Wondering Where Home is Now

I can't believe I've been home for two weeks and a day and I still feel like I can walk out the door and down the street into town, central Oxford. It's ridiculous how fast the time has gone, from the moment I entered the Study Abroad meeting during Passport before college started until this moment, Christmas night, after the semester is all said and done. I really miss Oxford and my friends there, but I think because it's more within my reach I miss Abilene and my friends there more. I'm really excited to go back (January 10th!) and room with Rebekah again. That'll be such a blast! :)

Cornmarket at night near Christmas

Quick update on the last week of Oxford:
- Thursday, December 4th: last cell group, last Risky. Cell was sad, but good. I'm so glad I got a chance to meet those people; they love the Lord so much and are so intent on spreading His word and love. I got a photo of all of us. Risky was good too and afterwards the usual group (me, Anne, Colin, and Ed) went to G&Ds and hung out. I got really sad that it was the last time we were seeing both of them! But fortunately I got a photo of all of us and I can see Anne at school in a few weeks.
- Friday, December 5th: We went to Hyde Park in London to see the Christmas lights and festivities. Then we saw the musical Wicked. It was SO GOOD. It had really cool sets and costumes, the songs were great, the performers were amazing, and it was hilarious!
- Saturday, December 6th: I further explored Oxford with Anne and Rebekah. I had never walked through Jericho just for the the heck of it, except to get to Port Meadow, but I'm glad I finally did; it's really neat. I did a bunch of Christmas shopping too. We ate lunch at this place on Broad Street called Cafe Creme ('tis fabulous).
- Sunday, December 7th: We went to St. Aldate's for the last time and it ended up being the children's Christmas play! It was so cute and it was great that we saw it because we thought we were going to miss it for sure.
- Monday, December 8th: That evening, we got all nice and went to dinner with the whole group at Freud's Cafe. Then some of us were going to go to The Bridge to hang out, but there was something going on and most of us didn't want to wait to figure it out, so we left and went to G&Ds. Then Anne and I parted from that group to go to club outreach, which was fun and kind of sad. I got a picture of our usual team (me, Turlough, Pete, Anne, and Gary) at the end, and I'm so glad because I can now cherish it forever!
- Tuesday, December 9th: I went to lunch with Turlough, Anne, and Pete at the Gourmet Burger Kitchen and to Ben's Cookies afterwards. We were so glad to be able to hang out with them one last time. I'm missing them so much!! At least I'll get to see Anne in a couple weeks though, haha.

I'm gonna miss crazy British signs like this

So...
I really feel like this semester I've gained a lot of confidence, not only in navigating through places I've never been but also in evangelism and speaking about the Lord. Club outreach definitely helped with that (because it was experience) but so did my cell group. Something that Tom, one of my cell group leaders, said one time has stuck with me ever since he said it. It was regarding Matthew 28:19 ("... go and make disciples..."). Usually when we think of this we think of an intentional mission, a purposeful movement out of ourselves to speak about Jesus, specifically. He put a new spin on it: "In your going, make disciples." As you live, with everything you do and say, always be thinking about spreading the Word and be intent on that as you live your daily life doing daily things, no matter what they are. Kind of like that St. Francis of Assisi quote, "Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words," but I like the Matthew paraphrase better. :)

Under the top bunk in our room

I'm a little nervous about returning back to Abilene. I've missed meeting most of the new freshmen and anyone else that may have arrived at lovely ACU, I've developed new relationships, I've not kept up old ones like I should have, and I'm not sure how things are going socially there. I feel like everything is going to be so different and I'm just hoping I can cope with it alright. I'm scared that good friends that I had last year will no longer be good friends and that where I'll want to be is not going to be possible.

Notable Notes from November (short travel break)

A view of east Oxford

I realize it's been far too long since I've last posted. It's been almost two weeks since our last travel break, of which I just decided to stay in Oxford and go to Bath as a day trip on Saturday. I will briefly update you on that weekend. (And I still have not the energy to write up about Spain... that will come later... still).

