A few favorites from 2008

BEST TRAVEL EXPERIENCE:

Dominic: weekend in Boston, January.

Well, it was no kids, which is energizing, plus we went and stayed in the Kendal Hotel, which is fabby and we stayed there in 2006. Winter sunlight, long walks and fabulous Italian cuisine!

Kathryn:  weekend in New York City, October.

Well, it had kids and grandparents.  Not that I didn't have fun with Dom in Boston.  I most certainly did!  But there's just something about NYC that nowhere else can beat.  It had been SO LONG since I'd seen a show and been to Central Park...and this time I got to share all that wonderfulness with Emily and Andrew as well as with Dom and his folks.  The weather was perfect too...and around every turn in Central Park was another scene straight out of some movie we'd seen.  I don't remember that happening before.  It was a total blast!  Oh and we went back to the restaurant that Dom and I had so much fun at back 6 years ago when we went alone - Pastis

Emily: New York City easily! (October). It was so big, so new and so fun. I enjoyed naming a building "The Vampire State Building. The coolest experience was seeing "The Little Mermaid" on Broadway and also seeing the Statue of Liberty from the plane.

FAVORITE

Andrew: Going on the train to Washington DC in August. I thought the toilets were particularly well-maintained....

FAVORITE MOVIES IN 2008:

Dominic: Not a mind-blowing year. "Kung Fu Panda" was excellent. "Iron Man" was memorable. Can't think of others. If they were stellar, I would have remembered them, right?

Kathryn:  "Iron Man" was amazing.  You know you're on to a great thing when your sister who doesn't like action movies recommends it!  Of course "Nim's Island" was cool too...and so was "Kit Kittredge:  An American Girl"

Emily: It was "Prince Capsian", the second of the Narnia stories. 

Andrew: The latest Wallace and Gromit - "A Matter of Loaf and Death" - violence and romance in a bakery - what more could a 4 year old want?

FAVORITE TV PROGRAMS IN 2008:

Dominic: Probably "Doctor Who" - season 4. Honorable mention for series 5 of "The Office" and "the Amazing Race 13".

Kathryn: Oh yes, "Dr. Who" and "The Office", but then there was this amazing -and old- 4 part miniseries from 2005 called "North and South"  NOT the one with Patrick Swayze, but the one with Richard Armitage.  WOW!  I'm now reading the book by Elizabeth Gaskill...

Emily: My favorite new show was "H20 - Just add water", where my heroines change into mermaids and generally have a cool time splashing around in Australia...

Andrew: Probably a tie between "Sid the Science Kid" and Curious George". Honorable mentions for "SuperWhy" and "Lazytown"...

FAVORITE BOOKS READ IN 2008:

Dominic:

A lot to choose from this year. Really loved the free-flowing fun of Jules Verne's "20 Leagues under the Sea". For imaginative fiction, two stand out: "Neverwhere" by Neil Gaiman (in January) and "Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke (Spring-Summer). Reading all 21 Tintin books in order (November to December) was great fun!

Kathryn: "Three Cups of Tea" by Greg Mortensen

Emily: "Magic Tree House: Civil War on Sunday". Emily liked this, because the characters got to meet their great, great, great grandfather John when he was 12. She also liked, "Magic Tree House: Tonight in the Titanic"...

Andrew: his 4 kung-Fu Panda books  (go Tigress!)....

WISH LIST FOR 2009:

Dominic: To have a full-time job and ministry fit in Europe! To visit a country I've never been to. A cruise would be great. Get fitter and leaner. Play the piano a little better. Sing better. Cook more than my favorite 5 dishes. Be salt and light and an encourager to all I rub shoulders with. Beat Emily at cards more than once in a blue moon...

Kathryn:  Come to an end of this trying to get to Europe thing and just be there (after two years of talking about it, you can hardly call us impatient)!  This all depends on Dom having a full-time job (read - happy hubby) there.  Lose those last 10 pounds of preggie weight from Andrew.   

