Gratefulness

Hello all from overcast-but-so-far-not-as-rainy-as-people-led-us-to-expect London!

Biggest news: Alyssa's working tomorrow! She's got a spot at a school in central London for the next three weeks sitting in the back of a room supervising a practice teacher. Not a bad warm-up gig, eh?

Right now we're sitting in our neighbourhood pub, the Kennedy, listening to horse races on the telly and sweating by the open fire, our stomachs full of reasonably-priced ale and our Macbooks humming with free wireless internet. The place looks a little dodgy from the outside, but it's really nice in here. Clean booths, friendly barkeep, nice high open ceilings.

It's a good thing we like it, because we'll probably be coming here for all our internet needs for the next month. Getting the net in our flat is proving to be difficult and after some phone wrangling today, we found out there really is no fast way to get connected. So this afternoon we did what normal people do; check out the different companies, compare rates, and make a decision. but the engineer won't be around to hook us up until November 29th, so the blog posts won't be spilling out in a flood until we're live at home. Until that day, we'll function largely by phone, text and briefly-spaced internet access. Which means that, regrettably, there are not a lot of ways to get in instant contact with us if you need it.

Better news, though, is that we got Alyssa's mobile phone yesterday which has a really good international calling rate, so we'll be able to make brief phone calls across the pond to parents and other worthy recipients.

The title of today's entry, however, is in reference to yesterday. We got down to church yesterday morning to find a surprise: the great crowd that had been outside the Dominion Theatre (where the church meets) on our first week was gone. We were a bit early so we went for a walk a bit, and then moseyed our way back into the theatre. As we entered, we discovered that the service was full. We had a very confused conversation with the usher, who then seated us as the speaker began to preach on gratefulness. It wasn't until ten minutes into the sermon that I figured it out; we'd missed daylight savings time. We hadn't fallen an hour back, and were now crashing the 9:30 service rather than the 11:30 we'd been planning on getting in early for. And an hour, conveniently, was about how much church we'd missed. The music part at the beginning. We stuck around for the second service's music.

The pastor, a preacher from North Carolina on tour here, reminded me of something. Gratefulness isn't a suggestion. It should be the foundation of our relating to God. We ought to "enter his gates with thanksgiving in our heart". The beginning of our conversation of God is thanks and gratefulness. And Alyssa and I have so much to be grateful for. Not just our flat, jobs, and groceries, although those are a real blessing. But we remember grace, and life, and breath, and it's all someone can do not to break down under the weight of His underserved mercy. So even though stuff is still busy and we're still living pretty spartan, we can rest confidently and gratefully in His provision. He's good. All the time.

On a bit of a side note, it's Halloween. From what I can tell, it's not so big a deal here, although one little costumed witch just came into the pub with her granddad to solicit cash from the patrons. I assume it's for charity, like the unicef boxes the kids carry back home, but I don't really know. It's certainly not as commercially overblow here, from the look of the stores.

'Til next time, Cheers!

Starting to Settle

I want to start with the biggest news first, so here it is: We have our flat! We move in tomorrow!  

The less-abridged story follows:

We were in a bit of a predicament. As I think I may have already written here, when we first went to look at flats, we had a lead at one agency that ended up a bust. We tried a few others that happened, strangely, to be all over the main street in that neighbourhood, more out of convenience and single-mindedness than any special affection for the borough (although Islington really is lovely). We finally arrived at one with one studio flat just barely in our price range only a couple minutes' walk away. She took us to see it. It was gorgeous. Pictures are coming soon. We mean it!

We had to make a decision quickly. This place was a bit of a diamond in the rough and another couple had a viewing scheduled for an hour and a half. We had to put a holding deposit on the thing to cancel the other couple's viewing. But we had a slight problem. We didn't have a UK bank account, and we only had about a hundred pounds cash in our pockets. We needed to put down at least two hundred to call keepsies on the flat. So I ran outside to a bank machine. It turns out there was one practically right next door, sticking out of the wall, with free debit withdrawals that actually accepted my Canadian card. And guess what the daily cash withdrawal limit is? Yep. 200 pounds. 

