2 Bedrooms YIPPEE!

Here are the long awaited pics of our new place.
Our guest bedroom is waiting for you!

Hopped a Train to Cambridge

At the beginning of this week Matt headed off to London to take his last perfusion test for certification in Ireland and Great Britain. I joined him in London for a night and then we hopped a train to Cambridge to see one of Matt's friends from perfusion school, Mike, who happened to be in England at the same time as us. A little less than one hour on the train through the rolling green hills and we were in the small town of Cambridge which boasts of 32 colleges! The most famous and beautiful is King's College but the whole town is full of old colleges and churches to feast your eyes upon. I was reminded a lot of Edinburgh and felt as though I had stepped back in time 500 years. The first colleges started springing up in Cambridge in the thirteenth century! By the names of many of the colleges, streets, and parks it seems that Cambridge was once a very Christian town. There is Jesus College, Christ College, Emmanuel College, Corpus Christi College, Jesus Lane, Trinity Street, St. John's Street, All Saint's Passage, and two parks named Jesus Green and Christ's Piece to name just a few. We happened to be in Cambridge on the night of the Champion's League final football game with Chelsea and Matt's favorite team, Manchester United. We grabbed a seat at a packed English pub to watch the game and enjoy the atmosphere of being in England during the English championship game. The next day we trekked around the town more touring King's College Chapel and shopping at the Cambridge Universtiy Press Bookstore -which is were my sweet single column black calf skin Bible comes from. We also had great English food including a pasty and a roast beef wrap where the wrap was YORKSHIRE PUDDING! I really enjoy England and would not mind living here. The people are friendly, the food is good, and the prices are much better than in Dublin- even with the exchange rate.

King's College Chapel

This is one of the most stunning buildings I have seen so far in Europe. It is the King's College Chapel in Cambridge, England. Not only is it larger than life when you walk up on it but it is also very beautiful inside. The first stone was laid by King Henry VI in 1441. I was very fortunate to take a tour of it but unfortunately I could not be there to hear a choral evensong service which I am sure would have been magnificent in such a place! Maybe next time...

Movin' On Up

Matt and I learned recently that our landlord had sold our building and that we had 28 days to get out. I scoured the lettings and within 2 days I had viewed 12 apartments in the area we hoped to stay in. The second to the last apartment was the winner- a two bedroom "penthouse" in the Rathmines area. This apartment is about ten minutes walk from our first place here and is in a nice neighborhood. The apartment was filthy but the sheer size of it (big for Dublin) excited us. It is older and has very ugly worn green carpet and not a piece of furniture in the place matches but with 2 bedrooms, a fireplace, and a patio looking to the Dublin mountains how could we resist? We took it and moved in over the weekend. We didn't realize how extremely dirty it was until we started cleaning it. We have been working hard on it since we moved in (cleaning, rearranging, furnishing, throwing many things away) and it is starting to really come together. I wish we would have taken before and after pictures!

Our new place is a bit closer to the grocery stores but now further from the gym so yesterday we bought a couple of used bikes. The guy I bought my bike from lived on the north side of Dublin so he agreed to meet me in the city center to show me the bike. Getting the bike home was quite an adventure. The city center is only about three miles away but those three miles are filled with oodles and oodles of cars, bikes, scooters, pedestrians and the most dangerous- double decker buses. Since bikes generally ride in the bus lane I had my work cut out for me- make it home without getting squished by the buses. Transport by bike is normal for many people in Europe but for me bikes have only ever been for working out. I have never ridden a bike in such chaos as the city center. I am glad I made it home but I think I will limit my bike riding to the gym and perhaps the grocery store (my bike has a cute little basket that I could stick a couple liters of milk in). Sometimes I can't believe I used to own a new 4 bedroom house and 2 vehicles when these days I am excited and so thankful to have moved up to a 2 bedroom apartment and a bike!

The Blessings of God

"The blessings of God are not, typically, prosperity, health and honor. They are instead things like love, joy, peace, patience. Indeed these fruits find their most fertile soil in the context of hardship. The man who meditates on the law of God day and night may not grow a thriving business. He may not be much beloved in his community. But he will mourn his own sins. He will be poor in spirit. He will not enjoy great power, but will be mindful of God’s power, resting in his own meekness. He will hunger and thirst for righteousness. Meditating on the law of God, he will know his sin, his need for mercy, and so will show mercy, making peace even as he suffers under the sins of his enemies." -R.C. Sproul Jr.

I liked this quote by Sproul Jr. as it reminded me to examine the desires of my heart. How easy it is to desire blessings from God that are all about a comfortable life. How I have to train myself, through feeding on Scripture, to desire what I will call the spiritual blessings of God. It is not bad in itself to desire health or financial security but let us examine our hearts by examining our prayer lives. How often do we spend time praying for earthly, temporal, material blessings as opposed to spiritual blessings -such as for the gospel to be formed in us, to understand and truly know Christ (including in his sufferings) and to be conformed to the image of Christ. How often people will ask for prayer for a particular thing going on in their life- for example: help in finding a job, help in getting along with a co-worker or for someone who is having surgery. These are not bad prayer requests but think about how often you hear this type of prayer request or how often you pray for these sorts of things in your own life. Now think about how often you hear prayer requests for things like asking God to show me his holiness and my sinfulness, for me to hate sin and mortify it, for the gospel to be formed in me, for Christ to be magnified and glorified in my life no matter what the cost. Material blessings provided by God are good but how much better are spiritual blessings where Christ is formed in us and which will lead to rewards in heaven. Oh, that God would make me a person who desires Christ above all and spiritual growth above earthly comforts.

Plugged In and Losing Touch

Upward Call author Kim was talking about how she likes to go for walks to think and I thought about how I walk all the time but rarely do I go walking, or anywhere for that matter, without my ipod. I often times am listening to sermons or lectures and sometimes music but it would be rare and unintentional for me to go anywhere without my ipod. I think this is a weakness I have. Yeah, I listen to many good things and improve my mind but how much more I would benefit if I spent time reflecting on God, his word, and what he is teaching me. How much more I would benefit if I spent time wrestling in my mind over things I am learning and in prayer.

As I was thinking about this I also thought about how society seems to be plugged in more and more and interacting less and less. Maybe this is just my experience in Dublin (but somehow I doubt it). Living in Europe we have chosen not to have a car so I have learned the art of public transport. I find myself on the bus a few times a week and I always make sure to have my ipod. I always find myself looking around at everyone and am struck by how almost everyone is plugged in to something- usually an ipod or cell phone. Dublin is a city where people are continually on their cell phones, either texting or listening to music. Places other than the bus I notice how people are plugged in to not only cell phones or ipods but also laptops and gameboys. We seem to have turned into a society of people who don't want to interact or communicate. Is this true? Or is it that we just need to be entertained all the time? I would guess it's both.

On the bus I often think of talking to people. I think of how I should be sharing the gospel. I think of how I should be interacting with people just to know what people are like here. So why don't I? Mostly because I don't know what to say, I am somewhat shy, and people look like they do not want to be disturbed. I wonder if it is like this back home or is it just Dublin? Or is this just city life? People here keep to themselves but I assume it was not always this way. Before cell phones, ipods, laptops, game boys, portable DVD players, and texting people probably talked to eachother a lot more. We are losing touch with eachother.