Month: May 2019

Today is a “red day,” which means a national holiday. I’m catching up on some grace days early in the month when I went to London, so I did some work today, including reviewing a bachelor’s thesis. I was well done, but I have some questions and suggestions for the defense next Tuesday.

This past Tuesday was my last lessons for the academic year. The students had their presentation on their exegesis (interpretation), but I have them appropriate their interpretation for application in a lesson plan. The first part of a lesson (the “hook”) is what they presented.

After lunch, they took the exam. Yes, that means I have exams to grade as well as 5 thesis to read (2 bachelors, 2 magister [1-year program], and 1 master’s). In case you are wondering, everything is in Swedish! So, the chore of grading is magnified by slogging through the Swedish.

After the exam, I stayed on campus for a lecture by Dr. Bruk Ayele, the President of Mekane Yesus Seminary in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I have have met Bruk a couple times before and had dinner with him at a friend’s house last Sunday, but this was a very informative time with a overview of the programs and various challenges.

The dad of my German family/housemates has arrived for the weekend. He will head back to Germany shortly, but he prepared a way for the daughter to count the days until they are all together in Germany with a modified Advent calendar, a papa kalendar.

We are getting along these 6 weeks of overlap, and a few days with the dad, who is a joy to rally in ping pong. The mom and dad had some time together last night, and I helped out with reading Bamse, a children’s comic book, with the daughter. She was helping me with my Swedish. I realized how it was easier for me to read a bachelor’s thesis than a children’s comic book, as there is so much of language in the comic that is idiomatic and vernacular expressions! But it was a good time together and a good exercise for me.

With blessings,

Beth

The days are quite long now, with the sun rising at 3:48 am and setting at 9:43 pm with lots of dawn and dusk beyond those times. I’ve taped up a black-out curtain on wall because the black-out roller shade let too much light through the gaps.

The spring weather has been nice recently.

My condo gets the morning sun, and a sliver of afternoon sun. I still haven’t figured out how to hang up my hammock.

Steffi and Sophie (9 y.o.) are the mother and daughter of the friends I bought the condo from. Florian, the dad, has found a job and an apartment for them in Berlin already. The 6 week overlap with Steffi and Sophie is going really well, way better than expected. They have been good conversation partners–mostly in English, but I’m working on some Swedish too. Today it was a discussion of higher ed testing in Swedish contexts. Steffi has been teaching at the Uppsala University, so she has a different experience for me to compare and learn from. She is also an award winning teacher, so I’m grateful for the opportunity to learn from her expertise.

The past couple days has turned wet and cold. The rain has collected the pollen from the air and on the sidewalks.

I invited a few friends and students over to watch “The Princess Bride” last night. One was a student who will be going to the USA and work at a Bible camp that one of my friends serves as director. So, this was a little American cult film culture connection. Then we watched the Australian cult film, “The Castle.” Wonderfully wacky night with plenty of treats. I made my caramel/chocolate/pecans bars with a modified recipe, adapted to what I could find in Sweden.

In church this morning, the text had the line, “Herre, vi sjunger ditt heliga namn.” I would translate this into English as, “LORD, we sing your holy name. Yes, this phrase has lots of cognates, such that you probably wonder why I’m struggling to learn Swedish. However, my point here is that Herre/LORD is NOT YHWH’s/Yahweh’s name. The multi-faceted meanings and covenental context of YHWH is so powerful and full of promise, I am disappointed that there has been so much circumlocution (walking around the name–especially its pronunciation), that people think that Herre/LORD is YHWH’s name. Don’t mess this up!

On a positive note, I was invited to dinner after church to the home of Staffan and Ingela Grenstedt. Staffan was my host in Ethiopia my first time. Today, they invited me to join Rev. Dr. Bruk Ayele, the President of Mekane Yesus Seminary in their home. I’ve met Bruk a few times before and have a high regard for him and all the challenges of his work. Today, I was blessed to hear more of the stories of generosity during the great famines, the communist regime, and at one point a gun held against his head challenging his profession of faith. So, I am blessed to share in these stories.

I haven’t been writing much. Some of this is a little funk. So, I thought perhaps I need to use this as a means of reflecting upon gratitude. I think that some of the lull is the little amount of teaching in the spring, and teaching keeps my focus and stimulates the core of my calling. However, I have a lot to do the next few days as the end of the term approaches, so somehow I have to muster my A-game.

With blessings,
Beth

Finally, I am back after a hiatus. Half of the hiatus was not planned, but some technical change on the side of the blog host company prevented me from logging in due to some security issue. Now that is fixed. Half of the hiatus was due to the busy time of packing, finalizing the sale, moving, unpacking with two 5-day/4-night trips to London!

I am getting more settled, but there still are boxes to unpack and some rearranging needed to make things more practical. I also need to keep exploring in order to remember where I put things!

The friends that I bought the condo from are in transition. The dad is in Germany doing a job hunt. The mom and 9 y.o. daughter are here through mid-June, so that the daughter can finish the school year. This is going quite well, better than expected, as it seems to be a mutual blessing with an extended orientation on all the systems here.

I will work on getting some photos posted soon, now that most of the boxes are out of the way.

The Good News

Today, I received an email from my PhD student colleague, who now is teaching OT in Norway. She informed me that my book was reviewed and posted on the last list of reviews published by the Society of Biblical Literature. I am very pleased with the review and the appropriate critique. What a nice bit of icing on the cake of this rich experience!

I believe that you can read it at this link without a login.

https://www.bookreviews.org/pdf/12015_13402.pdf

With blessings,

Beth