Lunches and Lock-In's
Hi everyone. It feels kind of weird writing a new blog entry without having dozens of photos to upload, but maybe a few words will be entertaining enough to tide you over until the next update.
Leia is back at work now, shaping the young minds of tomorrow with her trademark brilliance. Meanwhile, I am starting to feel like I am making real progress on the book I am writing for my job. It's an introduction to the History of Christianity, and I have now completed twelve chapters (out of a projected 29 or 30). It's a huge undertaking, but I'll be really proud of it when I've finished. The first book I wrote (an Intro to the Bible) was just published last month, and Leia and I now have our own copy to admire, which is fairly surreal.
Apart from my writing, I've been doing some house-husband stuff to relieve my wife's stress. I've started cooking lunch for her during the week so there's food ready when she comes home from school. Lunch tends to be the main meal of the day here, so I can't just throw together some sandwiches, but I've had a lot of fun experimenting in the kitchen. I've done fish and vegetables in foil packets, pork cutlets with a mustard-cream sauce, rosemary potatoes, homemade tacos, shrimp fried rice, pasta of various sorts... I think I should apply for a job with the Food Network – maybe I could be Iron Chef Cypriot!
Friday night we had a lock-in with our youth group at the church. For the uninitiated, a lock-in is where you get a bunch of teenagers together in a building and stay overnight and eat pizza and play games and watch movies and generally do a lot of fun things and see who can stay awake the longest. You would think these kids could manage to stay up all night, but most of them slept for several hours, and the only person who made it through the entire night was me, the old man of the group! I guess they just don't build teenagers like they used to. But at any rate, we did have a fun night with the kids. Some of them taught me to play backgammon, and I taught them to play ping-pong, and it was just nice to have a break from the usual madness of our routine.
Leia and I both really appreciate your thoughts and prayers during this challenging time in our lives. Now that our long blissful summer has ended and the reality of the working world has once again asserted itself, we are beginning to feel a bit worn out. There are a lot of things about our life here that tax our physical and emotional energy. In particular, we are both bothered by the fact that our real reason for being here in Cyprus in the first place (youth ministry) often seems to get pushed to the sidelines by our many other responsibilities (most of which are necessary to pay the bills). I know a lot of you understand what a frustrating feeling it is to have to subordinate your passion to your "day job." So please remember us in your prayers. We really need a lot of encouragement at the moment.
I know we have sent some of you our new address and phone number for the apartment, but if there are any of you who don't have it and would like to, just drop us a comment or an email and we'll be glad to send it to you. We love getting calls and cards...and presents (hint hint). We love you all, and we promise that when we finally get an internet connection to call our own (within the next week and a half, supposedly) the frequency of our communication will greatly increase. Thanks for being patient. We are so grateful to have such a wonderful group of friends and family members who care about what's going on in our lives. You are a great blessing to us.
–John
Photo Spread
Hello everyone. Here are those pictures we promised. First up: the new youth room.
So... this was basically a large-ish Sunday school room before, with plain white walls. With the help of our kids, Leia and I chose a paint scheme consisting of silvery gray, coffee brown, and Nanking Blue (tm). Over the course of several long and messy nights, we managed to repaint the whole thing so that it doesn't look half bad (if we do say so ourselves). This is one end of the room, where many an epic ping pong battle has already taken place.
This is one of the side walls looking toward the other end. The little white bookcase contains books, music, and DVDs that the kids can borrow, and some board games they can enjoy in the room.
And this is the other side wall, looking toward the entrance from the hallway. Our eventual plan is to use stencils to cover these two brown walls with Scriptures/poems/art in silver paint. We've also been given two couches and two armchairs that will fill up some of the empty space once we have them re-covered. We're basically going for an informal living room type vibe for our Bible discussions. This way we can do the fun and games and the more explicitly spiritual stuff all in one space.
Here, Anna Maria and Teresa are engaged in a friendly game of chess atop one of our stylish and cleverly color- coordinated bar tables, while Stephanie and Martha provide an enthusiastic audience.
And these are a couple of the older kids playing Battleship. Doesn't Leia look like she's trying to figure out a way to cheat? You'll be happy to know that it didn't work.
This is our new car, fresh off a ship from the UK. The model is Zafira. Apparently the make is Vauxhall in England and Opel everywhere else. Go figure. It's a legitimate seven-seater, which is cool for youth pastors (no, we're not intending to fill it with our own children anytime soon). *Waits for the frustrated exclamations from the disappointed grandparents- and great-grandparents-to-be to die down, then continues.* It has "modern luxuries" (like power steering and air conditioning) that our previous car did not. It doesn't have a CD player, but luckily we have one of those tape player to Discman adaptor thingies, so we're good.
And these are the shots of our new apartment, or if you prefer, our flat. N. T. Wright (one of my favorite theologians and a very bright guy) rightly notes that, depending on whether you’re American or British, the sentence “I’m mad about my flat” either means “I’m angry about my punctured tire” or “I’m happy about my apartment.” Well, we’re the latter (happy that is . . . not British . . . at least not entirely). This is the front door and the entertainment center. DVDs are to the left of the TV, CDs to the right of the picture. We like to keep all the essentials close at hand.
This is the seating area opposite the entrance, along with one of our many bookcases. We definitely feed each other’s reading addiction in a way that’s probably not entirely healthy . . . but we both feel like we can stop whenever we want to. We just don’t want to.
So if you’re facing those couches and take a left, you come to the kitchen/ dining area. Because of the clever shopping of the previous tenants, we basically have all the gadgets and appliances we could want in there, along with a nice supply of cereals and cookies. Thanks Chris, Eric, and Nadia.
This is the veranda off the kitchen, a nice place to sit and read. Or just watch the traffic. Or practice your spitting skills.
On the other side of the living area from the kitchen are the bedrooms. This is the master bedroom, complete with our comforter and sheets from Target. And there’s Leia’s dressing table . . . and some more books. Seriously, we can stop any time.
And this is the guest room. For my male friends who may want to come and stay with us at some point: I resisted the purple bedspread. Really, I did. But ultimately, you just don’t want to go up against your wife in a battle over interior design. Anyway, rest assured that you’re welcome to sleep on the couch instead. Yes, that’s another bookcase in the corner. And yes, that’s a Family Guy poster (featuring Stewie) on the wall. Thank you to my friends who gave me that as a “leaving the country” present . . . and to Leia for agreeing to let me hang it up. See? She gets the purple bedspread, I get the Stewie poster – compromise. This is how marriage works.
The guest room also doubles as our office. This is the computer where I eke out a living as a writer by day and play Space Cadet Pinball by night. Internet access is supposedly coming soon. Yes, yes, yes, more books. But those are Bibles and Bible reference stuff, so you can’t really count those. I promise, we don’t have a problem!
Anyway, we hope you enjoyed the virtual tour. Please come visit us any time. We miss you all. Drop us a line when you get the chance.
–John