Cornmarket (and Tom Tower!) from St Michael at the North Gate tower

Thursday, November 6 --
I left the house at about noon to walk around town. I was also able to get some homework assignments done because of a couple places I went, so that was nice. I went to the Ashmolean Museum and I wasn't thoroughly impressed... the Treasures Room was cool but other than that, I wasn't too interested. Luckily it was free of charge. Than I went and had lunch in Caffe Nero, which is pretty expensive but hey, this was my day out. They have the best tuna melt you will ever eat, and the most amazing white chocolate mocha. Next I went to St. Michael at the North Gate tower and church. It was really cool to be on top of the oldest building in Oxford and I spent quite a bit of time just watching people walk down Cornmarket. After that I went to the Oxford University souvenir shops hoping to find a sweatshirt, but alas, I was too indecisive so I left that purchase for yet another day. It was interesting to be walking around Oxford without that knowledge that I need to hurry up and finish whatever I'm doing to get back to the houses right away to do homework. Well, I did have a ton of homework I could have been doing, but I was giving myself a break (because if I really had gone out of the country somewhere I wouldn't have been doing homework). I walked down Iffley Road and back up Cowley Road and decided that it was a pretty neat part of town, but not so much when it's starting to get dark. I wandered over to the basement at St Aldates' Parish Centre for the 24/7 Prayer Week they were hosting. It was great to be able to participate (again; I had gone earlier in the week), especially since I missed it on campus at ACU this semester. Cell group and Risky Living were next on the agenda for the night, and they were amazing as usual.

Friday, November 7 --

Basically stayed at home and worked on homework and read while the rain fell outside. It was lovely. I spent some awesome time with my lovelies Mary and Meagan; we even baked banana bread! :)

River in Bath

Saturday, November 8 --

I went to Bath with Mary, Katherine, and David. It is a really cute city. Besides stopping in to a little cafe for lunch, before we headed to the Roman baths we also walked a little along the river. The Roman baths were pretty interesting. I'm just glad I wasn't around during that time though. After this, we went and "bathed" as modern day people do: in a spa! The Thermae Bath Spa was awesome... we got to stay for two hours in this multi-story building with spas and scented steam rooms. The rooftop pool was the best though. David had a little trouble relaxing though (that's what happens when swimmers get into a pool), but we girls had it down. The steam rooms were really cool as well: frankincense, mint and eucalyptus, lavender, and mint. The lavender was my favorite while the frankincense nearly choked me to death. After we got dried and dressed we took the train back home.

Roman baths

Sunday, November 9 --

I spent the morning doing homework and procrastinating on doing homework. :) Katherine and I went to the late service at St Aldates because we finally had a weekend without our "house church" worship meeting, 9@9. It was similar to Unite and definitely made me miss Abilene.

Monday, November 10 --

I think I mostly just procrastinated on my Christian Worship paper this day. I don't really remember much of what happened on Monday, to be honest. All I really remember is that because Anne wasn't back from Switzerland yet, I walked down to the St Aldates intern flat alone at 10:45 PM... which was a little unnerving, but not awful. Anyway, yeah, club outreach that night was awesome... a lot of conversations got going and we didn't see any fights break out or anything. This one guy kept coming back for tea, and I think he'd had about 8 cups by the time he left (he was waiting for someone). If I see him again tonight I will definitely remember how he likes his tea!

It's Been A Week

Unfortunately, I have yet to gather the strength to finish my Spain posts (but don't worry -- it will come in time!!) Here is a summary of my past week...

CS Lewis lived here!

Monday, 20th:
Went to The Kilns, where CS Lewis lived for part of his adult life. It was quite interesting, and visiting students at the University actually live there (I wouldn't want to live there because I wouldn't want tourists tromping through my house!). Behind the house is a sort of reserve with walking paths and foresty trees and logs and it was beautiful because the leaves are changing colour.

