They Wash Their Feet In Soda Water

Hello People,

I have set off on a long and arduous quest. A quest that may be the end of me, so great is its importance and the level of its difficulty. And, you should feel privileged, because of its intensity I will be chronicling the whole journey here.  Let me explain.

I am a gum chewer.  There, I've said it.  I love gum.  But I'm not just any gum chewer.  I'm a thinking gum chewer. Thats right, the Scarecrow needed a brain; I need gum. Yes, I need gum like smokers need cigarettes. Without it I get jittery and can't think well.  But with it, Ah what wonders!  Now, what does this have to do with anything? You may well ask that question, and here I will answer it.  I am also a very picky gum chewer.  I dislike sugary gum.  I detest fruit flavored gum.  I'm not even a fan of some of the milder mint flavors.  Juicy fruit is no good.  Double mint is right out.  Even pepper mint gum is pushing the edge for me.  No, the only gum for me is Orbit Sweet Mint.

Oh the taste of Orbit.  It makes my mouth water just thinking about it. I could chew a pack a day and die a happy man.  And therein lies the problem.  I have relocated to Telmar, home of the Telmarines, a vast and noble people the stores of whom do not sell Orbit.    This leaves me with the difficult and incredibly unwanted task of having to find a suitable replacement for the gum I left behind.  So get ready for a pointless and potentially boring set of posts in which I will share with you my findings about Telmarine gum.



First Subject:  Vivident
Flavor: Mint?
Shape: Cube
Key ingredient: Xylit
Assessment: Two Big Thumbs Way way down.  This gum tastes like...wait, the flavor didn't last long enough for me to find out.  Plus, I'm more than a little bit suspicious of anything besides Coca-Cola with ingredients as odd sounding as Xylit.  The square shape didn't help either.  Nobody likes a square.




In other news, last  Friday Hogwarts School for Gifted Youngsters hosted its semi-annual Parent Teacher Conferences.  For those of you who teach in the states, let me go ahead and dispel any misconceptions that will come from the term "Parent Teacher Conference."  This was not an evening or day wasted with not a parent showing up. This was an intensive day of sitting at a table for almost every parent to show up and talk about their child.  I think I may have only been slightly more nervous about my first day of teaching.  In the end it was great though, if puzzling.  I never imagined that I would have parents coming to me and asking if their students should be reading books about history at home.  Another parent informed me that I should make my class harder (I have seventh graders reading passages from John Locke!).  8:30-3:00 was a long time spent of talking with parents, but it was good.  It reminded me very strongly that I am blessed to be able to work in a school such as this one and to live in the area where I am living. What a passion I have for teaching these students and what a wonderful gift that I would be used for this purpose.  I was reading over an old journal entry recently and found this -

 For possibly the first time in my life I began to understand the severe challenge of being the “light of the world” and a “city on the hill” (Matt 5:14).  There can be no hiding or blending in when you contain light and live in a dark time.  As shocking as this realization was, I honestly believe that this is how God intended it to be.  Are we, the children of the light, meant to live together in our own secluded brightness?  I think not.  We are meant to go into the darkness.  For this reason it was written, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path” (Psalm 119: 105).  David, the man after God’s own heart realized that he was not called to stay in the safety of light and likeness.  He was called into the darkness to be led by, and dependent on, God’s own light.  With that in mind, I suppose my fears of the future should probably fade.  It seems possible that staring into a black void is where I'm supposed to be, and maybe what I'm supposed to do is to plunge right in.

That was written on the 7th of May this year.  Little did I know at the time that exactly a week later I would get a message asking me, "How do you feel about Telmar?"  We never know the next step, and isn't that beautiful?  I love that about God.  Often times that is my greatest frustration, but its a really beautiful thing. 

 I'd like to leave you with a passage shared with me by Fortescue that I will revisit later for those of you who are signed up for the newsletter. Being here, this passage has come to mean more and more to me over the last few weeks.  In this week of Thanksgiving in the States (and the homes of those from the States), let us not forget those who continually persevere in their faith in Christ.

Psalm 16

Keep me safe, my God, for in you I take refuge.  I say to the Lord, "You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing." I say of the holy people who are in the land, "They are the noble ones in whom is my delight."