Emily: Would like to New York again, a trip to Scotland to see Papa and Grandma Jan and visit Caden in Washington State. (Dad's note - that's a lot of air miles right there)..

Andrew: That I would be a model kid for my parents.... (honest...)

THINGS I'M MOST THANKFUL FOR IN MY LIFE:

Dominic: Having Jesus as my rock, advocate and ally in 2009. Having a family who are unique and never cease to surprise me! (in good ways). Good friends in nooks and crannies all over the world. The hope of the gospel. Plenty of good reasons to jump out of bed in the morning! 

Kathryn:  My husband and my kids.  That Jesus is in charge of my life since this past year I've continually been reminded that I'm not.  

Emily: My school, my teacher and my friends, my family, my house, all my webkins, DS games, favorite food and drinks and being healthy......

Andrew: For having great parents, a cool, protective sister, pre-school friends (lots of girls!) and plenty of Star Wars toys and weapons....

THINGS I'VE LEARNED THIS PAST YEAR/HOW I'VE GROWN: 

Dom: Well, I've become this amazingly well-rounded human being....

Seriously, I hope it's true that I've learned a little more trust in God than I had before and trusting in His goodness in the midst of uncertainty. I've struggled with contentment and probably that will be a feature of 2009 as well. I've learned to slow down a little and enjoy my kids a lot more. They are startling and awesome and constantly surprising me. I've learned that I'm a hungry man who needs Jesus only to satisfy me. I'm nothing like I thought I'd be at 42. I still feel I've hardly scratched the surface of who I am, who God is, what I'm capable of and what I know. That enough of that for now!

Kathryn:  I'm far less in control of my life than I ever thought I was.  That I'll never be able to do half the dreams I've dreamed if I don't even try - and might not even if I have.  

Emily: Still processing.....

Andrew: Well, I'm almost potty trained....

Disjointed narratives

DISJOINTED NARRATIVES – A TALE OF 2008

You see, if I had been writing the narrative of my life in 2008, it would have gone something like this. After having felt a call to ministry in Europe and being “not accepted as a good fit” for church planting in Vienna in September 2007, Dominic and Kathryn decide to step out in faith in 2008. Dominic stops full-time work in January in order to pursue ministry and job opportunities, while teaching online. After numerous conversations, prayer, discussions with good friends, and a solid connection with ministry leaders in Europe, Dominic and Kathryn are chosen to go to Eurosville with TCPI -  Trendy Church Planters International (the church-planting agency for young at heart 40 something’s), and, applauded by their church leaders, start support-raising with a clear goal to take off in 2009 or 10!

Wait, or another version: Dominic pursues English language tentmaking opportunities and, with employers being impressed by his wealth of teaching and business experience, spends December 2008 weighing various offers, before sitting down to Christmas dinner with a job offer to start teaching English to business leaders in Europolis, starting May 2009! Bringing the gospel into the European workplace and being involved in a local church plant ministry. A clear fit of desires, abilities and motivations! Great narrative…

The thing is, God is writing the narrative here – and, funnily enough, His version of the story seems to be a little different. Less simplistic. Less clear-cut. More mystery. Less clarity (at least to the characters walking page by page). More disjointed. Wiser, perhaps? Fashioning a piece of literature, instead of just pulp, airport bookstore fiction?

I realize this is an unconventional start to a Christmas or end of year letter. Most of you already know the background to our weird journey of 2007, since you have prayed for us.  Thanks!  The journey is still well and truly in the uncertain zone. The “put your money where your mouth is and really acknowledge that God is good zone” (even if He doesn’t write the narrative you want). Does anyone resonate with this feeling?

