The Lost Tales

This was an issue of the Criswell Clarion from May 2005 that never made it out the door.

Dear Friends and Family,

Spring has sprung! Today is the May Day bank holiday here in the UK, celebrating the beginning of spring. Finally, it is also beginning to feel like spring as well, despite a very cold transition from winter. Finally we are beginning to see some warm weather, making the concept of outdoor café’s feasible once more (on the days it is not raining anyway).

Since we last corresponded with you, we have ushered in our 4^th year of marriage. This was celebrated on the island of Malta. It was our first holiday of this type since our honeymoon and long overdue. Despite weather complications that kept us from several of our boating plans, we had a wonderful time. Malta is an island of complex history as it has been part of nearly every empire that dominated the Mediterranean since the ancient Phoenicians. Each society left a mark in architecture, culture, food, or language making it a fascinating society to interact with. We also took the opportunity to catch up on some reading for pleasure and undertook a couple puzzles for the first time in years.

Rachel is very busy trying to balance 2 part-time jobs and her volunteering presently. A project of the type of which Rachel is working for the University of Oxford has never been undertaken before in the department in which she is based. There have been a lot of bumps along the way as the realities of what the project necessitates replace the perceptions many had of how things would proceed.

In the coming months we are welcoming several visitors to Oxford. Mid-May, we will be expecting the arrival of Rachel’s sister Tatiana at the conclusion of her study abroad time in Rome. Tatiana plans to spend the summer with us, getting to experience another European country (she is very excited that this time it is an English speaking one) and making a bit of money for next academic year in the very favourable exchange rate of the pound sterling to the dollar. Shortly after Tatiana’s arrival we will also get the benefit of two sets of visitors from America. First, Kristin and Dan Wycoff, (Kristin was one of Rachel’s bridesmaids) will be visiting the UK and then shortly thereafter Brian’s brother Kevin and step-father George will spend a few days with us as part of a high school graduation trip for Kevin.

One of the wonderful things we are really getting to enjoy this is a few more local visitors as well. We have a wonderful park next to our house, which is both part of the Oxford green belt (where building development is prohibited) and an 82 acre allotment designated for recreation. Some of the highlights of the park include a duck pond, rabbit, guinea pig and budgie bird hutch, miniature train, and playground. Brian and Rachel have enjoyed many walks through the park in the past, but it is much more fun to spend time in the park when there are kids along to enjoy the amusements. As a result, we’ve taken the opportunity to invited several different families with toddlers from church over for a meal and time in the park. It has worked out really well on all sides, as the park is far from the centre of the city so many of our friends with small children normally don’t get to enjoy it. It also has given us the opportunity to interact with an age demographic we rarely see any longer and yes, swinging, making daisy chains and kicking around a soccer ball is just as fun as it was twenty-some years ago.

Fun and Games

Dear Friends and Family,

Thank you to all of you who have sent updates since our last correspondence. It is amazing to hear all of the changes ranging from job shifts to new babies. It sounds like it has been a busy fall for all of you. For those of you in North America, we need to wish either a happy but belated Canadian Thanksgiving or an early American one, depending on which side of the 49^th parallel you are currently living.

Life is going well here at the moment. We’ve been hearing from several of you about the torrential rain in California in the last few weeks and although we haven’t had terrible rain here, it is definitely getting cold. Apparently it is also going to stay cold as this is supposed to be the worst winter temperature-wise the UK has had in 100 years. Hopefully, that means they are preparing the snow equipment now, as last year (and apparently every year) there is an absolute shambles every time it snows. (The quandary is it does snow for a few days every year so you’d think it would be possible to prepare efficiently for it).

Despite the rain, Brian is still generally cycling to work. He is really enjoying this opportunity. It’s much like his early days at Azusa Pacific but slightly more rigorous (the trip is about 8 miles round trip each day). Just like at APU, there is a huge occurrence of bicycle theft in the city, so he has to be very careful about where he secures his bike and for that matter how he secures it, as he was show the other day how to break into some of the locks used in the city using nothing but a Bic pen. Work at OCC itself is going well. They are sending him to Birmingham in a few weeks for a meeting there.

Rachel proudly submitted her dissertation at the end of September. She is now awaiting comment from the 3 readers grading her work to find out if she has passed or not. She should get word on this sometime in mid November. Feeling a bit kooky (or delirious) by the time she had the paper bound, she ended up selecting a cover that was bright purple. Perhaps not the most serious of colours for a treatise on European Union asylum policy, but it certainly will stand out on the shelf in the library.

