Dear Friends and Family,
It is amazing to believe, but it has already been one month since we boarded a plane to relocate to Oxford!
The last month has been filled with a variety of tasks and experiences. Rachel began school at the end of September and Brian is continuing to look for work.
Both of us are adapting pretty well to living in the city of Oxford and being in a much colder climate. While Southern California is experiencing the normal fall wild fires, we have had our first frost. Thankfully, we’ve had a fairly dry autumn, which makes exploring our new surrounding much less complicated.
Oxford is a city of wonderful depth in many ways. It has an amazing mixture of architecture, green spaces and the like. Rachel has been getting to know the cities points of significance for fun (if you come to visit, she’ll gladly give you a walking tour), while Brian has explored various shops for the many gastronomic delights he’s creating (finding the ingredients for the Lebanese food he loves to make proved to be a bit of a quest). Both of us have gotten the knack of public transportation and
do not envy the local drivers that regularly navigate streets made to handle carriages and carts instead of cars. As might be expected, we are finding Oxford to be a city rich in the fine arts, with touring theater groups, ballet and the like in abundance. We have discovered to our slight dismay, however, that the same does not hold true for the local movie theaters. Unlike our favorite AMC 30 in Covina, the local theater
contains only 6 screens and shows films several months behind Los Angeles (Finding Nemo came out at the beginning of October). Rachel has also found herself pining in vain for a good Caramel Machiato in the evening, as the one Starbucks in the center of town closes at 8pm at the latest.
We are excited (and blessed) by the very vibrant churches we have found in Oxford so far. Rachel was delighted to walk into one congregation two Sundays ago and discover that they had a very strong model for children in prayer (almost exactly what she spent her last 4 months at World Vision researching). Even one of the local Anglican congregations is very sensitive to the leading of the Lord, which was a great surprise. Brian has begun to play goalkeeper in one of the church soccer leagues
(much to the excitement of his team mates) and we are in the process of trying to become part of a small group.
We had the pleasure of welcoming David, Cindy, and Norman Sandey to Oxford during our third week here. It was great to see our first set of So Cal friends and catch up with Norman, whom we have not seen since David and Cindy were married last year.
Since the 3rd of October we have been living in our new apartment. It is larger than our Azusa home and very suitable for having friends come over for a meal or to stay for a visit (hint hint). Our shipment of household items has been delayed, however, so at the present the rooms are very empty.
Tired of making do with the air bed we’ve been sleeping on and wanting to do something special for Rachel’s birthday, Brian recently arranged a trip to London. We had a great time on a catamaran cruise on the Thames, climbing the steps to the top of the dome on St. Paul’s Cathedral, and posing for pictures in front of Big Ben. Brian discovered that an ornately decorated spoon in the collection of the Crown Jewels is
actually one of the most important parts of a coronation ceremony when he spoke with one of the Yeoman Warders (Beefeaters) at the Tower of London. And Rachel greatly enjoyed a candle lit Baroque Concert in the Church of St. Martin’s in the Fields at the culmination of her birthday celebration.
