Christmas dinner

Sorry I've not posted much lately.  I got focused on posting at Twitter/Facebook and have been busy with Christmas.  Here's a picture of the table Sheila set up for us for Christmas dinner.  It was amazing!

The winter solstice

We are really looking forward to the winter solstice this year!  It's this Sunday.  In England today, sunup was at 8:06 a.m. and sundown was at 3:55 p.m.  The sun hardly gets above the horizon - you drive around with the sun in your eyes all day.  You really make an effort to get out in the sun whenever you can, too.  The last two days, we have had sun and Sheila's been going out for long walks.  But you have to get a move on, or the sun will be down before you know it.  Of course, it's fun.  I don't think the long nights are bothering us that much right now.  We'll see how we do over the next few months! :-)

A delightful visit

Today the door bell rang and a young man told me that his father used to live here.  He hoped that his family might see the place.  It was one of Douglas Gresham's sons.  We had a delightful visit.  I lead them through the house and Sheila fixed us tea.  We were so glad we were here to welcome and befriend them.  I'm sure it was a very meaningful time for them - to be able to walk through the house, remember family stories, and to see pictures of their loved ones on the walls.  God bless them.

A London encounter

When Sheila and I got on an elevator at a tube station in London last week, I stood beside a young man holding a walking stick that had an engraved head of Sherlock Holmes on top. I asked him if he had gotten it from the shop on Baker Street and then proceeded to talk to him about what I had found there years ago. One thing lead to another and we got into a conversation about religion. He is a Mormon who has recently fallen out with Mormonism and has just finished the Alpha Course. He wanted to talk to me more about Christianity and C. S. Lewis. I gave him my card and asked him to drop by when he was in Oxford.

This evening, while I was finishing up a tour, he called and asked if he could come by. I consented, though it was going to take him forever because of the time of day and Oxford traffic. Nevertheless, he finally arrived and we had a fairly intense conversation for an hour and a half. He was born in Hong Kong but now lives in Australia. He works with young people and wants to do trauma counseling. He also plans, at this point, to be baptized in a Baptist church when he gets home. This young man needs prayer that he will have a clear mind concerning Christianity and a confident faith in our Lord. He needs some good direction in his Bible study and some good Christian friendships. Lets pray that the Word will continue to take root and he will gladly walk the narrow road to heaven.

Winding down to Christmas

David here. Today is our son's birthday and it's getting close to Christmas, so I planned a few special things for Sheila to keep her spirits up. We went to London for a couple of days to see a performance of Wind in the willows, which was fun, and a performance at St. Martin in the Fields of J. S. Bach's Christmas Oratorio. While at the concert, we sat with a lady named Chandra who is from Oklahoma. She and her husband, a Texan, recently received permanent residency because of her husband's specialized computer work. She took the picture of us which you see here.

Intermission during a performance of Bach's Christmas Oratorio at St. Martin in the Fields church, London.

No, we have not seen the Hobbit movie yet! But we did walk through the square and past the theatre where the premier was shown - they still have the display on the theatre itself.

Misc.: The work on the new shower here in the house is just about done. I am going to finish some of the work to save money. We'll be keeping our ears to the ground to see if there are any other lonely Americans this Christmas that may need some company. I still have about 4 months before I speak to the Oxford Univ. C. S. Lewis Society, but I've a lot to do. I also hope to have my book of prayers based on the Thirty-Nine Articles published in the near future. I would appreciate prayer about that. We pray for you all and miss you bunches!

A Hymn for Workers

My Master, teach me all the joy
That comes to hearts that see
How every busy hour's employ
May all be work for Thee.

Whate'er demands my toil, my skill,
My active thought and hand,
It is my Saviour's business still,
And wrought at His command.

Then let me do the daily task
With free and happy speed,
As one who hears His sweet Voice ask
My service for His need.

And let me sing an inward song
To think, with holy pride
In Nazatreth's home how oft, how long,
His working Hands He plied.

For still the Lord, who labour'd thus,
True toil delights to bless;
He lives and moves all day with us
Amid the stir and stress.

And what an hour 'twill be above
When comes the bright reward,
The wages of eternal love
For servants of the Lord!

