Love is in the Air! by:Rebecca

Out of our forty or so KBC students 10 of our birthdays were in the month of April! Earl happened to be one of of them. We found ourselves celebrating all of the birthdays together at the same social club that my party was held. It wasn't a costume party like before but still a dress up event with lots of fun. We had an open mic, karoke, and dancing. The main reason I am writing this blog is because of the karoke aspect. It seems that my dear Earl after 10 years of marriage decided that he would surprise me by dedicating and singing a song to me. He sang, "Everything I do, I do it for you." by Brian Adams. It was quite sweet but as you can tell from the picture of me quite embarassing as well. He really played it up and every eye in the place seemed to be on me. It is something I will not soon forget. I am blessed to be married to Earl!

Another wednesday night

It's 10:30 at night here, it has been a long day, actually every day is a long day. This is not that we have bad days, but we do have long days. This week we have been studying Romans, I would deem it one of the richest books of the Bible. Paul has so much to say about our human condition and then the response of God being willing to redeem us. I think that I understood some of the gist of the book, but now I have a much deeper understanding. This is also due to writing a seminar paper on Paul and the Law, of course much of the text about the Law is from Romans. For that paper I did a lot of reading, and really attempted to dig through the first 8 chapters of Romans, not an easy endeavor but a revelatory one. I have also been reading "for fun" if you can believe it the History of Israel as a Nation. There is so much reference to Israel throughout the Bible and we can so easily gloss over it and not get the real meaning behind the stories. There were so many occasions of battle, takeover, diplomacy, intrigue etc... during the history of God's chosen people. My next conquest after doing a power point on that topic is to read a book about Jewish customs during the time of Jesus, so I understand the context surrounding stories of Jesus better. My major paper is due on Tuesday, I am writing about the parable of the mustard seed and how it is like the Kingdom of Heaven. Maybe I'll have more about that on the next blog entry. It probably sounds as though it is all work and no play, that is not accurate. On Saturday night there was a gala celebration for April b-days. We had it at the Social club where Rebecca's party was, there were many people there. Dancing, Karaoke, give aways and just a really fun time. I sang a song to Rebecca during Karaoke, I think that she is going to blog about that at some point as well, so I won't steal her thunder. i'm following baseball aware that the Rangers are doing ok, they are getting some pitching, now if only a couple of their hitters would hit that would be great. My fantasy team is not so hot, I can't get anything consistent from my "top 3 players" they certainly haven't played like it yet. i should get rolling have a meeting for our trip to Africa and then I'm playing during chapel. Take care everyone
earl

It is yet another sunny day, hard to believe since my Mom was off school yesterday for the Nor'easter that was swirling around. Anyway the weather here has been quite unEngland like, at least from what I was expecting. I think that I was expecting rain every day, only gray skies, windy conditions that would yield no opportunity to be outside. This has not been true especially this spring, it has been day after day of 60's and sun, yes we are blessed here in this land. We are back at it this week, our lecturer this week was Phil Norris. He is the leader of the church that we attend in East Basingstoke, it has been a fantastic time of learning about Paul, who he was, what he taught and about his mission. It seems as though our KBC community has picked up after the break, everyone seems refreshed, ready to roll, and excited for this last term. That is somewhat hard to type since we are already in the last term, that is hard to believe. It's not like we haven't gone through alot or learned a ton, we have so I guess it does seem as though we have been here for quite a while. This morning I was responsible for devotions, I was excited as I had not had that opportunity for a couple of months. We looked at Colossians 3 about putting off the old man and putting on the new man. I had a couple of friends get dressed as the "old man" not looking like they were ready to go to a banquet or ball, then I had them leave the room and come back in dressed as the "new man". Mike had put on a suit, done his hair, while Anna had put on a nice looking dress and fancy shoes. It was a great visual for the text. Then I had some talented people in our group come forward to help with music. I had a violinist, clarinet player and a flutist. We had a little orchestra there, it was fantastic, or so I heard. It has been a while since I had the chance to play with that many other instruments. It was a great morning, tomorrow we have chapel and prep for our trip coming up in a month or so. By the way tonight we're going to go for a walk and enjoy the beautiful sun that is out until about 8:30 or so. Talk to you all later
earl

Wednesday afternoon, it feels like a Friday though

Just a quick hello, I was sitting at the computer and thought what the heck I'll write a short blog entry. We have been enjoying this little break, it was a revert back to what life was like before we lived with other people. To say the least we have been reading quite a bit, we both have a paper to write about Paul and the Law. This is our last seminar paper, after this we have our major paper to read about and to write, we are closing in on the end of the written work here at KBC. I would say that we both have learned so much from the reading for this paper, I feel quite prepared to write the paper and talk about the topic in the seminar. Rebecca and I have also been playing a few games of Boggle, it is much like old times. The only difference this time is that she has either gotten way better, or I have decreased in my ability as she beat me 3 times this week. I have found this hard to stomach, but I must drink the medicine of defeat once in a while. May I point out that one of those W's was a 53-52 squeaker where she won with the word gilt. I then posted a 40 in one round which is probably a record in the annuls of Boggle.
Here we are, the girls have their new ISU jumpers on, Rach on the left and Jazz on the right

Still holiday?

