this is what we see….
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Did you see all those lamps up on the roof frame? Let’s have a closer look…..
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Oh dear…...

The Sabbath sermon was delivered by an old friend of ours - the principal of the school that Gail and I served as student missionaries over 40 years ago. It was good to see John Youngberg again, and it amused me to notice that so many of the mannerisms, verbal and physical gestures, etc. were the same as I remembered. It makes me wonder if others recognize similar tendencies in me….. Heh.
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Moving on from the church building, we next see the entrance - with the essential guardpost on the right in this view. Everyone who drives up is checked out before being allowed to enter. The guards do carry firearms, just in case you wondered.
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As you drive in, you’ll see this monumental depiction of the symbol of AIIAS (pronounced “EYE-s” by the locals) directly in front of you.
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To the left of the entrance as you drive in are student housing apartments along the property line, looking over the peripheral wall onto the (very busy, quite noisy) road that passes the property. It’s fortunate that they are constructed of block, which deadens the sound fairly effectively. It does little for the fumes, however, and windows are never closed around here…..

To the interior of the campus is this building - I don’t know what is in it, but it’s attractive, I think…..
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No SDA campus would be complete without one of these….
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and in this case, it’s the gymnasium, which served for years as the only large campus auditorium, in which church services were also held. Here’s the building itself….
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I haven’t been inside yet, and can’t think why I’ll go there. Continuing along the road in front of married student apartments, I came upon a reminder that these are almost all families….who come and live here while (almost invariably) Daddy gets his advanced degree….
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There really are a LOT of these apartments…..
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And, for all the kids, there’s a junior academy - with about 100 students in it. It’s not inspired architecture, so I took the shot from the school back toward the apartments…
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Passing the next building, I came upon one of those imponderables that spring up now and then….here is some kind of repair going on. They’ve removed the tiles from the underside of the soffitt on this building…..there’s a ladder up there on the scaffolding, and ALSO a table lying upside down with its legs in the air! What was the table for? Picnic lunch on the scaffolding? Room for three guys to all work on the soffitt together? Strange…..
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These little mysteries make life interesting….

After leaving the main campus, I thought this shot from in front of faculty housing was lovely. This is the walk to work that many teachers take each day…..
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Nice…....in addition, there are decorative arches, arbors covered with flowering vines, small shaded sitting places, etc. all over campus. It’s very lovely. I was glad to get back “home” to house 103…..
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where I had a nice shower (two a day, so far) and got ready for church….. Walked (slooooooowly) up to church, and then joined the Whiddens to go to Sabbath School in the library of the junior academy. Nice group, and a fascinating lesson by a lady with a specialty in biblical languages…..who knew that the words used for “refresh” and “rest” in passages from Exodus dealing with the purposes of Sabbath are actually derivative of the word for “soul” - meaning a human being. Sabbath is to remind us of our status - human beings made in God’s image….and not just “us” - remember that slaves (plus the son of your female slave in one text) are included, as are “strangers”.....meaning that the Jews were to be weekly reminded (if they were paying attention) that EVERYONE was created in God’s image - including slaves and non-Jews. The most interesting connection she brought out was between the “son of your female slave” and Hagar - the text was reminding Jews about Abraham’s injustice to Hagar (whose name means - approximately - the stranger) and Ishmael and warning them not to repeat his mistake. Fascinating lesson.

Lunch was with the Whiddens, and then I collected my computer and off we went to the Seminary building and a room with sloped seating (I know there’s a term for this, but my fuzzy brain won’t bring it up) for 300 people. I’m guessing there were around 100 when we arrived, but people kept filtering in while the song service concluded and I was introduced. They continued to come for another 15 minutes or so, and soon chairs were brought in to accommodate the excess - since there were empty seats, I’m guessing attendance was roughly 300. It was a good group, attentive and responsive. I talked for a little over an hour, and then we had about 40 minutes of questions before the closing prayer. Following that, perhaps 15 or 20 people came down front for more interchange and we spent 45 minutes or so before breaking up for the afternoon. It was 5:00 p.m. and I hit the wall energy-wise…..spent the rest of the evening dealing with e-mail, working on photographs, and listening to Hugh Hewitt on the radio. After noodle soup, toast with avocado and a glass of wonderful peach/apple juice, I went to bed about 9:00 p.m. and slept until 7:00 or 7:30 a.m. Good night.

Now, on Sunday morning, I’m working on more photographs, eating fruit and toast, and creating this post. Lovely lazy morning so far - now I’ll get to work on presentations for next week and especially for the weekend seminar in Malaysia.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 05/15 at 05:24 PM

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