Late Monday night/Early Tuesday morning, 20th-21st:
Anne and I decided to get involved in the club outreach ministry with our church, St Aldates. We just signed up for it and didn't even know exactly what was involved except that we were supposed to be handing out bottles of water in front of clubs in the middle of the night. It sounded so intimidating and I still cannot believe I agreed to do it, and we were both so nervous before that I don't even know how I actually ended up at the meeting place that night (it definitely wasn't on my own). We met with 5 other people who were going to do it, 4 guys and a girl. The night began with a time of prayer and then we set out. We split up into 4 and 3; I was with the group of 4 and we set up outside this club nearby. The others set up at a different one a couple streets over. All we did really was offer hot coffee and tea, bottles of water, and cookies. It was definitely a unique experience and definitely one I wouldn't trade for anything. I plan to keep doing it. Most of our offers got a warm reception, while others were simply ignored. We even got some conversations started. The question of "Why are you guys doing this?" came up quite often. At first I didn't know how to answer it, but then after thinking for a second it was obvious: we were just worshipping God in a simple way by showing love to people around us. I think it's really significant that something like this is going on because it's a very relevant way to serve the Oxford community. Night life is vibrant here (sometimes a little too lively, as evidenced by the couple of drunken fights and almost-fights). It made me kind of sad to see hundreds of young people wobbling about unsteadily, the scantily clad young women in their high heels on the cobbled driveways and the young men in their collared shirts. I think most of them were probably students. I was saddened by how many people were out getting smashed just at this one club (oh, and the ones across the street).

Thursday, 23rd:
I went to my first student cell group with St Aldates! It was so good. It's co-ed, which is a new experience for me, but a great one so far. The sort of focus for our group is evangelism, which I think is so ironic because of the club outreach I did earlier this week and the fact that that area is where I scored lowest in this "spiritual life" worksheet we did in Christian Worship the night before. It was actually only the second meeting for the group so I only missed the first one last week. We discussed what "evangelism" means and plan to get deeper as the weeks go on and eventually I think we are going to get into the practicalities of it and are going to practice it. After cell group was Risky Living, the student mid-week meeting for St Aldates. This was my third time to go and I didn't meet as many new people this time as the first two times because I was sitting with people I had just met at my cell group... Except for one guy. And this guy made me laugh because he goes, "In America... They have free refills!" And the rest of the table was in awe. Hahahaha!! Anyway, Risky is beautiful because it starts out with a meal and a lot of things can be learned and shared over a single meal. It moves into worship and then from that into the message and then prayer and worship. There are normally so many students there... I'd say probably 130ish? I may be completely wrong, but there are a LOT. It is so encouraging to have a place where there are students my age but they're not American! I love it.

"A piece of Texas in the heart of London!"

Friday, 24th:
London! Our class took a trip into the big city. This was my first time to go and from what I experienced, it was great! There were tons of manuscripts in the British Library to keep us busy for a much longer time than we had (everything from the Beatles to the Bible to the Magna Carta to da Vinci to Shakespeare to Jane Austen to Mozart...). Then we went to Westminster Palace (Big Ben, Houses of Parliament) and took a tour. Afterwards, a few of us wanted to tour Westminster Abbey but, much to our dismay (but to our wallets' rejoicing) it had just closed half an hour before. So we kind of wandered about... Through the orange leaves and lazy river of St James' Park to the official-looking Buckingham Palace. Once we got there, we realized that we needed to find something to eat... So we headed towards Trafalgar Square and had a little bit of home! We found the Texas Embassy Restaurant and it was like a little piece of Texas in my tummy. Even though it was Tex-Mex and not real Mexican, it was still so so so welcome. The most exciting part, though, was the fact that they had an ACU flag upstairs! I even signed the wall (they have this wall where people from Texas sign - I know I'm not Texan but I go to ACU... So there). Then we had only a 1 minute walk to Her Majesty's Theater... Because our show Phantom of the Opera was starting in half an hour! Haha, and when Rebekah and I went to pick up the tickets, my friend Spenser and his friend Cory who are both studying with Pepperdine in London were there and I actually had to do a double take when Spenser asked if he could take our photo for us because I didn't recognize him (and it's only been, what, two months since I've seen him). Anyway, the show was amazing! Beautiful... Pleasing to the eye and ear. Every time a scene ended I would think, "Wow, that was great - that was my favorite." Then the next one would start and I'd change my mind... And it just continued. Haha. It was so much better than I could have imagined. So much better than the movie, and I love the movie!

