The Great Evangelical Pastime: Church Swapping

Being discontented with the church we were attending by default, Erica and I decided to give church hopping one more chance. I talked Erica into visiting a C.O.E. in the nearby village of Loose. (I've mentioned Loose before here) While church hopping initially we had heard the curate (read associate pastor) of All Saints Loose speak at a different church and I was impressed so we decided to give them a chance.
We are so glad we did.
Our first visit was Palm Sunday and was the kickoff of a week known as Passion For Life week in which the church was very intentional about welcoming outsiders. They had a quiz night the night prior, the first session of Christianity Explored the next night, and other events for the non-churched public. We were warmly welcomed (there's a first time for everything) and ended up meeting the vicar (read head pastor) and his wife and chatting for a bit after the service. We told them why we were in the UK and that I had been looking for a job. We mentioned the church we had been attending and Steve told us that All Saints was probaly more "text based" than the church we had been attending and then proceeded to use the term "expository preaching" as the method the church followed in teaching scripture. I have never in my life been to excited to hear that term.
It turns out that Steve (the vicar) just took over the post in September and that All Saints is his first head pastor position. He is a graduate of Oak Hill Seminary which is one of the seminaries I was considering if we stay over here long term. There is certainly an enthusiasm and life to the church started by the previous vicar and now really taking off with Steve. The church isn't a one man show however and that is another aspect that we are excited about. There seem to be four or five other Godly men who preach on a regular basis and wise believers of both genders who make up the church along with a lot of newer Christians.
Erica is jumping right into helping the church do some branding and establishing itself graphically. We're still considering what exactly my role might be, but it sounds like we'll at least be helping out with youth group a bit.
With All Saints as a home base we are really beginning to contemplate being over here long term. If we can play a role in a growing body (and get Erica or I a decent job) we'd love to do it and there are so many opportunities in the C.O.E. for followers of Christ to step forward into a society that is suffocating without Christ both inside and out of the church.
We have been so blessed in our two months of being a part of the body.

Europe Road Trip, Part 2

After 3 days in Paris we said goodbye to Erica's cousin and drove to Geneva, Switzerland. It ended up being the sunniest and warmiest day of our trip, and we spent it in the car for 6 hours! The countryside was beautiful but the toll road was not: over 55 euros to get from the top of France to the bottom!!! We made it to Geneva, met up with Zac's sister Anna, and went out to "The Swiss Chicken" for dinner- sounds like a diner but it was actually a charming bistro sort of place with big salads and of course chicken. The next day we walked around Geneva, seeing the cathedral
the Reformation Memorial, the Reformation Museum (we didn't go in as it cost money)
and the iconic Geneva fountain, here pictured with the lovely Anna.
Then we head 2 hours north into the Alps and visited the beautiful little village of Gimmelwald.
We had to ride up a gondola to get there (no cars are allowed). The weather was sunny and warm and we hiked in the Alps and drank the fresh mountain water that pours out of the village's taps. We would love to return there sometime!
For our next outing we returned to France (just minutes away from Anna's place) to the town of Annecy, where we played Frisbee next to a icy-cold lake (the weather was again fairly warm and we got hot, so I stuck a toe in to cool off- and my toe nearly froze off!). Annecy's town centre has a series of canals and cobblestone streets which we walked along, it is very picturesque.
From there, we spent one more day in Geneva checking out the great collection at the Museum of Art and History (or something like that) and then headed to the Black Forest, Germany!
Erica's favorite thing in Switzerland: hiking in the Alps at Gimmelwald!
Zac's favorite thing in Switzerland: good cheap chocolate!

Europe Trip, Part 1: Paris

Here is the long awaited Europe trip post, sorry for the delay.
We started out via ferry from Dover to Dunkirk and drove into Paris, arriving at 12:30 am in the morning. Prior to leaving, we had bought a European road atlas, which was actually useless, as it only showed where the major cities were and those are easily locatable via road signs; when we got into Paris, we spent 1 1/2 hours driving around, trying to use Zac's high school French to ask directions to my cousin's studio flat, which we finally and gratefully found. Our first day in Paris was Easter, and we went to a Easter brunch with Americans studying in Paris (very nice people) before setting out on our own to explore. The weather was slightly rainy but the sun did make an appearance later. We came out of the metro station and immediately in view was the Eiffel Tower, incredible! Also incredible was the size of the line at the Louvre Museum; sadly, we weren't even given the option of waiting in it, as they closed the line due to overcrowding.
We then walked all around along the Seine, to Notre Dame, and the Musee d Orsay (also ridiculous long line) and anything else we could stumble across.
Easter also happening to be Zac's birthday, we went out to celebrate at a Breton cafe (the sort of Britishy region of France) serving buckwheat crepes and cider- an interesting but delicious pairing.
The next day, as advised by my savvy cousin, we rented bikes to cruise around the city. Its a great deal: you pay 1 euro for 24 hours access to bikes all across the city; the only catch is that you can't keep any one bike more than 30 mins.
We hopped on and rode to the Eiffel Tower, where we enjoyed a picnic lunch of cheese and bread on the lawn beneath. The flowers were all out and it was a beautiful Sunny Day. However, it being Easter Monday, which is a public holiday in France, the line to go up had about 400 people in it, so we decided to forgo that pleasure and contented ourselves instead with attempting to get far enough back from it to get the whole tower in our camera's viewfinder (no small task).
After seeing the Tower, we rode across the river (riding next to it was miserable as it is mostly cobblestones) to the Arc De Triomphe and the Champ Elysees (the avenue that runs through it). We dodged traffic ala "Frogger" in order to walk underneath it; it was hard to imagine what it must have been like to see the Nazis marching through it.
The last thing we did was the Pere Lachaise Cemetery, a huge place with loads of famous people buried, including Oscar Wilde. As we showed up minutes before it closed for the night, however, all we saw were a few pretty mausoleums of no one in particular.
Erica's Favorite Part: Riding bicycles from place to place.
Zac's Favorite Part: Eating buckwheat crepes