Bishop H.C.G. Moule

odds and ends

We continue to have work done to replace the shower - a window was found behind the old one, and we are going to restore its use.

Sheila baked 4 cakes this weekend for our neighbourhood party tonight (well, it was supposed to be 3, but almond flour doesn't work so well in the AGA). She's worn herself out. Thankfully, she can rest tomorrow. On Thursday, we head off to London for a couple of days. That will be good for her.

I drove into town today to have lunch with Richard Turnbull, former president of Wycliffe Hall. We had a mutually energizing conversation.

The guests arrive in a few minutes, but I had to share this and the poem I'm about to post. God bless you, gentle reader! :-)

Christmas thank-yous

Sheila is writing thank-yous on Christmas paper, sitting at Lewis' desk in the "common room" of the Kilns. There is a lot of correspondence to do with this job!

Christmas Party

A short video of the local C. S. Lewis Society Christmas party in the library of the Kilns last night. You'll note Sheila making an appearance toward the end! And yes, that's Walter Hooper in the chair, along with Aiden Mackie, a Chesterton scholar.

Holiday Cooking

Sheila by the Aga stove in the Kiln's kitchen today.

 Last week's Thanksgiving celebration with some fellow Americans went over really well.  Now we get ready for some Christmas entertaining.  It's a tradition that the local C. S. Lewis Society has their Christmas party here at Lewis' house each year.  The party is tomorrow night.  There will be close to 40 people here.  While Sheila's cooking today, I'll be spending time inviting folks to a neighbourhood Christmas desert next Monday evening. 

Sheila has decorated parts of the house for our Christmas events.  This is the fireplace in the library.  The library is not an original part of the house.  It is a brilliant conversion of a previous 2-car garage built here by some folks who bought the house after the Lewis brothers had both passed away.

In the meantime, I've been mediating efforts to get the shower replaced.  Starting Wednesday, we'll have workers tearing out the old and building back the new.  They hope to be done by Friday evening.  We'll see!

the sign thing

OK, yes, I blew it on the video when I told you about the picture on the wall behind me. I forgot to turn the library lights back on before the video so you could see it. Here's a picture of it. It's the original sign from the Eagle and Child pub, where the Inklings met. Ind Coope is the name of the brewery from which the pub got its beer. You can read more about Ind Coope here.

Thanksgiving Week - video

Nine-hour days

I just noticed on my "world clock" program that sunrise this morning was at 7:23 and sunset at 4:15. I didn't realize it was getting dark that quickly! Ah, well, we are a good bit farther north than Chattanooga.

Things are rather quiet here at The Kilns for the present.  For some reason, we only have one scholar living with us right now.  She is speaking at the C. S. Lewis Society meeting this week.  We are looking forward to that.  Week after next - the week of Thanksgiving - we will at one point have 3 other people staying with us.  Our guests for Thanksgiving Day have now reached about 9 or 10, I believe.  The quiet will soon dispel. :-)

Sheila has had to spend a lot of time and effort trying to get a turkey.  It seems that people over here will order turkeys for Christmas, so the demand rises in December.  But the meat dealers are used to Americans asking about turkeys in November.  We have finally narrowed things down to the turkeys in the freezer at the "Super Sainsbury" store, and she is relieved!

We had three tours last week, totaling around 35 people.  I lead them all.  One group was made up of college kids from Abilene, Texas.  We had another "small world" incident that day.  Among some other guests on the tour was a couple in the U.S. Air Force.  He was beside himself with happiness to be in C. S. Lewis' house.  He was also thrilled to be able to talk with other C. S. Lewis fans, because he didn't know any other Lewis fans back at their base in Europe.  Well, it turns out that next year, when this couple moves back to the States, they are going to be posted to an airbase very near Abilene.  Crazy.

You will recall reading in a previous post about the retired CofE clergyman living in our neighbourhood.  Sheila is going to go over to their house tomorrow morning to pray with his wife.  She is such a sweet little saint. 

One of the things I'm doing this week is having coffee with the curate of St Ebbe's, Headington.  He is in charge of reaching out to the college campus near the church.  I hope to get some pointers from him about college ministry.

