One year ago...

Just recently I have been sorting through my notes from KBC. Yes, they have been sitting in one massive messy pile ever since last summer. I stuffed them under my bed and have only pulled them out when I really need to find something, always thinking, "Someday I will organize this." Well the impetus for change came last week when I went to my friend Judith's house. Watching her iron every single thing that came out of the laundry basket was bound to have some impact on my life. Considering that I have only used an iron twice in the past 6 months, it was highly unlikely that I would start ironing my socks, so I opted for sorting through this pile of notes.

And you know what? It has been a blessing. Not because the organizing has enriched my life (although I'm sure that I will appreciate it in the future), but because it has given me a chance to look back on what God has done in my life. I found prophetic words which suddenly make so much sense. I found encouraging notes from friends. I found challenging questions which I still want to work through.

And I found this. I wrote it almost exactly a year ago during an extremely painful time. I think it was just something I scribbled down during a lecture when my heart was so full that it had to spill over a little. We were studying Ephesians that week and talking about being adopted as children of God. I also had been hanging onto Romans 5:3-5. So that is the background. This is what I wrote:

Papa God

I feel abandoned

hurting

alone

without the ability to hope

I can't see why things are this way

I can't see how they will ever change

But

You have adopted me

You bought me with Your blood

You call me Your child, Your heir

You are my Papa God

You don't explain it all

But

You tell me You are at work

You tell me there is a point to this

You tell me that it's not for nothing

You tell me to rejoice in suffering

because it produces perseverance

which produces character

which produces the hope that will not put me to shame

My Papa God

I wait for Your hope

~

Looking back on the past year, it is amazing to see how God has given me hope. He has brought beauty out of ashes just like He promised. It happened so slowly that I didn't always recognize it, but He was working just the same. So much has changed in the past year.

And yet so much is still the same.

I still feel very close to the girl who wrote those words. The pain isn't raw anymore, but I can still feel it. And because I can still feel the pain, I can still feel that desperate dependency on God. I feel like I am walking with a limp and I hope I always will because it reminds me of the relentless, gentle love of my Father.

I am thankful for that time of darkness because I learned so much more through it than I could have during happy sunny days. But I am also glad that I am in a different place now.

Thank You Jesus for the suffering which produced perseverance which produced character. But most of all, thank You for Your hope. You do all things well!

It has been nearly 4 months since I have made any contribution to the blogging world - so I think it is getting to be time for my semi-annual blog. ;)

So much has happened...

I lost one wonderful housemate...

And gained a new wonderful housemate... (Lesley is the one to the right of me)

...who owns a rice cooker!!!!

I learned how to make chapatis/japatis - take your pick as to how to spell it because it's a transliteration and the real pronunciation is somewhere between the two. Now depending on the extent of both your knowledge of linguistic terms and your knowledge of Indian/Pakistani cuisine, you may not understand two of the key words in that last sentence. So here are some definitions:

chapati/japati: Chapati is a form of roti (bread). The words are often used interchangeably. While roti refers to any flat unleavened bread, chapati is a roti made of whole wheat flour and cooked on a tava (flat skillet). (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapati)

transliteration: a transcription from one alphabet to another (Source: some internet dictionary)

In other words, it is taking a word from a language which has a different script/alphabet to English (such as Urdu, Farsi, Arabic...) and writing that word using an English alphabet. Because the sounds in another language are not always fully expressed with the English alphabet, there can be several versions of transliterations.

~ cultural/English lesson ended~

In the lower left hand corner, there are samples of my handiwork.

I went to my first Kurdish party and learned Kurdish dancing. And yes, I wore tradition Kurdish clothes as evidenced below. (Don't laugh. I SAID, don't laugh!)



(As a side note, it probably gives some insight into my current life that I have watched/read absolutely no American or even British news recently, but have watched a lot on the election in Iraq. Of course, most of that was either in Sorani or Arabic, so I can’t say that I have an in depth knowledge of the issues driving the election. All I really know is that my Kurdish friends like the Change party. So I guess I do too. Go Change Party! According to the latest breaking news, 85% of the ballots have been counted, so we should have a result on the election soon. Okay, I actually heard that from a Kurdish friend who I met on the street today – but I imagine it is fairly accurate. Detour into Iraqi politics ends here.)