God 1, Worries 0

We were instantly presented with a bit of a new problem. We couldn't actually move in without paying a deposit, admin fee, first month's rent and a couple other little costs, and there was no way I was going to be able to get that much cash out of the corner cash machine. We needed to set up a bank account. No worries, we thought, since that was already on our to-do list that day. We went downtown, first to meet the employers and fill out some paperwork, talk about teaching (I had almost forgotten that we'll eventually be working here), and then to the bank. We hunted for an HSBC where I thought I'd seen one on Google Maps the evening previous (and I thought this would be smart, since they're in Canada too. Maybe they could expedite the money-sending process). But it was gone, and we ended up at a Lloyds TSB (a big British bank; they're everywhere) just in time to be told we'd have to make an appointment. By the time the day was over, I was genuinely concerned, since I didn't know when we would be able to get at our money to move in. I was concerned we'd have to stay at the hotel indefinitely, and that would get expensive, never mind inconvenient for the hotel, since they were undoubtedly planning on having someone other than us in our room eventually.

Worries 1?

Well, not exactly. We confirmed we could stay at the hotel until Friday, and then went to our bank account appointment on Tuesday with a lot of uncertainty and questions. Our banker was a very nice man named Eric who got our account set up very quickly and without a lot of hassle, which I was quite surprised by, considering we're immigrants without a house or income. 

God 2

When we asked him how to get our money over, he told us our initial plan of writing ourselves a check was a really bad idea, since it could take weeks for a check to clear internationally for lots of money. And it may never clear, what with money laundering laws and things like that. So much for our plan. But he said our bank could probably just wire-transfer it in 1-5 working days. 5 is a lot of working days. That would have taken us to the following Tuesday. If it took that long, we would need to find somewhere other than the hotel to stay, and we were really uninterested in shlepping all our bags out to Dartford, Kent to crash at our only friend's house. We went back to the hotel, called PC and got it set up. He told us 2-5 days.

Worries 2

Wednesday we had nothing to do and so we did it. We walked, napped, played cards and watched TV. After a crazy week and a half, we needed a break. 

Today it was with great fear and trepidation I checked our online bank balance at Lloyds. But when I opened it up, the balance was quite a bit more than the paltry opening-cash we'd put in on Tuesday. The money had transferred. We had English money to use! 

God 3 Worries 1

So we hustled to the bank and made a really scary cash withdrawal, and then tore back to the realtor people to give it all to them. With some paperwork signed, we're booked in to pick up our keys tomorrow. Aside from being the beginning of living in our flat, the added bonus is that our checkout time here at the hotel lines up almost perfectly with picking up the keys at our flat! So no scary lack of roofs over our heads!

God 4 Worries 0

To make a very long story short (WAY too late!), We (especially John) have been freaking out and very unhappy worrying about getting settled, only to watch God do it His way far better than we could have planned. He's systematically knocked each barrier down one by one, and has done it in such a way that we know it's had nothing to do with any great feat of planning, savvy, or cleverness on our part. He's put us in a more beautiful part of the city more smoothly than we would have and more quickly than we could have. He's poured grace upon grace on us. It's hard to wrap our heads around why, but we're determined to praise Him and enjoy this time of reaping, and let it strengthen us for whatever time of sowing will come later. We're so grateful that He's helping us keep Him at the centre of our season of plenty, since we know how easy it is to forget God in harvest time and then cry out to him in seasons of trial.

London Calling

It's hard to imagine that we're only two days here in London. Today, since everything we needed (banks, housing rental companies, our teaching agency) is closed on Sundays, we opted to go to church and then relax. We were feeling pretty tired in the morning after a long and fitful night filled with loud noises. The hotel is a lot more full than our honeymoon resort was, and they all decided to raise a great cacophony of slamming doors and crying children at about midnight. Anyway, it was about all we could do to wrench ourselves out of bed and onto the tube to get to an 11:30 service downtown.