Speaking of neighbours, we had one neighbour invite us and a few others over to her house last night.  You would not believe the food!  For "starters," she served us these small, crumpet looking things, with smoked salmon, caviar, and cream on them.  In addition, she had these deep fried prawn balls (they call shrimp, prawns), and ball-shaped, breaded pieces of haddock - both with toothpicks in them to dip in a chili sauce - similar to cocktail sauce back home.  Then the main meal was a piece of baked salmon with mixed vegetables.  Afterwards, she brought out a desert - a bread and butter pudding with some kind of cream concoction served on the side with pieces of fruit and marshmellow in it.  Then!  Out came the cheese board - beautiful stuff; with crackers.  And when we were thoroughly miserable, she offered us coffee and truffles.  Amazing! 

It is very common to find people standing at the gate, looking at the house.  One day this past week, I came back from a bike ride (yes! I eventually found a bike - thank you for praying; more on that later) and there was a young couple by the gate.  I went over to them and started talking to them about Lewis and the house.  They were locals, but they knew little about the house.  He had read a few books and she had seen the Narnia movies.  They were so glad to have someone talk to them about the place.

A very important item on my list for this coming week is nailing down a date for the replacement of our shower.  We do have a "bath room," with a nice, old, long tub and sink in it.  But when the house was restored, a shower was put into one of the small areas off the kitchen.  Well, it is now caput!  Water runs out from under it.  Dr. Matson is trying to raise the money for it, and I'm supposed to get the plumbers out here to do the work.  Thankfully, the former Warden had already had some folks to come out and look at the thing, so I'm working with one of those tradesmen. 

As I said, it's quiet now, but I hear we will be very, very busy in the spring and summer.  In the meantime, we have more neighbours to meet.  Do please pray for us as we meet these people and have them over for tea or dinner.  We want so much to be Christ to them and honour him in our behaviour and conversation.  Some of these people are not believers and we want to encourage them to know our loving Lord. 

Mormons for Lewis! - And the mole is back

Among the many we had through the house last week, we had a group of students from BYU. It's great to see the broad influence and appreciation of Lewis and his writings.

The kids (yeah, I call them kids, but considering how old I look in the photo I can probably do that! :-)) wanted pictures in Lewis' dining room.

In the meantime, a guest of ours this past Sunday noted, as we stepped out the front door, that we had moles! I looked and, sure enough, there were three more hills. Hm. Something must be done!

thank you

For those of you who have prayed for "my spirits" - thank you! I think things have leveled out now! PTL!

A busy week

Dear friends, I've been trying to find time to write about what's been going on lately, but it's been very difficult.  Tonight things have calmed down enough - and Sheila is watching the latest Downton Abbey with one of our scholars! - so I'm going to write.

I think I'll go back to Sunday.  Michael Ward - local C. S. Lewis scholar (he's the lecturer for the UTC annual lecture in March, btw) invited us to go to church with him.  He goes to the Tolkiens' church, Saints Gregory and Augustine.  Since we are good friends, we invited him to come over for lunch afterward.  Well!  Of all days to go to a Roman church, we go on All Saints Day.  I've never been in a service with so much incense!  I liked it, but poor Sheila was having to hold a kleenex over her face - she's got a touch of asthma.  Needless to say, we won't be going back any time soon!

The sanctuary of SS. Gregory and Augustine.  If it looks a little cloudy up front, well, you know why!

After Michael left the house, his priest, Fr. Saward, and the new head of the St. Barnabas Society here in Oxford - who had been having lunch with the Father - came by to visit.  Turns out, that they live in our neighbourhood.  They had not sat down for long when another neighbour, Fr. Andy Edwards, came to visit.  Fr. Edwards is a retired Church of England priest from up in Cumbria.  So, we had a very ecumenical clerical conclave going on in the common room of the house for Sunday afternoon.

We met Fr. Andy at St. Ebbe's Headington church.  Many of you will be interested to know that his son, Tim  Edwards, has just gone to New St. Andrew's College in Idaho to teach theology.  Anyhow, I would like for you to pray for Andy.  He had a stroke about 6 months ago and struggles with the after-effects.  He's also new to Oxford, having recently retired.  We hope to befriend him and his wife Jill.  They live just around the corner.