I recently went to my first Iranian party. It was the first night of the Iranian New Year celebration and it is the tradition to jump over a bonfire. Being open to new cultural experiences, I did it too.

Here I am jumping over the fire:

Oh no wait, that was last summer with my crazy British friends in Wantage. You will be relieved to know that although there were 5 fires to jump over, they were all fairly small. Apparently in Iran they would be a lot bigger, but a concession was made because of all of the small children who were involved.

We also had a Bollywood night for our home church social where I learned some Indian dancing.

As you can see, these last few months have been a lot of fun. They have also been quite stressful at times. There is always so much to do and so many people to see, that I never really feel like I’m done. I also have been taking a fairly intense load of online courses in order to finish up my BSN. At certain points I have felt pushed to the limit…and maybe a little past the limit.

It was during one of these times that a friend told me something he had heard Heidi Baker say. The rough gist was that whenever she starts feeling overwhelmed and stressed because she has too much to do in a day, she makes sure to spend even more time with God that day – because it is better to go to only one meeting but be hearing God clearly than to go to five meeting but be so stressed that you can’t hear Him. That marked a turning point for me. I started looking for how I could rest and spend time with God not just in the morning, but throughout my day. Sometimes this means listening to worship music on my ipod as I walk somewhere. (Thank you for the ipod Melody!) Or listening to a podcast while I clean. Or taking time out to soak in God’s presence. Or making sure that I actively chat through what I’m worried about with God…and that I listen as well as talk. I also have reinstituted taking 15 minute naps when I feel like I need them. It’s amazing how much more productive I can be when I’ve had a nap. If it was good enough for Winston Churchill, it’s good enough for me!

Although I still get tired and frustrated at times, building these habits into my life has helped me to constantly refocus myself on God. And He is always there. I just need to be more aware of Him!

In January, I started making a conscious effort to call myself a follower of Jesus rather than a Christian. There are various cultural reasons for this which are too in depth to explain here. It is amazing how much that simple change in words has impacted my life. I have found myself being increasing challenged to live out what I am saying. I started by slowly reading Matthew 5-7 (The Sermon on the Mount) and asking the question, “How can I live this out?” I have been realizing how much I have mentally assented to Jesus’ teaching and example and yet not taken the radical steps to follow Him. It’s a crazy adventure and I feel like I am just taking the first steps, but I am loving it! And the more that I take risks by simply obeying Jesus, the more I have to share with other people!

Someone who has impacted me hugely in regard to following Jesus and loving Muslims, is a guy called Carl Medearis. If you are interested in getting more of a feel for the heart of what I'm doing, I would recommend listening to some of his podcasts.

http://www.carlmedearis.com/audio.html

I would particularly recommend "The Crescent - Understanding and Loving Muslims."

Thanks so much to all of you who have been praying for me. It means so much to me and is so important. And also thank you to all of you who don't forget about me even when I drop off the face of the earth for a few months. "I love you all the time!" (as my Iranian friend likes to say)

love, Hannah

Let me sum up...

Okay, it is high time that you lovely people know what has been going on in my life over the last month or so. To quote a certain beloved sword-wielding Spaniard, “Let me esplain. No, it is too much. Let me sum up.” So many random things happen here during a day, that when someone asks me what I have been up to lately, I just end up giving them a blank look as my mind frantically tries to put the disjointed parts into some semblance of order. So because of that, I think I will just sum up.

One of pockets of things that I do comes under the title of “visiting”. Basically that means that I get to go spend time with my friends – mostly Pakistani, Iraqi Kurdish or Iranian women. The ones I go to see the most are young stay-at-home moms with little children who really enjoy having company. I have also been basically adopted into a Kurdish family and sleep over at their house every week or two. These people are from cultures where large extended families live together and they miss that, so they love to have lots of people over.