Before the show! So excited!!

Beautiful Big Ben and the Underground sign

Saturday, 25th:
Spenser and Cory came into Oxford and we hung out pretty much all day. We walked around town... Cornmarket, Merton College, Radcliffe Square, Eagle and Child, University Parks, ACU houses. It was a very pleasant day. I haven't had a day I could just wander about Oxford in a really long time, and this time I got to do it with an old friend from home (and his friend who is now my friend, because Facebook makes everything official, right?).

Early September

Okay, I'm going to be honest here: I really do not feel like blogging right now. However, seeing as I'm about to be out in Ireland and Scotland in a couple days, I decided I just need to sit down and overview a few recent things before I come back and need to write about that trip. So here it goes...

I was quite pleased when the St Giles Fair came into town last week, especially since I was missing the West Texas Fair (ahh fond memories of last year...). I didn't ride anything (the only ride I wanted to ride on was 5 pounds - that's almost $10!), but I did buy some delicious fudge, rhubarb and custard candies (I had no idea what they were either; they're really good though!), and ate half of Anne's YUMMY chocolate and strawberry crepe. It was really neat seeing the contrast between the old buildings and the new fair equipment. The fair took up all of St Giles Street, which is huge, and it stopped traffic and everything. It smelled so good: you'd walk five feet and be smelling donuts (which they had a lot of... it seemed to be their version of funnel cake, hah), then you'd walk another five feet and smell meat, then another five feet and the scent of sweets would engulf you.

Last Friday our C.S. Lewis class walked down to Magdalen College and wandered around the grounds for a while. It's amazing to me how all these buildings can be so intricate. I wonder why people would have taken so much time and care just for a building. However, I do like them a LOT more than any modern building. The other day I was walking down a street with newer buildings and it just felt wrong... it didn't feel "Oxfordian." It did make me feel more like I was back home though... which was good and also not good.

Okay, so like the past two days we've been having amazing weather; meaning, in the 70s and sunny. So a group of us decided to go to the Botanic Gardens (partly because it's for a class and partly because we couldn't pass up the opportunity to be outside). At the garden, there were different little houses, each with a different type of climate and the plants that grew in that climate. I was excited to see a Venus flytrap, because I think they're cute. Also, out on the grounds, we saw J.R.R. Tolkien's favorite tree... which is kind of random (that he even had a favorite tree there) but really awesome. It was this huge old tree and quite majestic. I have a picture down below.

I have this song stuck in my head from church yesterday... at St Aldates, they seem to have this practice (at least, the two times I've been there) of getting all the children up in the front with the band to sing a song or two and perform the motions that go along with the song. So, they sang this song yesterday that went something like this: "My God is big, my God is great, my God is fab and He's my mate..." I don't remember the rest of it, but that part just keeps playing over and over in my head. I think it's really funny that they'd call God "fab," first of all, and then "mate"... I felt a little strange singing it because I don't think I've ever really thought of God that way before... I mean, He's my friend, but I wouldn't necessarily characterize Him as "fab" (whatever that means --- I associate it with phrases such as "Fab Four/Five" or other silly monickers preteen girls give their group of friends). I dunno, maybe it's just that connotation of the word that makes me feel funny about that song. I am, however, realizing that God is in control, even here. Psalm 139 (my favorite Psalm) reminds me that He never leaves, even while I'm thinking that He's not here, even while I'm having trouble finding Him, even while I keep focusing on myself. I guess it's just been a little difficult to find time and place to really get into the Word and to pray deeply like I used to. I feel like I've been disrupted. I really miss the Quiet Place - that was my favorite place to pray. Even though we do have amazing places outdoors here, such as University Parks, I sometimes just want to be completely alone, without any distractions.

Alright, so that wasn't too bad. I took 43 minutes to type/think this up. :) The next time I post it will be about Dublin/Edinburgh! Be ready! haha

peace