So, we had a thought about church-hunting. It goes like this: We should try big honking mega-churches with young-ish congregations first, because they promise a cool Sunday experience and we can get plugged in right away to whatever young adult or small group ministry they have going on. We've heard of 2 in London: a Hillsong church and the Alpha church. We thought to try Hillsong first. Hillsong's church meets in a large theatre near-ish the West End, which is the London theatre district. Not so West End as to be seedy and disreputable, but just West End-y enough to be flashy and impressive. This is the theatre, which apparently showcases the Queen musical when it's not being used for worship:

 Church was great. Not only did the music sound like Hillsong (just like all the CDs: cool!) But the place was packed with young people. That kind of thing, with smoke and lights, sometimes irks me a bit and makes us worry about being too showy. But it was paired with some really solid and biblical teaching and a really enthusiastic and charismatic atmosphere. Definitely worth a second visit, especially since it's really centrally located, too. After church we felt like exploring so we walked about. We were feeling a little homesick after pub food on night one and the traditional english breakfast (which did not agree with one of us), and we found a subway. We make no apologies. We wanted to taste something homey.

And then, because the weather was so good and we were feeling so much better after worship and we couldn't do anything yet about being homeless and unemployed, we decided to be tourists. We hopped on the tube to Westminster to hit some of the big sites off our list. 

First up is Big Ben, which we've been told is not the name of the tower or the clock, but the bell inside. Big Ben is attached to the Houses of Parliament, which are equally striking and beautiful.











 My favourite part, though, was Westminster Abbey. We weren't allowed into the Nave or the main part of the abbey because services were going on (the kind of services where men in red robe-things tell people to leave, apparently) but we did get to poke around the cloisters. We found some really cool memorials, including Halley (as in Halley's Comet) and Cpt James Cook (as in the famous explorer, not Peter Pan's nemesis).














  We strolled about and saw the London Eye and the Thames, although our feet were getting a bit sore for walking across the bridge to pay too much money to ride a very slow Ferris wheel. After a coffee at the feet of Big Ben and a poke around some really gorgeous back-streets, we tubed again to Piccadilly Circus, where we briefly passed by Ripley's to gaze at the wildlife, as well as a much more colourful corner of the West End. We ate dinner at McDonalds (which was half budget decision, half exploring how different it isn't, and half continued homesickness). While we ate, we noticed just outside a runway-type thing being set up for a British film festival. We stuck around for as long as we could stand (allegedly Madonna may have been coming there) and then left through the crowds and made our way slowly back to the hotel. After an eventful and picture-happy day (many more pics were taken than those posted), we're both feeling better about the whole adventure than we did this morning. We miss home, and waves of Canadian fever will probably ebb and flow. But we see the provision, comfort and opportunities that God is laying out left, right and centre for us. We thank Him for being so faithful to us and helping us to feel more confident with our decision to follow His promptings here.










Vallieres in London: Day 1

Hello family, friends, and blog-surfers,

We have arrived in sunny London, England. I say sunny because our first day was. We're aware that this is quite the anomaly, but considering how much time we spent heel-toe-ing it around town, I am very grateful that the Lord decided to send sunshine London's way this weekend. Our flight over and pseudo-settling in was safe but not uneventful:

We arrived at the airport with my parents on Friday evening, sat, chatted, expressed mutual concern over the state of my back (which had started to tweak and stab during dinner) and then said our goodbyes. Alyssa and I went through security completely without incident, and it didn't take long to find our gate, either. I picked up some fiendishly expensive water and juice for us while we waited and we settled in for a long sit before boarding a plane for an even longer sit.

God provides. And He often provides without us asking. We weren't sitting for very long before I recognized someone, which I thought was extraordinary considering how many people shuffle through the airport and how big a place it is. It was a friend of mine from Nipissing named Kyle. Kyle had been involved with student government at Nip for a while, and when that was done he did his teacher's college and left. I had known, through short articles he'd written for overseas teachers in the student newspaper, that he'd gone to the UK for a couple years. And I had expected that would be the last I heard of or saw him. But he recognized me, came and sat down and we got to talking. Turns out, Kyle had some excellent ideas about why the train we were going to take from the airport was a bad idea, why we needed a cell phone in the UK before anything else, and a number of other things that have really significantly helped our first day in London-town. He even offered us a place to crash, and if house-hunting doesn't go as quickly as we'd hoped, we're very seriously thinking about taking him up on the offer. We had time to chat about all of this because he was on our plane.

The flight itself was a little uninteresting. We tried to sleep. Alyssa was moderately more successful at it than I was. They served us dinner at 10:00pm, Canada-time, which was weird. And then breakfast only 5 hours later. I ate both, but I'll confess to my internal clock feeling a little odd by the time we touched down.