Yes is it, we have a full two weeks off from KBC, we are still reading, writing and working on papers though. Presently I am reading a number of different books including; The History of Israel, Assumptions, books on Paul and Law, The Gospel of the Kingdom and we have been enjoying some DVD's given to us by friends from home. As you know the last blog was about our travels with Hop and Cindy and this one is going to pick up with our day in London on Wednesday. After driving to Ickenham and parking for a mere 2 pounds we jumped aboard the Picadilly line and rode the tube into the heart of town. There we left them as they did the double decker bus tour trek, while Rebecca and I headed to the National Gallery. Whilst there we saw works by Van Gogh, Monet, Degas, Rembrandt and countless others. It is a beautiful building and unlike most of the UK it is inexpensive, the cost is nothing to get in! From there we decided even though it was a clear day that we'd forfit the London Eye for now, and instead use our all day tube pass to go into parts of town that are not touristy. London is expansive, the touristy area is huge by itself, the city itself seems to go on and on, so we jumped aboard the BakerLoo line and started north. Then on to the Northern Line, then the Picadilly line and ended up on the Victoria line in the area of Finsbury Park. After getting off and walking just a little way we realized that we were not in a touristy area, there was commerce, much traffic and nary did I see anyone carrying a camera around their neck. While Rebecca was trying on a top I talked with a shopkeeper and found out that the neighbourhood has been known for materials, textiles and fashion. The street we walked up was one shop of dresses and woman's clothing after another, this wasn't like a mall where I could dip into a store that had stuff I liked, it was dress store after dress store. We did get a mocha and enjoy some chat. Unfortunately time waned as we ran out before I could find Emirates Stadium home of Arsenal one of England's premier football clubs. The plan was to catch Hop and Cindy at Picadilly Circus so that we could find Prince Edward's Theatre and pick up our will call tickets for Mary Poppins. All went well and after eating at a Vietnamese Noodle Bar we went to the theatre. To attempt to describe a London production of Mary Poppins is an undaunting task. I'm not going to undertake that here, suffice it so say that at one point Bert danced up the wall across the ceiling and down the other side, and Mary Poppins ended the show by flying over the audience. It was exhillarating (spelling?) and a memory to last a lifetime. The ride back was uneventful, except to say that usually people here don't drive to London, but I would say do it, it is not that bad (some day I might eat my words:) I'm going to sign off for now, just wanted to say to all of the Indiana readers sorry about your weather, we have been basking in day after day of clear, and relatively warm days with crisp evenings. Later
earl

holiday once again

Hey everybody I trust that you are having a wonderful holiday time, some of you are off of work now, but others of you are probably still working. This week we are enjoying having Hop and Cindy with us, she is the secretary at Rebecca's school and Hop works on the railroad, and sadly I don't totally understand what he does there, but I know that he is a hard worker. Speaking of working hard we have been working hard at being tourists. There is a wealth of sites and towns to see just within an hour or twos drive from our house. On Saturday we went to Blenheim Palace which is the old residence of Winston Churchill. While walking to the site of the Palace we happened across an old church and outside of it was the tomb of Churchill, it is the family plot. The walk that we had was fabulous, once reaching the Palace there was a wedding, so we strolled in through that gate and enjoyed the grounds, the fancy dress, and a Churchill exhibit. Earlier in the morning we flitted around Woodstock, it is a little market town full of antiques, tea rooms and quaint shops. The scones with clotted cream are worth the price, the homemade jam was ace as well. Sunday Rebecca and I went to church in East Basingstoke as normal, Hop and Cindy went out on their own to navigate the countryside. They ended up at Stonehenge, which we have not been to yet, I would like to go at some point. They also went to Salisbury, the cathedral there is magnificent and humongous, another site that I would like to visit whilst here. This leaves yesterday, yesterday cannot be explained in one fell swoop, we traversed the Cotswolds, a hilly, many pastured, sheep dotted area about an hour west. Hop and Cindy are here again, so I need to get going, we are heading into town to "do" Oxford, will write about that later.
earl