Month: September 2018

Anya is thriving! It was so good to see her in her new contexts in London.

I arrived mid-day on Saturday with 2 large rolling duffel bags and carryons. Most was her stuff. We got unpacked a bit.

Next was lunch at Lee Abbey, her housing facility.

Then, we caught the Tube (subway) to see the Dream Girls musical, in one of the West End theaters that is not too far from Anya’s school. It was great. I only wish that some of the singing was at 80 to 90% of the volume. At times the sound was pushed to distortion volumes for some of the most amazing and full soul voices I’ve ever heard.

We went back to Lee Abbey to pick up my backpack.

Then we returned to only a 5-minute walk from the theater to have dinner with Dave, Connie, and Connie’s mom, Ordetta, who was visiting from the Bay Area. Eric’s family and Ordetta’s family grew up together. Now Connie and Dave live a 10-minute walk away from King’s College.

It was great for Anya to connect with all the stories of Ordetta’s late husband, Paul, who was Eric’s spiritual father growing up. Now, Anya has long-term family friends that she is comfortable with in London. I stayed with them while in London, and we stayed up to midnight talking the first night.

We joined them for church at a really hip church that meets on the London School of Economics campus. It was a meaningful worship with mostly young adults. Anya met a few students as we chatted for a while after the service. I was please to see Anya initiate conversations and feeling comfortable making new connections.

The five of us had great hamburgers for lunch, and then Anya and I went on our own. We visited Kings College, and I somehow talked Anya into letting me take some pictures. Which do you like the best?

Wonder of wonders, she let me take a groupie photo of us both by her campus. Kings College is in part of the Somerset House buildings.

The library is not open for just anybody, like me, so I didn’t get to see the stunning reading room (this time). So, here’s the view from the outside.

We spent a little time at the National Gallery, where I impressed Anya with my limited knowledge. I’ve been watching the BBC show Fake or Fortune? and some lectures from the National Gallery on YouTube. The backstory of the artists makes the paintings more interesting.

We had dim sum (Cantonese food) for dinner and then Anya went home as I returned to my host home. On Sunday night, we only talked until 10 pm, cut short because of an early Monday morning departure. How renewing it is to live in the English-speaking world and connect with people who go quite a ways back in shared history.

I met Anya for breakfast on Monday morning before her first lecture at 11:00. Unfortunately, our plans for more dim sum were thwarted by closed restaurants. Dim sum is clearly not for breakfast in London. So, we found a nice little coffee shop and kitchen, where I had an amazing breakfast of figs, pistachios, nasturtium blossoms, on some creamy-honey layer on sourdough with a “sticky chai.”

We said goodbye, as she serenaded me with the  start of the ABBA song, “Slipping Through My Fingers” by Agnetha Fältskog.

School bag in hand / She leaves home / In the early morning
Waving goodbye / With an absent-minded smile
I watch her go / With a surge of / That well-known sadness
And I have to sit down / For a while
The feeling that I’m / Loosin her forever
And without really / Entering her world
I’m glad whenever I / Can share her laughter
That funny little girl

Slipping through my fingers / All the time…

I’ve resolved to celebrate her wonderful opportunity and try to not feel sorry for myself when I’m feeling lonely. I am consoled knowing that she is thriving and navigating her college experience with remarkable wisdom for her age. Providentially, she has made some friends in her math department who are fun to be with and who do not choose to go “clubbing” on the weekends. Fortunately, with texts and FaceTime on our iPhones, we can make occasional check ins. So, join me in thanking God for providing this amazing journey for Anya.

I had a little walk that morning, which included a view of the Thames, as King’s College is right by the river.

Finally, on my way home, I passed Buckingham Palace on my way to catch the train to Gatwick Airport.

And now for something totally different… This week, I found out that I have an invitation to the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology (EGST), which I visited in February 2017, a partner institution to JTH. I will teach a 2-week intensive on Old Testament biblical interpretation focusing on the Pentateuch sometime in January 2019.

With blessings,

Beth

Tomorrow, I go to London for 2 nights.

I’m bringing 2 rolling duffel bags that Anya packed before she left, a carry on (with mostly Anya’s stuff), and a small personal item. I’m traveling very light personally, though it won’t look like it. Thus, I’ll need to get a taxi to the airport, as I won’t be able to manage the baggage by myself. This was still the best way we could figure out how to get the most luggage to London. Now, we are smarter and would have done it differently!

I will have a 4:00 am taxi pick up, so I’ll try to head to bed early, though I’m not sure I’ll fall asleep right away.

While I am not looking forward to the hassle of international travel, I am looking forward to seeing Anya in her world there.

Here are previews of other coming attractions: I would like to see the King’s College chapel again.

I would like to see the King’s College library too.

I’ll appreciate your prayers for good travels and nice visits. It will be good for me to get away for a bit, as I know I’m in a bit of a funk. Yes, I’m adjusting to Anya being gone, but I think I’m mostly weary of not being fluently functional in Swedish.

With blessings,

Beth

It was only 4 days ago that Anya left for London. It seems way longer. Yet somehow, the days seem to fly by without getting enough done.

So, yes, I’ve been keeping busy. There was a Bible school overnight retreat on a lake about 30 miles north of Uppsala. It was quite nice weather, but not enough time to enjoy it.