Life's Certainties: Death & (TV) Taxes

Erica and I have been married for a little over two years, and during that time we have not owned a (working) TV. Many people advised us before we got married to not have a TV for our first year of marriage thus forcing us to interact more with each other. We followed this advice and were so pleased with the outcome that after year one we were in no big rush to go out and get a TV. As we considered moving to the UK though we both considered the possiblity that we would get one once we got over here. Erica for BBC's period pieces, I for some football, and both of us for some quality Britcoms. (Remember, they created the office.)

Here's what we discovered upon arriving in the UK. The British government imposes a TV licencing tax//fee of £145.50/$216ish (only £48/$78ish if your TV is black and white) per year on each household that uses a TV to watch content as it is shown live. (Taxes for basic items? Didn't something happen in Boston Harbor because of that idea?) The proceeds from this fee go to funding three channels, BBC 1, 2, and 3. While the BBC is very much akin to PBS in the states, with the amount of funding they receive it is able to run three different channels and create such critically acclaimed period pieces as Pride and Prejudice.

Watching DVDs only is permitted as is watching a TV show on your computer after it has been initially shown, but watching live TV on your computer is not. If you are found to be watching TV illegally you can be brought to court and fined up to £1000.

Got that?

My first question was, how do they figure out if you are acting illegally in this regard? The answer...

TV Police

The UK government has a national registry of addresses that have paid the licencing fee allowing them to keep track. But it goes further. They have officers who can detect if you have a TV!

From the official TV licencing website:
Enforcement officers may use a hand-held detection device to measure both the direction and the strength of a TV signal. This makes it easy for us to locate TV receiving equipment in even the hardest-to-reach places. (i.e. hiding it in your attic) We also have a fleet of detector vans that can detect the use of TV receiving equipment at specifically targeted addresses within 20 seconds.

How exactly does all this fancy equipment work? Nobody really knows. Many have conjured, quite accurately I am now thinking, that these claims are a hoax to scare people into buying the licence.
http://www.bbctvlicence.com/Detector%20vans.htm

The detector van watch website and others are all part of an amusing anti-BBC campaign online.

All of this craziness makes not having a TV something to enjoy once again.

Marmalade Breakfast and Wedding Banns

A few Saturdays Zac and I went to a marmalade breakfast in the neighboring village of Otham (probably the most rustically picturesque village in our area of Kent). This "breakfast" (tea and toast, to be precise) was held at the parish church, and was essentially a sale of preserves- jams, marmalades and curds. We sampled the lemon curd and the marmalade on our toast, which was fantastic. I had been intending to buy some lemon curd there, but our money was otherwise engaged. That is to say, there was also a table selling one of the former church member's household items, and Zac and I got quite excited over the "20p" table. Zac's wonderful finds: old leather wallet, metal booklet for holding stamps, and an old-fashioned glass paperweight. My wonderful finds: a metal iron-worked tea pot, something else which I won't name since its a gift for Inga, and an antique wooden tray. Anyway, you may be thinking, "Why would Erica and Zac intentionally buy these silly old things" but consider, we paid hardly anything for them and now we've got what looks like the personal effects of C.S. Lewis to grace our desk with.

Our other exciting event was hearing banns read at church a few weeks ago. For those of you who don't know what this lovely ritual is, think of that moment in movies when the officiating clergyman says "If anyone has any objections to this marriage, speak now or forever hold your peace etc etc." In this case, banns must be read at the local church of both the man and woman (regardless of whether or not they attend there) three separate times before the wedding otherwise the marriage is considered void. The vicar today did say that if anyone had any objections they should discreetly mention them after the service, which I thought polite of him. (I can't remember if that part ever gets read in the US at weddings; I only know that I was not under any circumstances going to allow it at our wedding).

It is Official

We arrived in England and managed to take part in the coldest winter in 31 years.
(deep breath) okay...we are done talking about snow.

Neighbourhood Breakfast Watch

Throughout the country there are neighborhood (or should I say neighbourhood) watch areas much like there are in the states. The logo for these areas looks like this:


As I pass these signs though, they looked strangely familiar. I could not place it until I remembered this from our days in Chicago:


Alas there are no bagel places around and Erica and I are now facing an unquenchable (wish that was on a triple-word-score) craving.