Part of the year was spent talking with people doing ministry in Europe, the kind of people we’d like to join with – breakfast with a Brussels church-planter in February, talking about home church set ups in Prague with a cool church planter in June, asking teachers in Bratislava about the cost of living there.  Part was also spent doing an online course in tentmaking (being a missionary in intention but being self-supported in a useful job role). Part was finally spent in applying to teaching English jobs in Europe including a job prospect to teach businessmen in Germany, which, despite 3 phone interviews and a lot of hope looks like is not leading to a position there. It seemed like a great fit, and in October they wanted to interview me in person. What a neat narrative ending to the year – a likely job in Germany! But the economic downturn stepped in. Or they had second thoughts. God developed the narrative in a plot twist which right now gives me an empty feeling in the stomach.

Of course, there were a lot of pleasures for all of us in this year. We took a weekend trip to Boston (no kids!). We enjoyed a great week of friendship in Knoxville, TN with Jim and Melanie (thanks guys!). We had two different weekends away to Maryland to visit old friends Dawn and Rich and then Mat and Amy. Other compensations. The pleasure for me of not being in an office! Time to think, reflect, get sore backs from carrying Andrew and being slapped in the bottom by Emily. More time to connect with an amazing, patient and supportive woman called Kathryn. Also, time to enjoy Washington DC in August, watching the Olympics with Emily in a cute townhouse and meeting my Mum and Dad in NYC in October for a fun weekend simply being big-spending tourists, wandering Central Park and humming Abba songs for days afterwards (courtesy of “Mamma Mia”). 

 

One thing which held us together and always holds us together through the tensions of waiting and disappointments of dead-ends is our church family. Not only the guys at Trinity PCA, Norfolk, but the others, both local (thanks for the beers, coffees, breakfasts and fellowship this year, guys! Bob, Dave, Iivo) and scattered all over the world. Thanks for those who read our email updates and prayed for us. We are all sharing ministry together, and continue in prayer for our friends in Pune, India (we’ll miss you Leah!), Vienna (enjoy the beer, Jeff and Jodie!), a farmhouse near Greenock (hi Jon and Esther), our Stuttgart friends (hey Andy and Piper) and many others….

 

Thanks for reading this personal take on 2008. God is good. Also, He appears to be a terrific writer. But He doesn’t order the narrative of my life the way I’d do it! Kathryn, Dominic, Emily and Andrew wait for the pages of 2009 to start, knowing this: “I know the plans I have for you”, declares the Lord. “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11).

 Believing Him. Fellowshipping with Him, whether it’s Chesapeake or Cologne.

Have a Merry Christmas and a great start to the New Year,

In Christ,

Dominic

For Kathryn, Emily and Andrew….

        

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Check out the slideshow

Check out the slideshow on the top right of the blog, which contains some favorite photos and a good visual snapshot of the Christisons in 2008....

Domesticating God for Christmas sake....

Kathryn accuses me of Grinch-like tendencies around Christmas time, and she's mostly right, especially with me groaning at the tidal wave of Christmas music you have to listen to at this time of year. I just read an article I resonate with about the domestication and taming of the Christmas story. It partly addresses the question lingering in the minds of some of us who have been believers for many years: why does the Christmas story, the event to top all events, of God breaking into history decisively, make us yawn and switch off?

Here's the article: (from - http://www.doggieheadtilt.com/foot-on-his-neck/

Slithering and sinister
The stories of Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Jesus’ birth originally featured slithering princes. Snow White’s prince slipped in and locked himself away with her dead body. The prince in Sleeping Beauty slithered in while she slept and got her pregnant. The prince in the Christmas story, however, was a darker, more sinister character. Yet Christmas would be richer if we kept him in the story… keeping a foot on his neck.

Ancient tales tended to be a great deal more raucous. In the original Sleeping Beauty, for example, the princess was wakened not by a chaste kiss, but by the twins she gave birth to after the prince had crept in, fornicated with her sleeping body, and then left again. In other words, it was R-rated. The same goes for the older versions of Snow White. A passing prince originally claimed the girl’s dead body and locked himself away with it. Yeccch. His mother, complaining of the dead girl’s smell, was greatly relieved when the maiden returned to life. If that’s not R-rated, it’s at least PG-13.