This very sociable Sunday got us off to a very busy next two days.  Sally Clarkson, of Whole Heart Ministries, is in Oxford visiting her daughters.  She mentioned something on her Facebook page about being willing to meet with some ladies at the Kilns, if they were interested.  The result was 30+ women from all over the UK, except Ireland, gathered in our library for tea and two hours with Sally.  Everyone seemed to have a good time, but it was a lot of work for us.  We got to spend a good bit of time with Sally and we think we could be good friends.

By the way, one of the ladies who came is here in Oxford with her husband from VA Univ., but he's a South Carolinian and she's from Maryville! :-)

This is Sally in our library; you can see Sheila standing in the corner by the tea-table.

Today, in the morning, we had a tour with a few people who were friends of Peter Greyling and his wife, who head up Christian Heritage London, the sister ministry of Christian Heritage Cambridge, where Ranald Macaulay works.  It was great meeting them and learning more about this really good ministry. 

In the afternoon, we were briefly visited by some truly Irish folks!  Loved their accents.  Sandy Smith, author, and a couple of young people who work for the BBC, stopped through so the younger folk could see the house briefly.  Sandy and his team are making 3 documentaries on Irish aspects of C. S. Lewis' life.  They were in France just today filming in the area where Paddy Moore died.  We enjoyed getting to meet Sandy and the young folks had a really great Facebook sharing time in the house! :-)  They want us to come over and visit them in Belfast.  Hm.  We'll have to think about that one.

Tomorrow, after I give a tour, Sheila and I plan to take a little trip west of Oxford to visit a fellow who restores bicycles - I'm still without wheels and I'm dying!!!  Hopefully, he'll have something for us.  It just so happens that I found out there's a pottery manufacturer in the small village near the bicycle fellow, and so I thought I needed to take Sheila along so she can enjoy the pottery thing.  It should rain some, but you won't do anything around here if you let the rain stop you!

As I write, fireworks are going off in the neighbourhood.  This week is the week of Guy Fawkes Day and Saturday evening there will be a big bonfire and fireworks, which should be a good time to meet some more people. 

Please pray for:
1. Our spirits - we struggle with some things, especially me.  I need my equilibrium restored after the summer and all that's been involved in getting here.  I think I've got the Elijah-post-Carmel syndrome.
2. Our local church involvement; we're down to considering two places and may need to connect with both.
3. Our support needs to improve so we can keep our State-side bills paid.
4. Wisdom with those we live with, that we will be a benefit to them, and not otherwise.
5. Obviously, we need grace with all the people coming and going, that we will be to them what we need to be.
6. Pray for the healing of A., and for Fr. Andy, recovering from his stroke.
7. Pray for clear priorities with all we have to do.

Enough! 

Touring

David here: Well, today I officially lead my first tour of the house.  The attendees were just 2, a lovely couple from Cardiff.  They had read many Lewis biographies and Douglas Gresham's books as well.  There was a sense in which this made the tour easier, because there were stories I did not have to tell, but then again, it made it a challenge because they knew so much!  But it was fun, and they were lovely.

Then, in the afternoon, Peter Cousin - famous for taking people around Oxford - gave us our own little tour, visiting many sites related, not only to Lewis, but to J. R. R. Tolkien as well.  He is a real treasure trove of knowledge about Lewis, and we learned a good number of things from him.  It was so nice of him to approach us earlier this week and invite us to ride around with him.  He's retired, and no longer does tours as he used to.

I took a few pictures.

Of the many houses we visited related to Lewis' life, I was especially concerned to get a picture of this one, because it is here that Lewis and the Moores lived while he was keeping his diary, later published as All My Road Before Me.  This diary is an important source for the paper I plan to present during the Trinity term at the local C. S. Lewis Society.

Mr. Cousin also took us to see Tolkien's residences and his final resting place.

In the same graveyard as the Tolkiens, Mr. Carpenter - biographer of Tolkien and the Inklings - is also buried, so we paid our respect to him as well.  A delightful afternoon with Peter, a very generous and kind man.

