Hiya!
Much, in fact I dare to suggest 'very much', has happened since last an update graced this barren wasteland of a blog. I'll try to sort it out with subheadings, 'cause otherwise it might be a bit dense to read through. (Although my writing has often been accused of density regardless of the presence of subheadings. I make no apologies)
Travels!
We've been doing an awful lot of it. Since last update, we've taken the opportunities afforded to us by steady work and free weekends to get out and explore a bit. Two weeks ago we went to Cambridge, home of Cambridge University, Cambridge University Press, and a number of bridges over the river Cam. Photos coming soon. It was gorgeous. The place, especially the academic core of the town, is largely similar to how it has been for centuries. The University is divided, like many old big universities, into "colleges" which, from what I gather, are something with some of the characteristics of a faculty, a residence building, and a "house", without really being any of those things. The buildings themselves are breathtaking, and a number of them open to the public to stroll throught the courtyards and gardens and be surprised by the little drops of academic history they stumble upon. I particularly enjoyed strolling through the gardens at Magdalen College (pronounced Maudlin) where, among notable others, CS Lewis went to school for a while (although he ended up as a professor at Oxford). The weather was great and warm and the place's rich heritage gave us a great excuse to wander, stroll, and breathe fresh air for most of the day.
Last weekend we stayed in the city for St Patrick's Day. It may come as little surprise that there are a lot of Irish people in London. So in addition to the more familiar St Paddy's Day festivities like drinking beer and wearing green, there was a big parade right throughthe centre of London and a big festival at Trafalgar Square. We went to check it out. The parade was quite fun although, if we're to be quite honest with you, we started to lose enthusiasm as it wore on. Parades are a really slow and drawn out way to be excited about something. It includes a lot of standing and waiting and almost always includes a massive anticlimax. So after the parade we went home for food and church feelign that we'd celebrated Patrick thoroughly and had, frankly, other stuff to do.
Travel Plans!
The really cool news on the travel front, however, is what is coming up soon. Namely, two weeks' holiday. The British school year is divided into three semesters or 'terms', and we're at the end almost of the second one. They get two weeks off for Easter holidays. Cool, huh? Our original plan was to seize on this opportunity to travel to the next big destination on our list: Rome. And then we expanded it to other spots in Italy as well. But the more we looked into rail prices, etc, the more we liked what we saw and so now the plan (un-finalized but still pretty cool) is...
John and Alyssa's Excellent Central Europe Adventure!
What we'll do is a fast-paced hostel-and-train trip for 10-11 days to Belgium, then southwest Germany (a little walled-in medieval town called Rothenburg), then a stop in Pisa, Italy; then Rome, the Vatican, and a day trip to Naples and Pompeii before turning around and coming back through Switzerland around Easter weekend and eventually back through Belgium and across the channel back to foggy London.
Cool, huh?
It may change a lot between now and then as we get some more of the details settled this weekend, but it's only a week away and we're starting to get really excited.
Work!
I almost didn't put an exclamation point on this one put thought that would be a bit unfair. Alyssa's good and planted at the school she's at in East-ish London until June half-term break. And it's lightened up a bit now that they shuffled some of her classes around; she used to have every class in a behavioural support program (i.e. every child in the school with problematic behaviour) and they re-distributed some of those classes. Planning lessons and figuring out how to prepare kids for standardized exams we never wrote is a challenge, and your prayers for both of us as we negotiate this would be greatly appreciated.
As for me, I'm halfway through a 2-week long booking fresh off the heels of my last 2-week long booking. The last one was a fantastic school in Northwest London and now I'm at a very average and normal one in North London (not so far from where last summer's riots started, actually. Hrmmm...) The odds are very good I might be kept on here after Easter holiday until...the Lord only knows. It's long enough though that I can fairly call it an LTO. I'm doing my own planning, i have my own timetable, and I might even get a tiny pay rise. Although £10/day might not exactly be worth popping a champagne cork over, it's nice. That's a dinner out at a friendly pub on a slow night.
Church!
