Bible Study

Hello!
Things are moving along and settling into a pretty nice little pace. We work most days of the week (or at least we work more than we don't work) and when we don't we either sit around the flat and watch old episodes of Big Bang Theory or we trot around the neighbourhood and sometimes further to take in as much of London as they'll let us see for free. Which - I'm always impressed to discover - is quite a lot of it.
One point of interest this week: my turn finally came up to lead bible study at our church home group. Or rather, I ought to say I volunteered. The official rota is allegedly being compiled this week, but I felt a little sheepish about how we mostly show up, eat other people's food and then listen to other people talk and wanted to contribute my fair bit. And since every week's delicacies make me more and more afraid of our trying to cook for these people, I thought a quick volunteering could buy us some time. Study is tonight (in a couple hours), though, and if any of you are glancing at this blog entry before 8pm GMT, then fire a prayer my way.
It's a bit funny, actually, my apprehensions about leading study tonight. Many of you will know that this isn't exactly my first rodeo, so to speak. But there are two vaguely interesting factors that I'm trying hard to keep in perspective. Namely, 1) this is kinda the first grownup-grownup bible study I've been in and they're all really smart. And 2) it's on the Parable of the Dishonest/Shrewd Manager. If you're not familiar, have a quick skim through Luke 16. It's arguably the most difficult-to-understand of all the parables. Luke's is the only version of it so there's no cross-referencing to shed some light on it. It's just a striking kind of anti-parable that seems to have a lot to do with money and, at first inspection, makes it seem like Jesus supports people who lie and cheat and steal. He doesn't, by the way, but it kinda looks like it at first.  My wrestling with the parable the last couple days has not done exactly yielded a solid and comfortable understanding of it (which I suppose ought not to have been my goal, but it would have been nicer) and so I'm walking in a little nervous.
When you're a teacher in a BEd program, it gets drilled into you that the essence of lesson planning is beginning with the end in mind. That is, you know what the students are supposed to now/do/think about and come up with a way to get them to do it. This is different. I've got questions and tools but no answers. And although that is probably by (Somebody's) design, it's scary. The mysteries of Gd really are mysterious and that wouldn't be so bad except wrestling with them and figuring them out also matters a whole lot more than physics or philosophy. So keep me in your thoughts tonight.
Also, if people are prayer-slinging anyway, Alyssa's a bit under the weather. She feels fine and I don't think she's contagious, but her voice has been disappearing on an off all day. She can't exactly control a classroom without her voice, so we're praying for it to come back soon.
Unless other plans or bad weather interferes, our tentative plan this weekend is to check out either Greenwich or Notting Hill as a bit of a mini day trip. Probably Notting Hill because there's an inconvenient train shutdown near Greenwich that would make it a bit trickier. And only a few more weeks until Greece! Lots happening here and not enough time for all of it.
As always, please email us every now and again. Our send us a link to a blog that you infrequently update like this one. :) Apparently some of you have snow back home? I've been trying to explain snow to the people here but it's kindof like explaining good hamburgers. They've seen it and maybe even experienced it firsthand it but it's not exactly a common part of their everyday life.