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.

Something I Don't Have to Say

I'm hardly in the mood to update this, as I'm currently in hate with Christmas (the commercialized version of it anyway) and very frustrated, but I figured since it's been two weeks since I've left Oxford and gotten back to Escondido, I should say something. Well. I'll just let "Oxford Spring 2007 KEB" (whoever that was; but thank you if it happens to be you) speak what I'd like to tell future travelers:

From the inside of a wardrobe in the biggest room (ours), House 10

Real update coming soon.

Thanksgiving Break

November 23-29

Overall, our trip to Greece was relaxing, partly because we stationed ourselves in Athens for the entirety of the week, with trips out of the city on a couple of days. I'm not gonna lie; I was not expecting what I experienced. I didn't anticipate that the Parthenon would be covered in scaffolding or that the street signs wouldn't match the maps. I also wasn't expecting, however, that the food would be so good or that the people would be so kind.

My travelmates were Rebekah, Katherine, Mary, and Kristi, and we stayed at this hostel right in the centre of Athens called Hotel Dioskouros. From there, we were right across the street from the Temple of Zeus and about a 15 minute walk from the Acropolis. Since we stayed in a private room, we got our own bathroom. That also wasn't what I expected it to be: the "shower" was nothing more than a square of porcelain on the floor next to the toilet with a faucet and showerhead/hose. It looked like a water fight happened after anybody took a shower.

Oh, you know how I roll... just chillin' on the Areopagus

Our first full day in town we went up the Acropolis, the huge flat rock with several monuments and temples. That is where the Parthenon and the Temple of Athena are located, among several other structures. (Those ancient Greeks were really dedicated to their gods. MAN.) One of the coolest things up there (well, not exactly... It's not on top of the Acropolis, more like off to the side) is the Areopagus , which is the rock hill on which the apostle Paul gave his sermon about the temple to an "unknown god." For dessert after lunch after we explored the Acropolis, I had Greek yoghurt and honey, which was amazing, but waaay too big!

Traffic in Athens is monstrously frightening. It is a big European city, and along with that comes a lot of cars, buses, trams, and motorcycles. Just in case anyone reading this plans on visiting, a word to the wise: don't trust the crosswalks, even if the green man comes up - vehicles WILL go whenever they please, especially motorcycles!

Another interesting (and much safer) aspect of Athens is the fact that uncovered ruins are sprinkled throughout the city. You will be walking down the street or through the underground station and there will be a preserved and roped off section of crumbling stones that were once some sort of structure. It is very strange and such a clash of the centuries.

Yeah, he's really following us home

A couple of times we had random dogs follow us back to the hostel, because there are so many wandering the streets. There are a lot of cats, too, but many more dogs. I began to take photos of every dog I saw, if my camera was easily accessible. It was like a scavenger hunt I was guaranteed to win.

That's 1 Corinthians I'm pointing to, ready to read

On Wednesday, Rebekah, Mary, and I took a trip to Corinth to see the ruins of Ancient Corinth. We were a little apprehensive about going because everyone had been asking us why we would even want to go there and there weren't any easy ways for us to get there, but we learned that nobody plans travel ahead of time in Greece, so it was a lot easier than we thought it would be (i.e. Bus and coach tickets). It was quite an adventure figuring out how we were going to get from place to place (there were many steps and stops), and we were never quite sure if we would be able to get to where we wanted, but it was a lot of fun and well worth it. We took a ton of photos and spent about an hour and a half just wandering around the ruins of this once great city. We read Acts 18 and portions of 1 and 2 Corinthians. It was bizarre to think that we were in a place where Paul stayed and spread the Gospel and built relationships and bridged gaps between Jews and Greeks.

That night, our friends Josh and Erin flew in from Rome and were staying in the same hostel as us. We went to the Hard Rock Cafe and had a ton of fun. On Thursday (Thanksgiving!), all 7 of us went on a day cruise to the islands of Hydra, Poros, and Aegina. The islands were all fairly similar to one another, but they were still quite picturesque and the water surrounding them was the most beautiful, clear, turquoise water I have ever seen. The houses and other buildings were pretty, neat, and white. The cruise ride itself was heaps of fun, as having Josh and Erin along adds a lot of excitement (woot woot - Marriage Game! Hahaha). Lunch was included in our payment: meatballs and cabbage/carrot salad for starters, some sort of Greek-style lasagne for the main, and yummy lemon cake of some sort of dessert. On the last island, Aegina, we got to see the sun set over the water. It was gorgeous, absolutely amazing. Combined, we probably took about 300 photos of that alone, haha.