McGrath Lecture Tonight

I just posted this on the C. S. Lewis Society of Chattanooga Facebook page:

McGrath speaking at Christ Church (Blue Boar Theatre) tonight - should have brought my better camera.

Hey, Folks: Went to a lecture by Alister McGrath tonight covering important aspects of his book The Intellectual World of C. S. Lewis. He emphasized Lewis' use of imagery related to light and sight. Lewis' apologetic was not propositional arguments, but "Try to see things in this way and then ask if the Christian story doesn't give sense to it all." He mentioned Lewis' idea of "joy" and the argument for God from desire being a use of Augustine's famous statement in the beginning of his Confessions about our restless hearts finding rest in God. He spoke very highly of the depth of thought and apologetic genius in the Narnia books and reminded us that, even though Lewis is very accessible because of his engaging language, yet we must not take him as shallow. Much on the contrary! Well, that's some points I took away from it. Now I need to finish the book. Here's a picture from the lecture tonight. 

Dinner at the Kilns

Recently, Sheila prepared a dinner for our scholars.  She went all out, as usual. 

Here she has the table all set out for them - including candles in the fireplace, which she likes to do

And here we are about to partake of her fine cooking!

C. S. Lewis Society Meeting Last Night

Last evening, we attended the second meeting of the Society for this term.  The speaker was Dr. Evelyn Perry from Framingham State Univ.  Her topic was: "Rereading the Subject: C. S. Lewis' The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe as Memoir."  She stayed with us at the Kilns for several days and we got to be good friends.  I have pictures this time!  One of my nieces complained about not having pictures, so I took my camera.  Well, not a real camera, but my phone, so the shots are not that great, but they work.

This is a shot from the corner of the room.  The Society meets in a room in Pusey House.  It was a big crowd - over 50 - but that happens when someone gives a talk on a Narnia book.

Here is Sheila talking to a friend of Prof. Perry named Martin.  Martin is a leading scholar in the study of World War II evacuees, such as the children depicted in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.

Here we have James Crocker, the current Society president, kicking off the meeting, announcing that Alister McGrath is going to be speaking next Monday night at Christ Church about Lewis and Christian apologetics.  Seated beside him is Prof. Perry.  Sheila, in her hat, is sitting next to Martin and to her right is Sarah Clarkson, the student-writer who I mentioned in another post of this blog.

And of course here we are with Prof. Perry. 

Pray for a young lady

Magdalen College Chapel

Last night we did one of our favourite things, which is to go to choral evensong at Magdalen Chapel.  We got to sit right behind the choir; it was almost like be in the choir. It was lovely.
Walking back to the Kilns with one of our scholars, Sheila noticed a young girl - looked like a student - who seemed upset.  She noticed that the girl was walking up to people and the people were walking away from her.  Sheila decided to talk to her.  The poor thing had either lost her purse or it was stolen and she didn't have enough money to get a bus back to her lodging.  Sheila gave her what she needed.  Please pray for her and that this bad circumstance will be used to bring her closer to the Lord.
Today I'm spending all my time trying to get the car over here transfered and insured and all that stuff so we can drive it.  Sheila's been cooking up a storm!  We are going to have a house dinner tomorrow night with our resident scholars.  She's using Suzy C.'s minestrone recipe - will be excellent!
Tomorrow, the remnant of hurricane Gonzalo - yes the one that just hit Bermuda - will be hitting the UK and they anticipate gale force winds in places.  Not the time to be on your bike!

The blog of a new friend

I want to share with you the writing of a young lady we met at the C. S. Lewis Society meeting last week.  We were actually looking for her, because she and her sister attend Wycliffe Hall college and their brother may be spending a few months with us at the Kilns.  She is a very artistic writer and I think you could benefit from taking some time to casually read her posts.  So, without further ado, here's the link to Thoroughly Alive.

Toyota's answer to the Smart Car

Lots of interesting small cars over here!

