Month: December 2017

Greetings from Bellevue, WA. We flew into Sea-Tac airport late on the 26th. Anya was picked up by her friend, Annaliese, and I was picked up by my friend, Janet.

Annaliese and Anya have been friends since before kindergarten. For most of their lives, they shared school, neighborhood, and church–the only friend to do so. Janet and I have known each other since 1988, when I returned to Lutheran Bible Institute to work. We have worked together, shared a house (with Diane and 2 cats), and so much of life together (including a lot of hiking, basketball, badminton, tennis, and even a round of golf, which is not my thing). She visited us in Tanzania and is planning to visit us in Sweden in the spring. After Eric died, Janet was the one who frequently moved into our house to take care of Anya when she was younger and I had to travel for my PhD. Janet is one of those dear friends who helped me learn that “hospitality” was not women in the church basement–making coffee and cleaning up after coffee hour–but rather, hospitality is the gift of letting someone be their true, unpolished selves in your presence. No wonder that after about 25 years of youth ministry, Janet honed her people-caring skills and is now a licensed therapist.

Janet had offered to loan us an extra car, but it was hit just a few days ago. While Janet has some minor to moderate head, back, and neck pain, she is otherwise fine and receiving treatments. However, her car is totaled. So, other mutual friends, Pam and Tom (Pam was the woman who intentionally put Eric and me in the same community group in the fall of 1993 at Lutheran Bible Institute!), were out of town during my visit and left their car with Janet for me. This is the tangible blessing of friendship, but I’m also savoring the intangible aspects.

I stayed with Janet that night to avoid driving after midnight while still jet lagged. With a good night’s sleep in a cozy bed, I was off to Everett to meet a friend–after changing my planned route up I-5 due to a complete closure of all lanes after a crane fell off a truck. (If you’d like to see the carnage, here’s the news story link.) I was later than planned to visit my friend, Jill, but we had a good amount of time to catch up. Then, I was off to visit another friend, Pam, who is doing her year of internship in a North Seattle Lutheran church. We had time for lunch and a good long chat, before heading off to visit 3 more friends, Pam, Charlie, and Beth. (Yes, this is the 3rd Pam in this posting! I am blessed by Pams.) Charlie and Pam, husband and wife, are Fuller Seminary professors that ended up becoming mentors and now friends. I doubt that I would have pursued a PhD without their encouragement, wisdom, and guidance. Charlie invited me to be a reading partner through most of a 2 volume series on theological anthropology by David Kelsey.

This journey helped me read very challenging texts and prepared me for my PhD engagement of portions of the hermeneutical philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer. These session with Charlie were, however, more than a theological conversations. I will be forever grateful for Charlie’s pastoral care through Eric’s cancer and death, as well as my grieving.

Pam also invested a huge amount of time and care with advising and tutorials in Hebrew. Another pre-PhD hopeful, Amy, and I met with Pam and worked through the translation of most of the Hebrew portions of the Book of Daniel. (For those who might not know, there are also a few chapters in Aramaic, which I have never studied.) Pam was writing a commentary on the book (yes, she is that level of a scholar), and she was willing to work with Amy and me in order to develop our Hebrew skills.

I headed to Kristi and Peter’s for the evening–Annaliese’s parents. This is where Anya and I are staying while in Bellevue. Four teenagers arrived shortly after I drove up. They were at the Seattle Art Museum and Seattle for the day, and then they had a fun evening together.

How renewing it is to be with wonderful friends.

With blessings,

Beth

Catching up

Again I awoke at 3:45 am here in Cupertino, California (next to San Jose), still in jetlag mode. Anya and I celebrated Christmas with my in-laws—her dad’s side of the family, with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and even a second cousin.

Here are a few of the significant highlights—and lowlights—from the past several days.

Departure from Sweden crisis

Friday morning, I arranged for a taxi to take us to the airport at 4:00 am. We don’t own a car, and with our big suitcases, it would be bad to try to get them on our bicycles to head to the bus station a whole hour earlier. We also don’t want to leave our bikes at the station for 2.5 weeks.

The taxi was ready, parked right outside our entrance, so because I helped carry Anya’s bag down two flights of stairs, I thought I would just help her carry it out to the taxi. However, the entrance door closed behind us. Typically that is not a problem, as it is unlocked most of the time—but not at 4:00 am. Typically, I would have my keys in my pocket, Anya too, but I only had the spare key connected to my bag. Yes, it was still in our apartment, and we were locked out with a flight to catch in 2.5 hours!

I have talked with one neighbor, Lars, but I don’t know his phone number. He used to study at JTH, so I called my colleague, Jim (fortunately, he usually gets up at 4:00 am), and Jim was able to find Lars’ phone number. I called Lars, but his phone was off. Ugh!