The airport in England and train ride into town is all a blur, and not just because Kyle is a very fast talker. We all hopped on a train together and then said our goodbyes at London Bridge station, before Alyssa and I man-handled our bags onto the tube to Islington in North London where our hotel was hidden. AFter a final gruelling ten-minute baggage haul to the hotel and up the stairs, we were done. And we slept. For an hour or so.

One of the things we wanted to try was to get to a flat-renting agency in Kensington to try and get a flat as soon as possible. We never want to carry all those bags again. So after resting up we hopped on the tube again and tried to find our way to that end of town. What we didn't do was figure out in advance exactly where the place was. So we walked along Kensington High Street for the better part of an hour or so until discovering that there really was no Abingdon Rd. to be found. At least no such apparent road. Moderately content (likely by God's providence rather than any dram of graciousness left in our own hearts), we sat down, defeated but unbroken in Kensington Park, which is the western end of that big green patch in the middle of London. It was gorgeous. We hadn't brought a camera with which to sully the moment, so we simply soaked. And when we got tired and a little chilly from sitting there, we found a pub on the far end for our first British supper: FIsh and chips and beer. Alyssa opted for a cold and carbonated beer like a North American wuss (who still is beautiful and wonderful, if less ale-adventurous) while I picked up some warm flat ale. It was terrific, and after a long day of walking, a big mound of starchy, greasy fish and potato was a sight for sore stomachs. Our hunger sated and our feet sore, we retired to the tube and then the hotel, collapsing to an early 7:30pm sleep. Which, if you're quick on your time zone conversions, you'll know is actually the reverse of normal jet-lag. Not sure how we accomplished that. A couple late nights and we'll normalize our internal clocks easily enough. 

God provides, and we are immeasurably grateful to Him for making the road thus far smooth. We are likewise grateful for your prayers. Pictures and touristy stuff will be coming soon!

Trip minus 2 days

Packing is nearly complete, and spoke with a man from our teaching agency on the phone today. I think he might have been Australian, though I have to admit I don't always find it easy to distinguish between the accents. Especially when it's a mild accent.
Besides that, there isn't a lot of news. We get on a plane on Friday. It's only really starting to sink in for me. For some reason I can't entirely articulate, I can imagine being on the plane, but I can't really imagine being in the city. That either has a lot to do with the relative uncertainty of some of our details over there, or it's because I've been on a plane before but I haven't been in London before. Maybe column B is a shade more plausible.
We look eagerly forward to when there are lots of new and interesting things to report. Until then, we pack and sort and logistic-ify-icate in anticipation. Thanks for your support.

Trip minus 3 days

So we're almost there.

Oh, btw: being married is awesome. Totally worth it. In case anyone is curious. Also, the previous comment is an egregious understatement.

As I was saying, in 3 days we take off and fly to London. We have the plane tickets and hotel all set up now, and almost all the packing done. We're quickly running out of ducks to line up in a row.

As soon as I can get things up and running, my hope is that we can get this blog as our central photo posting, story-telling and news-spreading vehicle. We'll be putting in the time into emails and facebook but our best efforts are certain to fall short nonetheless. So a central repository of up-to-date(ish) news of John and Alyssa is, we're thinking, the best way to do it. At least until we have a better idea.

Your prayers as we get the last few things sorted will be much appreciated.