The Smart Car

The Toyota "IQ"  :-)

Jeff, The Mole War, and Simon

Our gardener, Jeff, was finally able to visit us today.  He has suffered a back injury and some family losses.  But he seems back on the job now, and he talked to us about the moles.  He said all the hills in the garden were probably from one mole.  They seem to be very active all around the area - probably has to do with the weather.  Anyhow, he fixed the hills, as you can see from the photos.  I think he likes to put something that smells bad to the moles in their holes to encourage them to leave.

We went to the local health centre this afternoon to sign up for the National Health System.  While we were at the clinic, there was a man there in a wheel chair with something wrong with his lower left leg - some kind of break.  He had that metal frame around his leg with pins going into it - you've seen them.  He asked one of the nurses for some water, but they did not have any to provide for him.  Afterwards, he sat there, obviously in a good deal of pain.  I told him I overheard his conversation and offered to go get him some water.  He accepted and thankfully the pharmacy next door had some bottled water, so it was a quick and easy thing to do.  This lead to our having a good discussion with him, of course.  His name is Simon.  He smashed his ankle in a biking accident.  He lives near us.  We wound up exchanging names and numbers because he is looking for some kind of desk work to do until his leg heals up.  So, I plan to check back up on him in a few weeks.  We can pray that somehow we may be able to go beyond deed and share with him the word of the gospel at some future date.

We have a new scholar coming in this weekend to speak at the C. S. Lewis Society meeting Tuesday night.  We also have a missionary couple from Germany coming in for a few days as guests of their father/father-in-law, a scholar here.  Looks like a busy next few days.

This is what it looks like under the mole hills.

The hills are down - hopefully the mole is encouraged to dig elsewhere.  We shall see!

First Oxford CSL Meeting

I just posted this on the Facebook page of the C. S. Lewis Society of Chattanooga:

A coaster from the Lamb and Flag. The pub is owned by St. John's College and proceeds from the pub go to college scholarships.

Hey, folks! Greetings from Oxford. We attended the first meeting of the Oxford C. S. Lewis Society last night. They meet weekly! The speaker was a prof. from Canada who spoke about Lewis, the Psalms, and the Bible. It was just a basic introduction to Lewis' book, Reflections on the Psalms.
The meeting next week sounds interesting. One of our scholars staying with us here at the Kilns will be speaking on The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe as "memoir."

After the meeting last night, some of us went over to the Lamb and Flag pub. It's across the street from the Eagle and Child, which was pretty busy. I've heard several different stories as to why the Inklings went to the Lamb and Flag. Some say that the Eagle and Child ran out of beer one day, and so they moved. Another person said it was because of a menu change. McGrath says in his new bio on Lewis that it was because the Eagle and Child had been sold to a new owner and the new owner was making renovations that spoiled the privacy the Inklings used to have at the Eagle and Child. The Lamb and Flag does have some cool spaces, I must admit.
...

Veritas Forum at Oxford, etc.

Spending some time this morning gathering info for our scholars on local opportunities for lectures and stuff.  Just found the Veritas Forum at Oxford!  They will have a meeting in Nov.  The Oxford Graduate Christian Union also has Monday night lectures and discussion.  Usually they meet at the Mitre, but they had a special meeting last night with Alistair McGrath (couldn't go).  Dec 2, Udo Middlemann is going to be there.  Anyhow, I'll have to check in on this stuff and compare with what's going on at UTC and get some ideas.

Struggling and Reckoning

You may imagine that we have had struggles about our move to Oxford.  Even this morning, as we walked to church, we discussed the rational and irrational aspects of what we have done.  This evening, reflecting again on Hebrews 11, I had the idea of composing a summary of our mission, or step of faith, making it read like verses from the chapter, not because we are on their level - obviously we are not - but to help us visualize ourselves as having done something that was indeed by faith, that it is indeed the kind of thing that God leads His children to do at times, and to help us settle in our minds why we have acted as we have.  So, here goes:

By faith, David and Sheila left the comforts and securities of their home to serve the LORD in humble service in a foreign land, not knowing whither this step would lead.
By faith they did things they did not think they would do,* because they accounted that God was indeed alive, that He does guide His people, and that He could still give them new things to do in their latter years.