The original Christmas story also featured a peculiar prince. If you read the Revelation 12 rendition, it begins with a dragon fomenting a ferocious struggle in the heavens. This dragon is the slithering serpent known as the devil, or “the prince of the power of the air,” as the Apostle Paul described him (Eph. 2:1-3). Before the earth was created, he provoked a conflict across the cosmos between his troops and those remaining loyal to the Great King. This war makesThe Lord of the Rings look like child’s play. God won, the devil lost, and the vanquished (a roiling force totaling one-third of the angelic realm) were thrown down to earth. You can catch the highlights in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28.

We also get a clue that the demonic castaways are here on earth when we read Genesis 1:2. The pristine earth is “formless and void” – a Hebrew phrase with ominous overtones of God’s judgment.¹ Yes – the prince is lurking in the bushes. He slithers out of the underbrush in Genesis 3 and seduces the woman, impregnating the world with his seed of sin, setting the stage for Christmas and the continuation of the cosmic conflict.

Now we fast-forward to Revelation 12, where the story continues with a woman who is about to give birth. The vanquished Lucifer is crouching greedily before her, his blood stained hands ready to crush the newborn child. Somehow… someway… the infant is snatched away to safety. A headlong flight into Egypt ensues, with hosts of demons on the tail of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus (catch the highlights in Matthew 2). Foiled, the prince slithers off, seething and declaring war on the followers of the Christ child. It’s meant to be a terrifying story, but was toned down years later. Who did this? When? Why?

In the 19th century, Victorian reformers, many of them people of Christian faith, romanticized the idea of “childhood” and believed that children should be protected from any exposure to evil. Childhood instead became an cherubic escape – we couldn’t stand to have children crying, for crying out loud. This meant the ancient stories about slithering princes seducing sweet princesses needed to be cleaned up. The process began with romanticized Christmas carols penned in the 19th century and eventually included an idealized Sleeping Beauty and Snow White in the 20th.

“Away in a Manger,” for example, was published in 1885 and glamorized the “stars in the sky” looking down on the cherubic child – erasing any conflict that might scare the kids. An Austrian priest named Joseph Mohr wrote “Silent Night” in 1816, waxing rhapsodically about “all is calm, all is bright” while neglecting the monstrous mayhem taking place that night. Rector Phillips Brooks wrote: “O little town of Bethlehem, how sweet we see thee lie” in 1868. But a “deep and dreamless sleep” while “the silent stars go by” seems a far cry from Revelation 12, where all hell was breaking loose.

Once religion was romanticized, many ancient fables became idealized. In the 20th century, Walt Disney turned Sleeping Beauty and Snow White into escapist entertainment. Snow White was Walt Disney’s first feature-length cartoon, sweetening the role of the prince while shrinking the dwarfs into comically adorable munchkins. When critics protested the broad changes, Disney responded, “It’s just that people now don’t want fairy stories the way they were written. They were too rough. In the end they’ll probably remember the story the way we film it anyway.” He was right about that.

When Victorian reformers expunged illicit sex and violence from ancient stories, they helped erase from our consciousness the first two social consequences of sin – illicit sex and violence (we still rate movies by these two markers in Genesis). That’s one reason why J.R.R. Tolkien warned against cleaning up seemingly salacious stories – it would ruin them.² Every great story, Hollywood screenwriting coach Robert McKee says, has an “inciting incident” – when all hell breaks loose and protagonists do battle with antagonists.³ By reducing slithering princes to sweet Ken Dolls, or Christmas to Candyland, engaging stories become dull escapes – hardly the stuff of riveting religion.

“Religious happiness is no mere feeling of escape,” wrote psychologist William James. A riveting religion believes that “the world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck,” James noted.⁴ We didn’t choose to live in a world infested with evil, but keeping a foot on Satan’s neck – thus,keeping our eye on him – is better than pretending that he doesn’t exist by telling prettified stories. Plus, if you tell the original, raucous Christmas story, your kids will not only be able to handle it – they might also find Christmas to be more riveting.