God truly is the greatest artist

On Friday, all of us, minus Josh and Erin, took the tram to Glyfada, which was supposedly a neighbourhood with fairly good beaches. Well, we got there and did not find good beaches, but they were good enough. First, however, we ate lunch at a place called Goody's that we'd been noticing all over the city. It turned out to be a fast food place, but it was, of course, European style: real dishes for eating in. Also, I ordered a meal and with it came a stuffed panda bear! Katherine and Kristi got meals as well, but they got a stuffed dog and monkey. It's so funny! They weren't even kid's meals or anything. Anyway, back to the beach part. We found a pebbly beach, but the sun was hiding behind the clouds intermittently so it wasn't very warm. The water wasn't freezing (only at first), but the pebbles made it hard to stand and wade around. It was really clear water though, yet again, even so close to the big city.

There's this section of Athens called the Plaka, and all it is is shops and restaurants. Well, there was this one road where there are a ton of restaurants, one right after the other on either side, which we dubbed "the gauntlet" because whenever we'd walk through we'd be barraged with insisting waiters trying to get us to eat at their place. They always jumped on us and tried to get us to at least look at the menu, and at first it was really annoying but by the end of the week I found it to be quite humorous. Much to the delight of one of the waiters who we'd passed several times throughout the week to get to and from the grocery store, we gave in to his request and ate at his restaurant on the last day. I enjoyed moussaka (which was apparently what we had eaten for lunch on the cruise but didn't know it) and baklava for dessert. That was the most amazing dessert I'd had in a long time.

The gelato in Greece = YUM. We had our last one (until our next European adventure, whenever that may be) on the last day we were there, Saturday.

I think, honestly, my favourite part about Greece was the people and how helpful and friendly and kind they were. For instance, when we were trying to figure out our way to Ancient Corinth from the modern city Corinth, an older lady started talking to us and told us what to do (she happened to be taking the same bus route that we needed) and we talked to her until the bus came. Before she got off at her stop, she even came up to where we were sitting and made sure we knew when we were supposed to get off for the ruins and how to get back to the city. She was so sweet, and it was amazing that she spoke English (very well, too - she had lived in the US for quite some time earlier in her life).

I finally finished writing about Spain

And since it took me so long just to type it up, you get no pictures. Check my Facebook albums.


October 2-7

Girona

Since they're within an hour and a half drive from each other, we stayed in Girona and drove into Barcelona a couple different days.

We stayed at this quaint hotel; I roomed with Rebekah and Katherine and we had a bedroom, a bathroom, and a kitchen (which was good, because we were responsible for all our own meals)

I loved the streets in Girona, at least up in the northern portion of the city, the "old city." The buildings, of course, add to the effect. Tall, four to seven story buildings with flower boxes in every window; cobbled streets and sidewalks (which make it hard to remember that cars actually do go down them); cathedrals and churches reaching to the sky. It almost doesn't even feel like a city at all, or even a town. I can't quite grasp how it feels. Well, when you look right above you, you see all the tops of the buildings because they're so close together. Everything lends itself to a sort of "theme park" feel, though not in the touristy sense; it's more of the feeling of being enclosed, but not trapped. It's not unwelcome or given to producing anxiety; it's just the way it is. I almost want to describe it as being in rat cage or something, although that does sort of give it a negative connotation and I do not mean it in a bad way at all. Most of the time it's rather cool and shady because the sun doesn't reach most parts of the streets. The stores are "hole in the wall" style, with tin doors that pull down when they close up and usually have some graffiti sprinkled on the outside of the door. I think another thing that makes it feel so enclosed is the low volume level. I would expect it to be a lot louder, echo-y even; but there really isn't much noise. A lot of people ride motorcycles or Vespa-type vehicles; there are whole parking lots of them.

The first chance for a characteristically Spanish experience: siesta. Basically, this happens between about 2 or 3 until 5 and it means that most shops are closed and there are fewer people on the streets. A couple times during this trip I actually even took a nap during this time. I love the idea of siesta and I think it enriched the experience. I wish America would take a chill pill and think about slowing down for a couple hours like a lot of Spain does.