Without compromising the severity of our homesickness (and believe me, we miss home something fierce), the realisation that we have less weeks left in London than fingers is starting to dawn on me. In a short time, we've grown quite close with the people we do life with, especially the people in our home group and a couple other folks at church who have taken the time to plug in to our lives. Leaving Barnsbury parish and COTC is going to hurt. It's the right decision and we're not really considering stretching out our time here. We miss home. Period. But it will hurt, and not just us. It makes me a little sad.
Still, the potntial for hurt is a selfish reason to hold back from the relationships that open up before you. We've been getting more and more plugged in as we've stayed here. We did another night serving homeless folks at the Nightshelter ministry (I think I mentioned it ino a previous post once). And we're getting plugged in to a married couples group next week which will be cool too.
Being close to the youngest people in church is a really weird feeling. In a cool way. I feel a bit like everyone I meet in this place has a lot to teach me. And I feel wisdom and maturity slowly ripening and making space in my mind and soul the longer we stay. Which is awesome. Wisdom is a big deal, turns out. I've been reading in Proverbs the last week or so and wisdom is a big deal. It’s tied inextricably to righteousness and prosperity and happiness and the fear of the Lord and living uprightly. It’s worth pursuing. And the alternative is terrifying. The consequences of foolishness are really serious. A life spent seeking wisdom wouldn’t be wasted, it’s telling me, and I’m finding it each and every day here. Which isn’t to say that can’t or won’t continue when we go home. It probably will. But I’m enjoying today and here and this and now while I’ve got them.
Much, in fact I dare to suggest 'very much', has happened since last an update graced this barren wasteland of a blog. I'll try to sort it out with subheadings, 'cause otherwise it might be a bit dense to read through. (Although my writing has often been accused of density regardless of the presence of subheadings. I make no apologies)
Travels!
We've been doing an awful lot of it. Since last update, we've taken the opportunities afforded to us by steady work and free weekends to get out and explore a bit. Two weeks ago we went to Cambridge, home of Cambridge University, Cambridge University Press, and a number of bridges over the river Cam. Photos coming soon. It was gorgeous. The place, especially the academic core of the town, is largely similar to how it has been for centuries. The University is divided, like many old big universities, into "colleges" which, from what I gather, are something with some of the characteristics of a faculty, a residence building, and a "house", without really being any of those things. The buildings themselves are breathtaking, and a number of them open to the public to stroll throught the courtyards and gardens and be surprised by the little drops of academic history they stumble upon. I particularly enjoyed strolling through the gardens at Magdalen College (pronounced Maudlin) where, among notable others, CS Lewis went to school for a while (although he ended up as a professor at Oxford). The weather was great and warm and the place's rich heritage gave us a great excuse to wander, stroll, and breathe fresh air for most of the day.
Last weekend we stayed in the city for St Patrick's Day. It may come as little surprise that there are a lot of Irish people in London. So in addition to the more familiar St Paddy's Day festivities like drinking beer and wearing green, there was a big parade right throughthe centre of London and a big festival at Trafalgar Square. We went to check it out. The parade was quite fun although, if we're to be quite honest with you, we started to lose enthusiasm as it wore on. Parades are a really slow and drawn out way to be excited about something. It includes a lot of standing and waiting and almost always includes a massive anticlimax. So after the parade we went home for food and church feelign that we'd celebrated Patrick thoroughly and had, frankly, other stuff to do.
Travel Plans!
The really cool news on the travel front, however, is what is coming up soon. Namely, two weeks' holiday. The British school year is divided into three semesters or 'terms', and we're at the end almost of the second one. They get two weeks off for Easter holidays. Cool, huh? Our original plan was to seize on this opportunity to travel to the next big destination on our list: Rome. And then we expanded it to other spots in Italy as well. But the more we looked into rail prices, etc, the more we liked what we saw and so now the plan (un-finalized but still pretty cool) is...
John and Alyssa's Excellent Central Europe Adventure!
What we'll do is a fast-paced hostel-and-train trip for 10-11 days to Belgium, then southwest Germany (a little walled-in medieval town called Rothenburg), then a stop in Pisa, Italy; then Rome, the Vatican, and a day trip to Naples and Pompeii before turning around and coming back through Switzerland around Easter weekend and eventually back through Belgium and across the channel back to foggy London.