News - October 3, 2011

So... been a while since I darkened anybody's subscription or RSS feed. Stuff has been kinda busy.
The big news: It is now T minus 5 days. On Saturday Alyssa and I will be married. Which makes me very happy. A little busy, but happy. I think one of the reasons it's been so long since I wrote was I felt this strange pressure to feel something on command, but my actual processing hasn't really followed the schedule of when people have expected me to be excited/nervous/overwhelmed/existential. It's a bit like an extension of this other feel-on-command thing I've noticed happening: people will come up to me and say, "Wow: only 5 days!" and then look at me expectantly. And this isn't like family or Alyssa or best friends. It's people the next-circle outward. People I don't talk to every day or week. People know I'm going through a period of great significance that is profound and yet still highly relatable. And they want to be in on it. But I feel like sometimes my actual state of anticipation doesn't line up with the expected schedule.
For example: right now I actually feel pretty firm-footed. Stable. Lots of other people might be freaking out. I'm either past it or not there yet or both. But I feel almost guilty when people ask me how I'm feeling and if I'm nervous. It makes me feel like I'm supposed to feel differently than I do; like I'm breaking some kind of pre-groom convention. And not only does that make me feel a bit defensive, but it seems like that's an emotional weight I don't really have time for. I have lots of other things to think about.
Maybe I'm naive or I'm a special case or I'm only 48 hours from my own meltdown, but I don't understand grooms freaking out pre-wedding. If I wasn't ready, in the fullest sense, to say "I do", I wouldn't have got down on one knee in the first place. I know that extra bit of discernment cost my bride a bit of anxiety as she waited for me to pop the question. But I think the time was well spent investing the certainty and security of purpose up front so that I really can quite comfortably rest on it now. I don't think I would have felt good about myself if I'd asked before I knew what my answer was.
Of course, we've had a pretty short engagement, and so there hasn't bene much time for new facts/circumstances to develop. But marriage is a covenant that persists regardless of circumstance, and so that doesn't even seem like a good reason for uncertainty to exist either. Maybe I can afford to stand on my soapbox by virtue of an inclination to be rather definite anyway, but I think that doubt or questioning at this stage of the game is a symptom of either lack of forethought or fickleness. Neither of which I think are particularly admirable qualities in a husband.
To summarize: yes, the wedding's only 5 days away. Yes I'm very excited. No, I'm not really nervous.

As for other news, pretty much everything is all set for the trip to the UK, for which I have high hopes as the renaissance of this blog: when it becomes my favourite communication medium with Canada, I hope I'll update it far more regularly.

A random bit of news-news, since I still have some ranting energy left I'd like to work out of my system: The past several days some articles have been published in the Toronto Star about bad teachers in Ontario schools. It makes me sad. And angry. And not a little bit irritated that unions protect incompetent and even abusive and inappropriate teachers while so many of my very competent, professional and driven friends can't get teaching work in this province. The Star's chief target, at least in the first article, seemed to be the OCT (in layman's terms: the licensing and policing association responsible for making sure teachers are qualified and skilled and professional). The author, who I won't call a journalist even though he wrote for a newspaper, seemed to be constructing a case that the OCT has been protecting some of these extremely bad teachers and shuffling many cases of teacher misconduct into settlements and un-publicized arbitrations so that bad teachers end up back in schools with no or little professional consequences. The case wasn't bad, although I think all the wiki-conditioning I'm getting makes me wish there were footnotes for everything the author claimed in the article.
The real axe I have to grind with the article, however, is the premise and goal. I certainly would never stand up and defend the teachers who have been "outed" by this reporter. If anything, the paucity of teaching jobs should mean that the OCT should feel more free to revoke teachers' licenses for far less than they do now. Maybe the consequences should be much more draconian. But the case the author makes against the OCT is ridiculous and sensationalist and just straightforward enough in appearance to convince the average reader that the OCT is some evil organization trying to get children molested. Which really couldn't be further from the truth. Of particular demerit was the third case treated in the first article: a former panel member who was severely disciplined for leaking information about classified OCT hearings to CTV news. The author of this essay-article made it look like the harshest punishments fall on people to try and shut them up. Which is dumb. The member in question was in violation of confidentiality agreements, the standards of professional practice, and acted in a way calculated to degrade the reputation of the teaching profession. If he got slapped with a fine and a reprimand I call it mercy. Breach of contract is a serious crime. And as a member of an OCT panel, he should have had the interests of teachers and teaching first. That is, after all, what the OCT is for. I know that people unacquainted with the political intricacies of education in this province may be tempted to let the demagoguery of this article have them looking around corners for OCT illuminati, and that bugs me. A lot. Because people, for reasons I don't understand, trust the Star to be a newspaper. A News Paper. We might be used to this sensationalist and partisan crap from Rosie Dimanno, but I wish there was a line that even the Star wouldn't cross. I wish that newspapers were about journalism and not money. And I wish that, if that wasn't possible, that at least people would read them critically.
Of course, if we keep riling people up in paranoia over their teachers, then we teachers will never get a chance to teach your kids how to read critically in the first place.