_________________
¹ Allen P. Ross, Creation and Blessing: A Guide to the Study and Exposition of Genesis, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1988), p. 106.
² See J.R.R. Tolkien, “On Fairy-stories,” Andrew Lang Lecture (1938).
³ “Storytelling the Moves People: A Conversation with Hollywood Screenwriting Coach Robert McKee,” Harvard Business Review, June 2003.
⁴William James & Bruce Kuklick, “Circumcision of the Topic,”Writings: 1902-1910 (New York: NY, Library of America, 1987), pp. 51-52.

Andrew the Christmas theologian

I'm going to let this speak for itself. Stay with him....

12/14/08

Didn't know what to call this post...

So today - or rather yesterday's date will have to do.

Frustration. Angst. Struggle. For anyone who have not been following our last 2 years this entry may be a bit surprising.  Dominic and I have wanted to move to Europe - felt led and certainly encouraged even - to help with planting a church somewhere there.  The first was in Vienna, Austria, but we were turned down as the position didn't look like it would be a good fit for us.  Indeed, after about 8 months of wrestling with this painful decision, we have come to the conclusion that the ministry position we sought was not a good fit for us.  We moved onto something that looked to be a better fit - a job in Europe.  Dom has had 3 interviews and was invited to come for a face to face interview in what looks to be a very good place to work from all we can tell from the interviews with the company and with other people who work there.  BUT now the economy has gotten in the way it appears and emails aren't answered and phone calls are uncomfortable.  

This so feels like death...of a dream, a hope.  Our life right now is not fun or pleasant.   It hurts.  I cry and my dear Dominic doesn't know what to do.  He can't encourage me because he's in the same boat.  I can't encourage him either.  That's on an especially bad day like today was.  Most of the time it's not THAT bad.  But today it all seemed to be in my face...

Today a friend came home from India to be reunited with his fiance who will join him there in January...and other friends at church announced they would be going to Japan with a missions agency.  Other friends we've met on our journeys are leaving today to go join the team leaders in Vienna.  Other sweet friends have moved to Germany for a couple of years in a work transfer.  Other friends are in Seattle.  Still others are at seminary preparing to go to Peru.  Another is preparing to go to Paris.  We seem surrounded by like minded people.  And I am so happy for them all.  I really like and value these wonderful people and can't help but be excited for each and every one of them.  But what is it?  Did we forget to put our deodorant on?

Yes, I KNOW the Lord is in this whole thing.  Please save all that breath.  I know this, but it certainly doesn't make walking this whole thing easier.  It's nice to say God knows the plans he has for us, plans to prosper us and not to harm.  Plans to give us hope and a future.  We are seeking Him in this!  Know that!  But even God seems elusive.  This is probably something akin to couples who want to have a baby, but can't seem to get pregnant.  People will think there's some sin that's keeping you from being sent.  We've been through a discipleship course with the missions agency we applied with and I have gone through 2 other courses about discipleship as well.  In these things you ask God to show you your sin!  Sure, we now see just how much we need Jesus.  We know that we are so totally fallen that we could never work our way to heaven.  God's grace is our only hope.  But there hasn't been anything lurking in the shadows that God couldn't use for His good.  Nothing that would be a reason not to go.

So, we struggle with the thought of staying - and finding contentment in that.  Right now, the thought brings little consolation.  Mostly grief.  I know we can find opportunity to help with a church plant right here.  But Dom and I are this weird international couple.  God has UNiquely (think the UN here) gifted us in this sometimes bizarre way.  I SO don't understand what is going on.  I'd like to have at least a small grasp on the why of things like this.  So far, nothing.

We've been talking about feeling as if we are walking around in a mist.  Now it seems the fog just got thicker.

And there's not much escape from it all.  Sure there's Dr. Who and Survivor, The Office, and The Amazing Race, but all TV series come to an end. Books do the same.  Sleep too.  These escapes are only for a time.  Good while they last, but they are temporary.  So for now we wriggle and squirm in the uncomfortableness of this time in our lives.  We hope it is temporary, but even hope seems lacking ...  Meanwhile, we wait as well as we can.