Trying to get by on the little Spanish I do know was interesting, especially when really, most of the signs are actually in Catalán, not Spanish. Catalán is a language that is kind of like a mix between Spanish and French and that's what they speak a lot of in Catalonia, which is where Girona is in Spain.

One of my favorite parts about Girona was the old city wall. My "moment" was one afternoon when Katherine, Rebekah, and I got gelato (which was amazing at this particular place) and walked up through the ruins of the wall, overgrown with vines and trees, up stairs and more stairs to get to the first lookout tower. It started to sprinkle and the clouds spread themselves out over the city, which we could see splayed out below us as we ascended higher and higher. Oh, while we were up there I also threw chocolate gelato all over my face; I suppose that's what I get for dancing (just ask me what happened... or I bet Rebekah could tell the story better).

Oh - another awesome thing: Faith called me one night! It was great to hear some of what was going on back in Abilene.

Barcelona

Three notable things about what I did in Barcelona:

1) Fat Tire Bike Tour - so much fun! Even though I haven't ridden a bike in years, I eventually got the hang of it (somewhat) again. It was awesome to be riding on the streets of Barcelona. Imagine a horde of 24 bicyclists (we split our group in half) riding on the street of a big, busy city, and on the "sidewalk" at times... kind of annoying right? Well, all the pedestrians and cars annoyed us too, so there. hah! Anyway, our tour guide, Buster, was really cool. He looked like he just stepped off the page of a skate magazine from California but he actually happened to be from London.

2) While most of our group went to the FC Barcelona game ("soccer"), a group of 10 of us stayed in the city for the night. We split off further while trying to decide what to eat, and I ended up eating a whole pizza at this delicious pizza place. But, really, there's nothing to do in Barcelona at night except eat and drink. Hm.

3) Sagrada Familia - the most amazing piece of architecture I have ever seen. Gaudi is so creative and it just blows my mind. It's a big church that's still under construction and it has been for over 100 years. It would be so cool to go back and see it if it gets finished in my lifetime. Inside you feel like you're in a monstrous cavern, with ornate, odd, and interesting ceilings. The view from the top of the towers was cool (have I mentioned I love aerial views? Like, a lot.)

I got another awesome phone call one night from Ashley! :)


October 7-10

Granada

The hotel we stayed at in Granada was pretty nice. We got delicious all-you-can-eat breakfasts everyday.

The Alhambra was beautiful. The palace was ornate, but the Generalife, the gardens, was the hugest most pleasant garden ever. The beauty of the palace, I thought, was mostly in the belief that Muslims hold that they're not allowed to portray God in any kind of image they make, so the decorations were these intricate carvings on the walls of parts of the Koran and its imagery. It was amazing because almost every wall was covered at least partly with them.

Did you know that vanilla ice cream and chocolate ice cream have two different textures? Well, I found that out one night when we ate dinner, since I couldn't taste because I had a cold. Vanilla is very smooth, but chocolate has a very slightly grittier texture... Almost like you can feel the cocoa powder.

Funny thing - I got lost. Yeah.. Hah... It was one of those situations where you know where you are, but not really... Like, you know how to get back to the place where you know where you are. I was walking and was just too curious, I guess, because I kept walking because I remembered how to get back to where I knew where I was. Turned out, my curiosity got the best of me and I ended up going to far to remember how to get back. I did find a grocery store though, and I bought the cutest jar of Nutella (it had a Spanish cartoon painted on the side). All the time I was walking I was thinking how to phrase in Spanish a question about how to get to the square where our hotel was located. Fortunately, I came across a city map with a "You Are Here" sticker on it, and was able to navigate my way back to the hotel safely.


October 10-13

Toledo

We just stopped in Toledo en route to Getafe (a suburb of Madrid where we stayed). Basically, it's a tourist trap. Lots of stores selling earrings and daggers and swords. The museum I wanted to look in was closed (go figure) and the Alcazar (castle) was also closed. Oh, and their famous marzipan sweets were gross. Fortunately we were only here for a few hours. The best part about Toledo was driving there from Granada; rolling through the mountains covered with olive trees is a surreal experience because it lasted for over an hour... and for a while after we left Toledo and continued on to Getafe. I felt peace.