This also tends to be the time when my English breaks down. You see, when you spend an extended period of time talking to someone who speaks broken English, you not only find yourself slowing down so that they can understand you, you also start to eliminate all unnecessary words – such as articles, prepositions, helping verbs. I also find that I generally end up unconsciously imitating the accent of the person I am speaking to. A Pakistani accent is particularly easy to pick up. It is really only when this happens outside of context that I start to notice that I are even doing it. My housemate Rosanna and I have caught ourselves saying things to each other like, “Home. We go, yes?” At least it keeps us amused…

Another aspect of life here is our church. This probably the first place that I have ever been where I am never tempted to say, “I am going to church.” Because we meet in different places, the church is not really connected with a building. It is the most natural thing in the world to say, “We are having church.” I love how clearly I can see that church is the community of believers.

And I love this group of people. There is so much cultural diversity and acceptance and support. I think little 10 month old Timothy, our church baby, embodies ICC. He is happy to be held by anyone (as long as he isn’t really overtired) and will laugh more easily than any other baby that I have seen. There is nothing better than making a face at Timothy across the room and hearing his little giggle. Timothy brings joy and laughter and cuddles into the life of everyone that he meets. Even first time visitors will often be found having a cuddle with him. I think we all want to be like Timothy – bringing joy and laughter and acceptance into the lives of everyone we meet. And that is why I love ICC.

Last night we had our International Christmas Party. We expected about 60 people and 90 showed up. But there was enough food (barely) and enough room and we all had a lovely time. We did a little nativity play to tell the Christmas story. I loved that we didn’t end up having to make any costumes. Our four wisemen (the Bible never says there were three!) all wore their cultural clothes (Malaysian, Sri Lankan, Indian, and Nigerian/British respectively). We had a very dramatic shepherd dressed in traditional Kurdish clothes. Mary, Joseph and the angel were all the children of the British family that I live with, but they had enough ethnic clothes around them to come up with their own costumes too. I think my favorite moment of the play was when Mary came running out carrying the “manger” and “Jesus” – and without Joseph. He showed up about 5 minutes later without his costume. Memories of “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” were flashing through my mind as I struggled not to laugh while I was reading the narration. And the best part was that none of the glitches mattered!

So the party was a great success and wrapped up with an hour of Kurdish, Iranian and Congolese dancing. Off the top of my head, there were people from Iran, Iraqi Kurdistan, the DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo), India, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Venezuela, Lithuania, Germany, Scotland, of course those boring British people, and me as the token American. I think it was a little taste of what heaven will be like!

There is more, but I think I’ll stop there. Like I said, I am summing up!

In less than a week I will be home for Christmas for 10 days. It will be a good break, but also good to know that I will be coming back. There are so many nice people on both sides of the pond!

~ Hannah

Okay, it's been absolutely donkey's years (that's a really long time in UK-speak) since I've posted anything on here. My sincere apologies. Life has been just a little crazy over the last 7 months.
Here is a speed of light update:
Since my last posting I have visited 2 new countries, been on 3 continents, hiked for 7 days in total, gone to Martha's Vineyard twice, met my new niece, and started 10 IV's.

Here is the photographic evidence (sorry, no pics of me starting IV's):

After three wonderful months back home, I am setting out on a new adventure. I have moved back to the UK, but this time to Derby (in the Midlands). I will be working as an intern with an international church for the next 7 months. Both the community around us and the community within the church is incredibly diverse, so I will be experiencing both the joys and challenges of so many different cultures. There is so much to learn, but I am excited and feel like I'm off to a good start. Please pray that I get settled in quickly.

Okay, sleep is a major key to me coping with all of these new experiences - and I think I still have a teensy bit of jet lag. So it's off to bed for now...