I Am a TARDIS?

Sometimes I have big thoughts in the shower...

You may know that I, Kathryn, am a science fiction buff - have been since I was a wee lass.  I remember watching the original "Star Trek" with my dad and watching reruns of "Lost in Space" in elementary school followed by "Star Wars", "Space 1999", and "Battlestar Galactica", and again "Star Trek The Next Generation".  Two of three pieces I know how to play on the piano are "Star Wars" and Battlestar Galactica".  So this is one of my preferred genres especially on screen.  Never really have gone in for the written sci-fi. 

 About a year and a half ago some dear friends of ours - Piper and Andy Fordham - introduced Dominic and I to "Doctor Who" -the old, now new, British sci-fi television series.   The time travelling "spaceship" as such in this show is called the TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimensions in Space).  The cool thing about the TARDIS is that it's bigger on the inside than on the outside.  

So yesterday in the shower I'm thinking about God and His creation - the earth, the universe and such...the beginning and end of time.  About literary classics and sci-fi and love.  Love in that you never run out of love or people to love.  How it doesn't matter how many kids you have, there is always room to love another one.  How when someone you love dies, there is a hole left that only they can fill.  How as Christians we have the Holy Spirit living inside us.  

So how could we possibly NOT be TARDIS' ourselves?  Because of our imaginations we can go backward and forward in time.  We have so much room to explore in our heads.  So much "scope for the imagination" as Anne of Green Gables once said.  We can't really grasp all this enormity.  We have our limits, but we are still so much bigger on the inside of us than what these human bodies are physically.   Perhaps in heaven our bodies will be able to travel as the TARDIS does from time to time and actually see Adam and Eve created and the Garden of Eden and Christ go to the cross for us and even our own wee story and well as the end of time.

So this is probably a "wibbly wobbly timey whimey" sort of analogy, but I just had to share it with someone...

Thanks for reading -

What Not to Do

Saturday night I had one of those experiences that you hope will never happen to you but do anyway...

I locked myself and Andrew in the bathroom - without the doorknob on the door.

Let me go back to Thanksgiving Day... We'd been having trouble with the master baths doorknob sticking a lot recently.  On Thanksgiving we had some friends over and the girls were upstairs playing and came down at one point saying that they'd been locked in our bathroom (OK, you have to NOT ask why they were in our bathroom which is off limits, just never mind that)  Apparently they were yelling and screaming for someone to come, but no one did.  We told them we'd been having trouble with it sticking.  

On Saturday night when Andrew was having his bath in our bathroom, I decided I'd take off the doorknob which I did.  Then because the door is uneven or whatnot, it doesn't stay closed by itself.  I got the "wise" idea of putting the little latch bit in without the knobs on.  It would keep the door closed.  IT WORKED!!!

BUT...

How to get out?  Without the knob on the door there is NO WAY to get the door open!  Even with the knobs sticking it was better than this!  I'm stuck in the bathroom with Andrew having fun in the bathtub. 

 I hope you are laughing at this point.  

I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.  

After fiddling with the latch a few minutes in was V. obvious that I was going to have to take the door off its hinges.  Something I'd never done before.  I thought of my ingenious friend Susie who can do anything like this.  I knew she'd taken doors off before.  Maybe Dom should call her and ask...

Well, before doing that, let's see if I can figure out how to do it myself.  Dom got a flat headed screwdriver (which of course wasn't the one I had with me since the doorknob needed the Phelps) and a wrench.  I couldn't wedge the screwdriver between the the hinge and the pin.  I tried to use the wrench to pull it up.  Neither worked, but praise God, I used the wrench as a hammer and stuck the end of the screwdriver under the pin in the hinge and hit the other end.

BINGO!  I was out in a minute.  

But boy that was one of the dumbest things I've done in a while...well, if you don't count trying to argue with a four year old on occasion...