*Sheila thinks this line should read: "By faith they did things that only young folks would do." :-)

Our first drop-ins and the Mole War

I was out in the front garden this afternoon when I heard someone say, "That's the house."  I then heard someone fumble with the gate, so I walked around and met a lovely young couple from the States, Grace and Bratt (sp?).  They met at Hillsdale College, got married, and now Bratt is working on a Masters in Economic History here in Oxford.  I decided to show them around a bit, so I took them into the common room, the room where Lewis died, and the kitchen.  In the  process they got to meet one of our scholars, whose son attended Hillsdale.  They had not heard of the local C. S. Lewis Society, so I invited them to attend.  That was fun and they were able to do a lot more than they thought they'd be able to do visiting here.

I also showed Bratt "The Mole War".  The garden is getting overrun by moles - the proverbial "mole  hills" are everywhere, as you can see from my picture.  I'll have to have something done about this right away.

Sheila and I are still having to spend a good bit of time getting settled in and learning our way around.  Thankfully, we are feeling better, so that's good.  We plan to attend our first Sunday morning worship tomorrow at St. Andrew's Headington, where we attend Morning Prayer.  We'll see what that's like.  Then tomorrow evening, we'll probably go to Holy Trinity for Evening Prayer - Lewis' church.

The Mole War

Our first few days

Thanks to your many prayers, our trip over to Oxford went quite smoothly.  We were hardly here for an hour when we met some of our neighbours, who promptly invited us for tea and took us to the grocery store.  You can imagine that this was a huge blessing, because we were pretty tired. 

We are still somewhat jet-lagged.  You wake up at 3:00 in the morning and realize that your body is saying, "Well, it's about 10:00 p.m., but since you have been sleeping for 4 hours or so, you are not going to go to sleep any time soon!"  And so you don't.  :-)

We have had 3 scholars living with us, but right now we are down to two: a professor from Calvin College, and a gentleman working on his Ph.D. from Connecticut. Yesterday, one of them invited Sheridan Voysey over for tea, and we had a great discussion.  Since he has dealt so much with cultural issues, I asked him what he might do if he was trying to reach students at UTC, and he had some good advice, which I much appreciated.

Sheila has started cooking - which is really important!  There is an apple tree in the back yard and she has picked some apples and made apple sauce for our scholars.  She is so sweet.  She has also made her first pot of soup, which we have shared with the neighbours. 

We had a tour of the house yesterday and we will have a tour tomorrow.  I just had a mother call to ask if we had any material to help her 8-year-old daughter with a school paper on the life of Lewis.  Sadly we do not, but I could give her a book title they could use.  You just never know who you are going to be able to talk to or help here.  Do pray for those "divine appointments" that the Lord has for us, that we will have the wisdom and grace we need to minister to people.

Daily Divine Office

One of our resident scholars, Dr. Laura Smit of Calvin College, has introduced us to daily Morning Prayer at St. Andrew's, Headington.  Today was my second day - I plan to keep this up.  If you go to their site, be sure to check out their history.  They have a large arch at the entrance to their sanctuary that was built in the time of the Normans.  Beautiful.

My job

If I have not explained to you enough of what we are doing here, this is from the job description I have been given.  Enjoy!  :-)

Duties of the Warden

You will report directly to the Kilns Coordinator.  The responsibilities of the Warden consist of the following:

• Ensure that the house and property are properly maintained—(i.e. overseeing upkeep of entire house and garden);
• Oversee all of the financial matters relating to the administration of The Study Centre;
• Serve as liaison between the C. S. Lewis Foundation and the local community;
• Manage special projects and events as needed;
• Maintain accurate statistical data and information relating to the usage of The Kilns, including tours and all other activities;
• Serve as the primary contact person responsible for the oversight of all residents (both long-term and short-term);
• Maintain and advance the spiritual integrity of the C.S. Lewis Study Centre as an intentional community of Christian scholars;
• Promote the Scholars-In-Residence Program with the goal of maintaining the optimal level of occupancy at all times;
• Entertain and host special guests as needed;
• Oversee the tour ministry.

What is not mentioned is prayerful faithfulness to share the love of Christ with all the many people who visit the Kilns.  We need grace for all the "job" aspects of the position, but especially for the spiritual side of it all.  Do pray for us.