Rachel is also wrapping up her final week as an Oxford tour guide. The company for which she is working decided to close for the winter months at the end of October. As a result, instead of spending a leisurely 3 months working part-time and researching part-time, she has spent most of the last weeks on top of an open, double-decker bus (yes she is truly learning the meaning of “layers” for warmth). In November she will resume research on the journal article mentioned last time and a steady stream of job applications.

Brian has been playing a very interesting game for the last few weeks. It is called an alternate reality game and is basically played by people over the internet. In this case, the game is a lead up to the release of Halo 2, an Xbox (game console) game Brian has been looking forward to for a long time. The players are given a background scenario on a website and then have tasks to do in real life to unlock the next part of the story. So what has Brian done to participate? Travelled to London to answer a payphone in an underground station; taken photos of phone booths and red balloons in Oxford; and written a long essay about race as a social construct in the 21^st century, to name a few. It’s been a lot of fun to see both what happens next in the story as well as what all the players will have to do to unlock the next clue.

We’ve just celebrated Rachel’s 25^th birthday. She is the last of her close friend group to have her birthday, so she can no longer gloat over being a year younger nor look forward to any new “perks” by turning a year older other than being able to get rental cars more cheaply. For all of those of you who called, emailed and sent cards to help celebrate, thanks so much. In particular we both had a great chuckle at the funny phone message Nathan, Kevin and George left us and hearing about the magnitude of the “swing” Uncle Hugh has made for Rachel’s second cousins (the wood for the frame is recycled telephone poles and the tire for the tire swing came off of a backhoe). Because she does not work Monday through Friday, Rachel did get to have the whole day off on her birthday (and Myca you are absolutely right, this is a great thing to do). Festivities included some time with an Oxford friend or two, yummy Thai food, and chocolate fondue.

Blessings to you all in the coming months! We hope to correspond again just before we depart for the USA for Christmas.

Punting

Dear Friends and Family,

It’s hard to believe that the summer is already drawing to a close! Actually here in Oxford we’re presently enjoying a bit of “Indian Summer” weather, which is a great improvement on the “real” summer time. Having more than one sunny, if slightly cool day in a row is a welcome change, as we had double the standard precipitation for the month of August this year. (It was a lot of rain!) Probably the most noticeable change at the moment though is actually the fact that it is now getting dark around 8pm (about 2 hours earlier than at the peak of summer). This and the coats beginning to surface on commuters first thing in the morning reminds us very poignantly that those months of cold and 3:45pm sunsets are not all that far away!

Not much has happened in the Criswell household since we last corresponded in the first weeks of June. Basically both Brian and Rachel worked the summer through. Brian continued to program for Oxford Computer Consultants, while Rachel spent substantial time both writing her thesis and tour guiding. (She did more than 90 tours in the month of August…it was a lot of talking!).

Certainly, all the hours at work have not proved to be dull for either of us. Brian’s colleagues clandestinely set up a telescope on the office roof so that they could all watch Venus transit past the sun in early summer. (It was quite an adventure as they were apparently mobbed by little—harmless—spiders that swarming on the roof that morning). Rachel’s work environment included mobs of children, not on her bus, but hanging around the tour’s main stop eagerly hoping to catch sight of the cast of the Harry Potter films, as the 4^th movie in this series was being filmed next door in August. (Yes Rachel saw several of the stars as well). Additionally, because both of us were here all summer, it was a good opportunity to get to know both church and work colleague a bit better.

One of the highlights of this included a 4-hour punting excursion on the river Cherwell with Brian’s work colleagues. Punts are flat bottom wooden boats you push with a pole from the back (like a gondola) instead of rowing. Typically you also take lots of food a long and have a huge picnic at any inviting portion of the river. Rachel was by far the worst punter in the boat; although she was relieved she didn’t run anyone into low-lying branches on the river. Brian on the other hand showed great adeptness at this activity, holding his own with several colleagues who spent 4+ years at the University of Oxford punting on a regular basis. Based on this experience, Brian hopes eventually to do the Islip run, a daylong punting trip (4 hours each way) to a town up river. We either need some friends to come along for this or Rachel has to get a lot better at punting before this feat can be undertaken, however.

By far, the most rewarding of these summer social activities were the opportunities to spend more quality and fellowship time with friends and acquaintances from church. This included a fondue night with a Swiss family (learning how to make it properly!); an open house for our small group at our house; and several after church outings. It has been so encouraging and rewarding to get to know many of the people from our small group in greater detail; enabling our church to truly begin to feel like a “home church” instead of “that place we attend.”

New Jobs

Dear Friends and Family,

So much has happened since we last wrote to you all! We apologise for how long it has been since we were in contact with several of you. This is the third Criswell Clarion drafted in the 2 months, but we are determined that this one will actually make it into the “sent” folder.