Cool, huh?
It may change a lot between now and then as we get some more of the details settled this weekend, but it's only a week away and we're starting to get really excited.
Work!
I almost didn't put an exclamation point on this one put thought that would be a bit unfair. Alyssa's good and planted at the school she's at in East-ish London until June half-term break. And it's lightened up a bit now that they shuffled some of her classes around; she used to have every class in a behavioural support program (i.e. every child in the school with problematic behaviour) and they re-distributed some of those classes. Planning lessons and figuring out how to prepare kids for standardized exams we never wrote is a challenge, and your prayers for both of us as we negotiate this would be greatly appreciated.
As for me, I'm halfway through a 2-week long booking fresh off the heels of my last 2-week long booking. The last one was a fantastic school in Northwest London and now I'm at a very average and normal one in North London (not so far from where last summer's riots started, actually. Hrmmm...) The odds are very good I might be kept on here after Easter holiday until...the Lord only knows. It's long enough though that I can fairly call it an LTO. I'm doing my own planning, i have my own timetable, and I might even get a tiny pay rise. Although £10/day might not exactly be worth popping a champagne cork over, it's nice. That's a dinner out at a friendly pub on a slow night.
Church!
Without compromising the severity of our homesickness (and believe me, we miss home something fierce), the realisation that we have less weeks left in London than fingers is starting to dawn on me. In a short time, we've grown quite close with the people we do life with, especially the people in our home group and a couple other folks at church who have taken the time to plug in to our lives. Leaving Barnsbury parish and COTC is going to hurt. It's the right decision and we're not really considering stretching out our time here. We miss home. Period. But it will hurt, and not just us. It makes me a little sad.
Still, the potntial for hurt is a selfish reason to hold back from the relationships that open up before you. We've been getting more and more plugged in as we've stayed here. We did another night serving homeless folks at the Nightshelter ministry (I think I mentioned it ino a previous post once). And we're getting plugged in to a married couples group next week which will be cool too.
Being close to the youngest people in church is a really weird feeling. In a cool way. I feel a bit like everyone I meet in this place has a lot to teach me. And I feel wisdom and maturity slowly ripening and making space in my mind and soul the longer we stay. Which is awesome. Wisdom is a big deal, turns out. I've been reading in Proverbs the last week or so and wisdom is a big deal. It’s tied inextricably to righteousness and prosperity and happiness and the fear of the Lord and living uprightly. It’s worth pursuing. And the alternative is terrifying. The consequences of foolishness are really serious. A life spent seeking wisdom wouldn’t be wasted, it’s telling me, and I’m finding it each and every day here. Which isn’t to say that can’t or won’t continue when we go home. It probably will. But I’m enjoying today and here and this and now while I’ve got them.
So, in sum, life is marching on and it’s treating us quite kindly for the time being. Work is often hard and there’s always more to do than we have time or energy for but that’s part of being a grownup and making a life somewhere. The closer we get to June and our return to Canada the more eager we are for it to come soon, but we’re also conscious that we want to go home knowing we squeezed all we could out of this opportunity here and that we made the most of the place and the time. Thank you for your prayers. Fire one of us an email. Let us know what you’re up to this spring. Keep us in the loop.
Hey John and Alyssa! :)
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, thanks SO much for sending something for the birthday gift/book that Em compiled for me. I was so touched reading what you wrote and it meant a lot to me.
I always enjoy reading your blogs and finding out what you have been up to, as well as what God has been showing you. You have had SUCH COOL opportunities for travelling and it seems like the church you're plugged into has really been a good thing for you both. I'm happy that you have been getting work, even though it's challenging... that's what I hear the first year of teaching is like anywhere you go!
Homesickness is inevitable I guess, when you're away for such a long time from people who love and miss you. But I guess it's a good thing in a sense, because it means that you've been blessed with so many great relationships in life :) It gives you a lot to look forward to when you do home back home, even though I know you will miss the life you've built in London.
I'm praying for you guys!