Getafe

Nothing much to say about Getafe, seeing as we were only here to sleep in the hotel and buy groceries from the store around the corner. The most exciting part about Getafe was the first night at the hotel. Rebekah, Katherine, Meghan, Holly, and I were all sitting out in the hallway (our rooms were all on the same hall) when all of a sudden, from around the corner comes a group of about 4 or 5 Spanish guys, probably around our age. When they saw us they started whistling and talking to us but we just jumped up and ran into Rebekah and Katherine's room. A few seconds later we heard a frightening sound: a knock at the door! It was them. But we didn't open the door. So, from that night on, we always asked who was at the door before we opened it.

Madrid

1) City walking tour in the rain with no umbrellas

2) Reina Sofia (museum): a lot of modern and abstract art, not really all that interesting to me, but still fun. We also saw a lot of Picasso, Dali, and Miro.

3) Prado (museum): absolutely ginormous! Here, my favorite painting was called The Garden of Earthly Delights; it's actually a triptych. It depicts the Garden of Eden on the left; everyone else in the world enjoying worldly pleasures, each with a piece of fruit symbolizing sin and temptation, in the middle; and on the right is a dark and destroyed earth, overrun by death and sin. It's very detailed and pretty big and I really could have spent a long time in front of it. Other great paintings by El Greco were another favorite from this museum.

4) Immanuel Baptist Church: the most diverse church I have ever attended. It's an international English-speaking church and there were people there from several countries and a wide range of ages. It is fairly small but not tiny. Emily and I talked to the associate pastor afterwards and he told us that many times people from other countries will come to this church and then take the message home.

5) Spanish-speaking countries parade: the most disorganized parade I have ever seen in my life, but I guess that's how they do it there. The crowd basically mobbed the performers.


October 13-16

Avila

We stayed in the Residencia at the Monasterio de Santo Tomas, which was really cool, partly because they fed us amazingly, especially lunch that first day. During our stay here we took a city tour with a guy who runs a language school that teaches Spanish, English, and German. We also happened to be staying in this city during the feast day of St. Teresa of Avila, so that meant that all sorts of celebrations were under way.

We went to Catholic Mass one morning and the cathedral was kind of funny because there were TV monitors sprinkled throughout it; such a clash of the centuries. The first of the songs that were sung was the most beautiful and haunting and irreproducible song I have ever heard. I can't even bring it to mind (I couldn't even remember how it went a second after it ended). I felt like God was massaging my insides. I reveled in the pure beauty of the melody.

The bullfight we watched was interesting. I saw 6 bulls die; more than that, they were murdered. There were mostly older people there, since a lot of younger people are against it (reasonably so). It's strangely interesting and I couldn't tear my eyes away, for the most part. After the death of the first bull and the taunting done to the second, I was kind of desensitized to it.

We had the best ending to our two weeks in Spain: the most amazing fireworks show I have ever seen, not because of the amount, but because of how well-executed and unique the display was. They were fired off the top of the old city wall. My favorite part was the waterfall of fireworks flowing over the side of the gate in the wall.

Definitely before even this point I was ready to go home. We were all ready to go home, back to Oxford. Two weeks is a really long time to be away from a place held so dear. It was a different experience traveling around with everybody, all 36 students and 5 teachers. It was like all we had was each other, and I laughed to myself that we had everything that meant anything to us on this travel break whenever we all rode around in a coach.

Confession

The Christmas season has hit Oxford hard, and along with it, all these feelings of home. I associate Christmas with home, and this time around, with the city streets decked out in lights, I'm realizing that home to me is wherever loved ones are. I have friends in Oxford, even though they don't live in Oxford; I have friends in Abilene, even though they don't live in Abilene; I have friends in Escondido. I'm really very grateful for anyone who has ever been my friend, because I don't deserve it. Today I had a breakdown and my heart started beating really fast and I thought I was going to throw up in the middle of class (so I just got up and left) because I was thinking about leaving another set of friends I just made in another city (yet again). I seem to always make friends in places where I have to up and leave. Why??? It is so frustrating. Why do I keep making friends, if only to leave them? Then I got to thinking how I make friends and then expect something from them, and that's not how I want to be a friend to anyone else. I realized that I haven't, for a very long time, looked at someone and wanted to truly bless them with no regard to myself. I've been very selfish this semester and I'm sorry for those I've hurt. I love you in my mind but I want to love you with my heart and my life. Please forgive me.