Several of the highlights since we last wrote have included:

Brian is celebrating, as of June 1, his third month with Oxford Computer Consultants. The second round of interviews did lead to a full-time job a brief 20 minute commute from home. He is working in a team of four people on a project that has entailed immersing himself in computer code for a program that assists local governments with their subsidised programmes for various welfare needs. He seems to have an attraction to projects named in acronyms that begin with the letter S, as at World
Vision he worked on SIMMA and he is now working on SPOCC. To Rachel’s delight work on this project requires regular meetings with clients, so Brian is seen much more frequently in a suit. In out of office time, Brian is getting to know his co-workers through events like their monthly ethnic food night (April was Indian curry, May was Japanese sushi, and June will be Polish cuisine).

Rachel spent the majority of the month of April in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This was a course field trip that involved three weeks of travel around both Bosnia and Croatia, speaking with everyone from children, to local farmers, and government representatives. The goal of the trip was to gain a level of understanding of the post-war context in this nation and the role (for better or worse) of the international community in the current situation. It was an excellent trip, although slightly
exhausting. In many instances the “hosts” in the towns Rachel was visiting were students (between 16-20 years of age). This group was selected because they have been educated in English as a second language; while their parents learned German and their grandparents Russian (the geo-political reasons for this in itself are fascinating). Rachel and several of her classmates quickly discovered that they didn’t
have quite as much stamina as they used to. This was especially apparent one evening when the group was at their fourth hello/good-bye party in as many days with enthusiastic dancing high school students who were quite happy to stay up all night if they got the opportunity to do so.

Although we were not together for Easter because of Rachel’s travels, we did slip away for the weekend of our anniversary to Bruges, Belgium. For the first time we took the Eurostar train (often frequented by North American young people backpacking through Europe). It was a very enjoyable trip through the Chunnel (the Channel Tunnel), which ended in a lovely medieval city. Brian particularly enjoyed the fresh seafood in the local cuisine, while Rachel gained a healthy respect for the Belgian hospitality industry. (To be a hotel front desk clerk you must speak a
minimum of three languages, a lot different from Rachel’s days doing this job in Minnesota). We both enjoyed greatly the chance for long walks past windmills and ancient buildings and the opportunity for good conversation. (The preceding month had been extraordinary hectic for both of us).

May brought beautiful flowers to Oxford and an awakening of the city. Since it is getting warmer, people can finally enjoy meals outside in street cafes and it does not now get dark until after 9pm, so there is plenty of time for socializing with friends. May also brought a lot tour guiding for Rachel. She has picked up a summer job as a guide on one of the bus tours of the city. As a result, she can now point out
things on the left and right was facing backwards and would be very adept at the Oxford edition of Trivial Pursuit.

As we look towards summer Rachel faces the writing of her dissertation and a much quieter list of university events (she can normally be found in the afternoon now at one of the many coffee shops, or bakery’s in Oxford sipping a mocha and typing away). Brian is looking forward to a move to a new office building (with air conditioning!).

This spring has also brought many events for you, our friends and family. Probably two of the most exciting were the engagement of Brian and Rachel’s best friends (respectively) Tim Davis and Teresa Johnston and the addition to the extended family in the form of a baby girl born to Dan and Tanya, two of Rachel’s cousins in Vancouver, Canada. We know many other events have been going on with all of you and hope you might drop us a line to tell us about them in the coming weeks. Finally, congratulations to all of the teachers and students among you who are completing another year in these first weeks of June!

Adjusting to Life in Oxford

Greetings dear family and friends,

Next week we will have been living in the UK for five months! This is now officially the longest contiguous period of time either of us has been away from friends or family.

Looking back over this time in England, we are very pleased with how well we have adjusted. We recently received a care package from Rachel’s mom containing cherished food ingredients from Los Angeles. (It was sent before Christmas, but due to the wonders of the international postal system arrived at the end of January). We were amazed at how we had learned to find substitutes as we unpacked jalapeño peppers, salsa, and milk chocolate chips (although there’s nothing quite like the original). Probably the funniest food revelation of the month, was the discovery
that cilantro (which we have not been able to find) is actually the Spanish name of coriander. We cook with coriander seeds and leaves extensively here, and found it very funny to realise that by planting a few, we might soon have the makings for Pico de Gallo. A blinding glimpse of the obvious we’re sure to the gourmet chefs among you, but we had no idea!