My time was a bit shorter, as I had to teach on Tuesday morning and then go to the retreat center by bus. At least it was a change of pace and a good opportunity to get to know the students a bit better outside the classroom.

I confirmed with a couple students that these two sentences:

• What is the boy eating?
• What is eating the boy?

are translated the same exact way in Swedish:

Vad äter pojken?

My reading recently includes:

• Decolonising the Mind: the Politics of Language in African Literature (Heinemann Educational, 1986), by Kenyan novelist and post-colonial theorist Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o.
• Vanhoozer, Kevin J. “Truth”. S 818-823 i Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible. London: SPCK, 2005.

The first is for a paper I’m co-writing with a student to present at the Society of Biblical Literature in Denver in November. It isn’t a major part of the paper, but I want to address a bit of the dilemma of under-represented languages (and under-resourced) in a world where English is so prevalent. There is a deeper issue related to my inability to teach in Swedish at my current capacity. While some students prefer the broader theological vocabulary (and resources) in English, I wonder if my English instruction is reducing the effectiveness of future pastors (they call them “priests” here) in being able to “translate” the OT Hebrew into concepts that preach well for their parishioners. I ponder on.

The second article is in preparation for the hermeneutics course (a beginning meaning of “hermeneutics” is the philosophy of interpretation) that I will teach in the second block of the fall term. I only have 6 hours of lessons, as Sweden does not have a requirement of so many hours of lessons per credit. (I’m not a fan, but then I figured out that can end class early and invite students to stay for a “reflection” time that integrates life, faith, and ministry into the conversation which—by law—cannot be engaged in an “academic” course).

So, the deep thought of the day occurred at my colleague’s sessions at the retreat. In her lesson, she asked the students to identify their 5 closest human relationships. Sigh. I realized that all of my closest relationships are far away. Anya is the closest in London.

Anya is doing well. She had her math department orientation today and went to Starbucks with 2 other new students that she just met there. So, she is connecting with others, though she is still waiting for a roommate to arrive (which is encouraging her to continually keep the room orderly, as she could arrive anytime!).

So, we continue on (håller på).

With blessings,

Beth

For the past week, Anya has been seriously sorting and figuring out what to pack for her year of studies at King’s College London. The ping pong table was part of the collection area.

Then, she asked former-missionary-mom,—with the spiritual gift of packing—to put things in the rolling duffel bags. That means that we hit the weight limit before the space was maxed out.

This morning, I got up with Anya early to catch the 4:05 am bus to the central station, and then we caught the bus to the airport. We know this system. It takes about an hour, but it is the most affordable way.  It is only $12.26 for both of us to get to the airport. If we took the bus-fast train, it would have cut off 20 minutes, but it is 3 times as expensive. A taxi would have been half the time, but about 5 times as expensive. So, we took the bus to the airport, which was amazingly full at 4:30 am.

It was a good thing that we arrived early, as the security line was the longest one I have EVER seen! I stayed with Anya in line until she entered a turnstile, which was perhaps 40 minutes of waiting.

Anya took the train from the London Gatwick airport. She had planned to order an Uber car from the train station to get to her new home, but there was no WIFI at the London station. So, she ended up taking a taxi waiting out front.

However, somehow in the payment, she either forgot or lost her debit card. Fortunately, she could call me, and I got her USA debit card shut off (with 0% international exchange rate), without any unauthorized charges. She’s now using her Swedish debit card, and I had secured a back up credit card for her just for international travel. So, she still has access to funds (with 1.5% international exchange rate), as well as some British pounds that were a graduation gift from Jean and Marv last June.

After the unfortunate start with the loss of a debit card and the resulting stress, she is now back to her eagerness for being in London. Her housing facility is nice. She has 3 meals a day on the weekends, and breakfasts and dinners on the weekends. She said that the dinner tonight was really good, with lots of food dished onto the plates. She said that she’ll have to be careful not to gain the “freshman 15.” I told her especially in the metric world, as 15 kilograms would be 33 pounds!

We FaceTime called after dinner, and she showed me what the rooms look like. However, most of our conversation was her stories about who she met at dinner, mostly the grad students, as most undergrads arrive next week. But she said is was so easy to talk with people, who were so nice. Instead of awkward small talk, it was the first time in her life where she felt really comfortable talking with new people.

After a long nap, I spent my day with trying to figure out why her data doesn’t work in London, and getting her financial matters straightened out, like getting the credit card functioning for internet purchases to set up a British phone account. The rest of the day was cleaning the house after the packing process. Even the refrigerator is cleaned out (one of my least favorite tasks)!

So, perhaps I am coping by cleaning—keeping busy with things that show progress. Yes, my life just changed. I’ve been dreading this. Even back when Anya was in probably 4th grade, we read the Anne of Green Gables series. (We read perhaps 70 books together from 4th grade until the start of our time in Sweden.) When Anne went off to college, I cried, imagining the day when Anya would go off to her college. Well, I didn’t cry today. I will see her next weekend when I will bring more luggage. She will meet me at the airport to help wrangle two rolling duffel bags through public transportation.

I am not looking forward to dealing with being an empty-nester by myself, while still in a land where I do not have deep roots nor speak the language well. There is plenty to do, just not friends to do them with. Yes, I will figure out how to manage.

With blessings,

Beth