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!

And Now, For A Limited Time Only...

Parks Road a few weeks ago when the trees still had leaves

I only have six weeks left in Oxford. Well, less than six weeks, because we still have two travel breaks left. This makes me really sad. I don't know how else to say it. I feel like it's all coming to an end just as I'm starting to understand some things about English culture. I feel like all the effort I've made to plunge into it will ultimately come to nothing because I'm leaving. I guess just looking at the end of things has always saddened me (e.g. leaving Abilene at the end of last year). It's just so frustrating because this, too, now feels like home. I'm being torn in three directions and I don't know where to turn. I've got family in each place. But suppose that's a good thing? Maybe this isn't supposed to be painful. Maybe God wants me to see how big He is, how central Christ is to my life. After all, Jesus is the reason for my families. Family. Singular. And to think... I have family celebrating Him along with me, all the way to the ends of the earth... and more and more keep joining the party, even as I type...

Immeasurably More

I sit here in the classroom at 3:30 AM on a freezing Tuesday morning with severe coffee jitters, completely amazed by our Father God, gratefully reflecting on the situation in which I currently find myself. I realize that Jesus has blessed me with people who are on fire for Him, inside and outside of this house. Tonight I helped out with St Aldates' club outreach again and, even though it's only the second time I've done it, I feel like God is helping me to be more open about my faith. This is the most evangelistic thing I've ever been a part of. If we can even give others a glimpse of the love that God gives by giving our free water bottles or tea or coffee or biscuits or conversations or hugs or high fives or whatever, if we can even plant the tiniest seed, if we can even be thin enough to allow God to show through us, to allow His glory, kindness, love, and life to flow from our fingertips and our lips, then I say: all praise be to Him who by His strength we give.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Ephesians 3:20-21

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?).

Spain: The Best and Worst of It

So, in order to quickly update y'all and give you a taste of my real blog entries to come about my past two weeks in Spain, I made a couple of lists of the best and worst things I experienced there. I tried to put them in numerical order, but it was really hard... so the numbers don't quite adequately reflect their rankings.

In Avila on our last night

Top 10 Best Things About My Spanish Experience
10. The bullfight: although the death of 6 innocent bulls is hardly my favorite thing, the whole thing is a strange experience that, overall, I enjoyed, though I never want to go to one again.
9. There were so many pastries of all kinds, sweet and savory, and gelato was delicious and just about on every corner.
8. The bike tour we took in Barcelona was absolutely awesome despite my lack of dexterity on a bicycle.
7. Not having to resort to my backup raspberry flapjack as a fill-in meal.
6. Climbing the ruins of the wall in Girona with Katherine and Rebekah while eating the best gelato I’ve ever had… as the clouds started to sprinkle rain on us.
5. All the little curly-haired, blonde kids speaking Spanish (and even the ones who weren’t blonde and curly-haired… but they were the cutest).
4. Seeing The Garden of Earthly Delights triptych painting by Bosch in the Prado.
3. Wandering around and up in the bizarre Sagrada Familia (Temple of the Sacred Family by Gaudi).
2. The olive tree groves that we drove through for over an hour while traveling from Granada to Toledo and Getafe.
1. The last night… fireworks in Avila.

Cigarette butts and graffiti

Top (Bottom) 10 Worst Things About My Spanish Experience
10. Having 4 hours to spare in Barcelona at night when all there really is to do is eat and drink.
9. Getting lost by myself in Granada (but hey, I look at the bright side sometimes: I stumbled upon a grocery store and bought Nutella with a Spanish cartoon on the jar!)
8. Many of the streets and sidewalks are cobbled, which looks cool but is killer on the ankles; plus, you can't tell where the sidewalk ends and where the street begins so you’re always dodging cars.
7. Creepy Spanish guys in the hotel who whistle at you and then knock on the door.
6. Well, this is only a bad thing for technical reasons, and if you don't speak any form of Spanish, or at least, in my case, have trouble understanding Castilian Spanish: the fact that most people don't speak (much) English.
5. There is graffiti on almost every wall unless it's some sort of monument or semi-important building.
4. People smoke cigarettes and cigars like chimneys, slowly killing themselves and everyone else.
3. One word and place: Toledo.
2. Spanish shops keep rather random hours.
1. Having to watch your bag constantly because of pickpockets.