Since we last spoke, the predominant change for Rachel has been the start of second term at college. This term is particularly gruelling because she often finds herself is in classes and meetings from 9am to 6pm straight with rarely more than a 15 minute break in the day. This is due, in large part, to the human rights festival mentioned in our last update, which now includes the world premier of a film. Coordinating the
logistics for 2 weeks of documentaries, feature films, and discussions is a lot of work! She is really grateful, though, for the wonderful team she is a part of.

Additionally, this term is filled with a lot of extra seminars and workshops to attend. Rachel is amazed that the wide variety of subjects she is being exposed to! Two weeks ago she survived a 3-day seminar on financial management for non-profit organizations, and she happily reports she now knows what accruals are! This week she’ll participate in a day long workshop on Participatory Rural Appraisal (a facilitation technique to help communities identify development issues of concern to
them and agree on possible solutions). At the end of the month she’ll be in a crash course on managing teams in emergency interventions and a two-day lecture series on the psychological ramifications of forced migration. It really is quite the breadth of topics!

Brian is really enjoying life in Oxford and is especially finding the weather to be a great change of pace. In addition to working for World Vision and continuing to search for a job here, he is extensively involved in an enthusiast modification project of one of his favourite computer games. He thoroughly enjoys this project because it enables him expand his C++ (programming language) skills. January also brought the second round of interviews with a computer consultancy company here in Oxford. Although the company choose a candidate with more web design background, it was a good development. Most other prospects have been 1.5-2 hour commute one way, so the possibility of a concrete opportunity within 15 minutes from home was encouraging.

Brian is also making good strides at finding guy friends to hang out with. He has lunch regularly with several different men from church. Rachel has also been hearing rumours that Brian is getting to be a pretty decent snooker player.

As we race towards spring, our thoughts are with each of you often. While we enjoy our new experiences here, we are also acutely aware of the birthdays, meals, laughter, and wealth of experiences we are missing with all of you.

Happy New Year

Dear Friends and Family,

A happy New Year to each and every one of you. We hope you have all had an excellent holiday season.

The last two months have been a mixture of lots of work and fun here in England. Most weekends in November and early December you would have found Rachel sequestered in her room writing research papers. For those of you who remember Rachel’s style of writing at Azusa Pacific, you will be happy to know that all of her papers were drafted 2 weeks before the end of term. Brian was spared all-night writing sessions and emergency 5am proof reading. Hurray! While Rachel would like to believe this is due to greater maturity, the fact that each paper is worth approximately 70% of the grade for each class may have actually been the greater motivation for this diligence. Brian has been working extensively as a
contractor for World Vision; striving to find a balance of work and play from his home office. He will begin looking for a full-time local position in January, however, because he greatly misses having colleagues to interact with daily.

Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years Eve were all spent in Oxford. Turkey Day was an unusual mixture of expatriate American students in the Brookes University restaurant. (It served as an opportunity for the culinary arts students to prepare a banquet-type dinner). Complete with cranberry sauce and a Sports Illustrated American Football Highlights video it was a nice evening. The turkey definitely left much to be desired, however; something we made up for at Christmas. Through the
local butcher we were able to get a fresh Christmas Turkey, which we prepared with all the trimmings for the first time ever. It was great fun, but a lot of work!

We have spent some time enjoying Oxford and the surrounding area during the Christmas season. This included enjoying Return of the King (the final instalment of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy) at the local cinema and several concerts. We’ve also made a bit of music ourselves, as both of us sang in the annual Carol Service choir for our church, something we enjoyed very much.

We’ve had the wonderful opportunity of seeing friends from home twice this season. Just before Thanksgiving, we had the pleasure of visiting with Mel and Glenna Shoemaker. (For those of you who do not know, Brian and Rachel met during an event coordinated by Mel back in 1997). Mel, who continues his work as the honours program and study abroad coordinator for APU was in the area checking on the students at Oxford this term. We had a great time catching up with both of them over a cup of tea. We also got a very special present on Christmas Eve. Teresa
Johnston, Rachel’s best friend and former university roommate, came to spend the holidays with us. It has been wonderful having her here.

To our very great surprise, New Years Eve brought the first snow of the season. Although rain later prevented any of the snow from staying, it was great fun to walk through the streets of Oxford chasing snowflakes.

As we look to the New Year, we realize that many new challenges await us. Rachel will begin dissertation research in earnest this spring, while Brian will decide on the future direction of his career. In an unusual opportunity, we will be collaborating on a volunteer project this winter. Because of her conference planning experience, Rachel is serving as the logistics coordinator for a human rights film festival in Oxford in late
February. Brian graciously volunteered to design a database to keep track of all the venues, films, speakers, etc. for this event. It is enjoyable to have a common project that implements skills we both have.

Just Arrived

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.