The Devil's Punchbowl

Here are the promised pictures from last Sunday afternoon. Every Sunday we have lunch with a family from the church and this day we got to go to the Bruces - one of the families that we have grown closest to. After lunch, we drove to a nearby village to go for a walk. The village, called Letcombe Basset (as opposed to Letcombe Regis right next door) basically consists of some houses and farms and a little Anglican church. Yep, that's it. I love all of these little English villages! We walked a kind of mini-valley called The Devil's Punchbowl. It really does look kind of like a giant punchbowl with the flat fields curving up the hills in a giant circle. The English are surprisingly creative in their names of places - particularly tiny out of the way places. So here are some pictures from our walk taken by Andy Bruce.

Me, Melody and Beverly - the three KBC students on church placement at Wantage

Hannah Bruce (my little buddy and one of my favorite conversationalists) is on the left and Jen Bruce is on the right

Two horses in a field - one kept biting the other horse's harness and trying to pull it over the fence

farmland

There was this young husky running around trying to catch rabbits. He kept catching a wiff of one and digging like crazy into a hole. He would pop up from the hole, realizing there was no hope from that direction, then sniff for a second before pouncing in a new area to begin the process all over again. We just stood for a while watching and laughing at him.

There was this tiny little park - so small that I originally thought it was someone's yard.

This cottage is called Arabella's Cottage and is apparently featured in a novel by Thomas Hardy called Jude the Obscure, which I have not read or, I must admit, previously heard of - but apparently it is somewhat famous. I looked it up on the internet to find out the name of the book and read that Jonathan Swift also apparently visited Letcombe Basset in 1714 and did some writing in the rectory garden which I guess I would have walked by because we walked through the church yard. Interesting... On another note, I love how most old Anglican churches here are not locked, so you can just wander in and look around. The one in Letcombe Basset isn't particularly old or impressive (the oldest gravestone I saw was from the 1700's), but a few weeks ago we went in a really amazing old one in another little village called Childrey. The original building was built in the last 10th century and it is mentioned in the Domesday Book commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1085. If I remember right, the present day building was begun in the 13th century. It is this amazing big old building with history just busting out of it. The crazy thing is that this church isn't that unique. My housemate was distinctly unimpressed when I came home all excited to tell her about it and informed me that there are hundreds of churches like this. I still think it's exciting!

I will be on spring break for the next two weeks, which I am definitely looking forward to! For the most of the first week I will be going to Prague with a couple of friends and then I will be making the rounds of other friends houses in Gloucester, Worcester and Walsall. I just found out today that I will be finishing up the break by going to be staff for a youth weekend for some of the Salt and Light Churches. It sounds like it's going to be lots of fun! During all this time I still need to work on my major paper which will be due a week after we get back. That might be a challenge, but I will do my best to do lots of reading!

I should have lots of stories to tell when I get back, so get ready...

some illustrations...

Here are some pictures to illustrate the last few months a little. I must confess that all of these have been stolen from other people because I have been woefully delinquent in my picture taking lately.

Mom, Dad, Melody and I in Bath in February

(if we are going in chronological order, this picture should technically be further down, but it ended up at the top and I can't be bothered to redo everything - grr... obnoxious website)

Walking to college along Willow Walk in the beginning of January

A couple of weeks later, we ended up getting the most snow Oxfordshire has seen in something like 18 years.

Willow Walk in the snow

Snowball fight in the car park (parking lot) at college. Mike is getting ready to hit Simon, our principal.

Hanging out at one of the student houses

Wantage town center, where I have my church placement.

The statue of King Alfred in Wantage town center. He supposed to have been born in Wantage.

Walking along the Thames (technically called the Isis in Oxford) with Melody when she, Mom and Dad came out to visit in February.

Carfax Tower in Oxford - This is what everyone uses as a reference point for giving directions around the center of Oxford.

Walking along Willow Walk with Mom and Melody (I am absolutely exhausted after just finishing clearing up after the Salt & Light European Leaders Conference)

Getting an excellent tour of Oxford from my friend Paul

One of the girls at college had a fancy dress party (costume party) for her birthday.
I went as Pebbles Flinstone.

Matty, one of the other KBC students, went as a French skier and amused us all with his drawn-on mustache and sketchy French accent.

*************

COMING SOON - photos from an afternoon stroll around The Devil's Punchbowl

back into blogging

Hello Everyone!