I searched the Internet with my phone (fortunately, Anya and I both had our phones) and found the student apartment number and was able to reach an emergency person. She said that she would send someone out, but it would take 30 minutes! Ack!

In the meantime, Anya was figuring things out. She knew the name of one of the women, Ida, who lived a floor below. While we don’t know our neighbors—this is Sweden—all the basic contact information of every resident in Sweden is on the internet: name, address, birthdate (yes, with the year). Fortunately, Ida’s phone number was on this registry. Anya called 3 times, which were all declined. So, Anya sent a text explaining that we were locked out, and could she open the entrance door? Ida was not in the apartment, but she woke up her flatmate, who came down to let us in. We were effusively thankful to this woman that we have never met before, and now we meet while she is in her pajamas. Then, I cancelled the apartment guy to come and unlock the door.

Anya saved the morning! Only 20 minutes late, we were off. The taxi driver was kind, even inviting us to sit inside while we were waiting, and he gave us a reasonable rate for the delay.

It took me half a day to calm down. Perhaps the movies during the flight from Amsterdam to San Francisco were a blessed distraction.

In the Bay Area

I was glad to have an opportunity to visit my aunt in San Jose for dinner on Saturday evening. Often, we go out to the Monterrey Bay while my aunt travels, so we miss each other. This time, my father-in-law sold the beach condo this past year and my aunt was leaving after Christmas, so we had this window of opportunity. She is a wonderful, retired elementary school principal who relentlessly cared for and advocated for her late husband for 10 years after a huge stroke. She inspired me along that long journey.

I am here for the Christmas celebrations with extended family from St. Louis and Boston.

Tonight, we fly to the Seattle area for time with friends there.

With blessings,

Beth

 

I’ve been quite busy lately, so I haven’t been posting. I’m still busy, but I’m needing a break. This week I have 6 hours of new course prep for mission history: 500 years on Africa in 90 minutes, 500 years on Asia in 90 minutes, and 500 years in Asia, but I get 3 hours for all of Asia.

So my days have been full with memories of my church history prof at Fuller Seminary. Charlie later became a mentor, while his wife, Pam mentored me in biblical Hebrew. Today, I taught both Hebrew and mission history, but not nearly as polished as I’d like this first time through regarding the latter (Hebrew will always leave me humble as a life-long student, and it is more complex teaching it to Swedish speakers. Pam, there is no Hebrew-Swedish lexicon!).

I integrated Charlie’s use of primary source documents to supplement the textbook readings. However, as students are not native English speakers and some are less comfortable in English, I haven’t quite figured out how to optimize them yet. So, a couple I just read with a couple guided questions for discussion.

I think my theme for today was “be wary of reductionism.” Oversimplified characterizations of denominations, movements, people, and such are often dangerous. I think,  inspired by Charlie, I was able to graciously challenge some presuppositions in a way that encouraged pondering more authentically on a few key issues. For example, I had the privilege of introducing the class to Bishop Romero, a martyr for the people suffering injustice in El Salvador. From clips of a biopic, his life helped some think differently of views of liberation that are not simply Marxist ideology, but rather connected to Jesus’ holistic ministry.

So, most of my weekend was preparing for these lessons. New course preparations are time consuming. However, I did go to Stockholm with Anya for Sunday worship. While I was away, she visited an international church that is part of a collaboration between the Mission Covenant, Evangelical Free, and some other flavor. She’s been there a couple times, and has started to get to know some people. One guy is from Mexico and doesn’t speak Swedish or really any English, so Anya with her fluency in Spanish is a good one for him to talk with and to help engage him in our conversation through some translation.

Last Wednesday evening, I was invited to the Bible school’s pre-Nobel dinner. I even wore a dress. While I usually wear skirts in Africa, I don’t like wearing skirts or dresses, but I did for the students. They didn’t realize that was the first time in probably 10 years I wore a dress outside of Africa! I did look weird biking

The other festive highlight was on Dec. 2, when Anya and I went to Donna and Lennart’s home for their “Light Party.” Outdoor Christmas lights are not a big thing in Sweden, but American Donna has brought this tradition to her home. They gather about a dozen friends for a few hours of controlled chaos of stringing lights. They have a nice fika with homemade cheesecake, and after the last tradition of stringing lights from the flagpole, it is dinner time. However, I went of to the First of Advent concert at our church.

For Christmas music, I recommend this wonderful and worshipful instrumental piano music by Tim Oladeru.

So, off to 500 years of mission history in Asia!

With blessings,

Beth