Just when you thought I had drowned in a British puddle, here I am, back from the blogger dead. I thought about writing a blog several times in the past 3 1/2 months (has it really been that long?!?), but have always been too intimidated by the staggering challenge of explaining what is going on here. Also, when I have a little free time, I am usually too knackered (tired) to put any coherent thoughts together. At the moment I am actually in about that place and considered just taking a nap, but I decided to press on, bolstered by the thought of my mother's great joy and the lure of a nice cup of tea while I type. (Incidently, I have already finished that cup of tea. I am debating making another one...)

Many significant changes have taken place since I last wrote. One such change is that I now drink my tea with only milk and no sugar. I started out in September having one teaspoon of sugar, but soon found that I actually prefered 1/2 teaspoon - making me somewhat of a difficult and confusing guest. However, sometime since January (I honestly have no idea when) we ran out of sugar in our house for a few days and so I drank my tea without. By the time we did get sugar again, I found that my fickle tastebuds had once again shifted and I now don't like my tea sweet at all. This apparently is the proper way to drink English tea - or at least that is what all of the people who take their tea with just milk claim. This proof of Britishness is disputed by those who like sugar in their tea. Much like the debate over which you put first on your scones - the clotted cream or the jam...but that is a topic for another blog...

I told you I was having trouble thinking coherently. I'm really quite sorry, but you did say you wanted a blog! So for real now...

Things at college have been really good, but incredibly intense. Every time we don't think it can any more intense, we get proved wrong once again. But the amazing thing is that we do adapt and cope and definitely grow through all of this.

The lectures have generally been focusing in on a specific book or group of books of the Bible each week. The styles vary a lot each week depending on the lecturer. I've had my favorites, but each week has been enjoyable and challenging in its own way. One of the best was last week when we did the Synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) with a guy named Brian Watts who pastors a Salt & Light church in British Columbia. Brian opened up the gospels in incredible depth, but also gave us the tools to study them on that level on our own. Such good stuff!

Our community has also grown even closer together, becoming more and more open and vulnerable with each other. At some point or another, I think each one of us has gone through a time (or multiple times) when God has brought us to a place of being really vulnerable so that He can heal past hurts and help us learn to find our security in Him. It's hard to explain, but God has been doing a lot of deep work in each of us. It's been a privilege to walk through things with other people and a blessing to know that they are there for me when I need someone.

So in some ways this has been a really emotionally stressful time, but it has also been a lot of fun. There is football/soccer every Saturday, rambles in the countryside, and games of Uno and Monopoly. (By the way, the British Monopoly has different names for everything and they wouldn't believe me that the American one is the original. It's difficult for them to accept that EVERYTHING didn't begin in England! ;) We also have good stress-relief giggles in our house. A couple of days ago, we were taking the foam from the dishwater and clapping to make it "snow" all over the kitchen. Try it sometime. It is incredibly amusing.

One thing which I have been enjoying increasingly is the beauty of the British countryside. As spring has been coming, it has just been getting more and more amazing. One of my housemates discovered a new and even more beautiful way to walk to college and I now go that way almost every day. You walk down past a little old stone church and down a narrow side road with tall old stone walls on either side until you turn left onto a winding dirt path. You cross over two bridges during the walk. One is over a lazily moving river with tall trees on either side and grassy green banks. The water under the other bridge moves faster and you can hear it gurgling along. The path cuts between two fields where there are almost always horses grazing. There is one horse who comes right up to the fence and lets us pat him and feed him bits of his own hay (for some reason he seems to think it tastes better if we pick it up and hand it to him). We have named him Mr. Darcy - but to tell you the truth, Mr. Darcy could very well be a girl since we haven't been able to decide satisfactorily. Are you getting a feel for why I love this place? It has been sunny for most of this week and every day I am blown away by how beautiful it is. And this is just one little corner of Botley which is just one little corner of Oxford which is just part of Oxfordshire...yeah, you get the point.

Well I could go on, but I think I've written enough for now. I am aiming to get back on the blogging bandwagon. We shall see.... Goodbye for now!