Oxford, United Kingdom – Saturday, October 6, 2012 – 7:26 pm local time
What a day! I’ve just arrived back in my room after attending a beautiful Evensong Service at Christ Church College Cathedral, complete with choir and the whole lot. An hour of scriptures and hymns. What a wonderful way to close a wonderful day. I arrived in London a little later than scheduled this morning after some flight delays but made it to Oxford without a hitch. I took a very comfortable coach bus from the airport and was here in the city within an hour. Bruce, my ministry partner who’s studying here at Oxford, met me on High Street. We carried my luggage back to the room and then spent the better part of four hours walking around the city. It is absolutely stunning here and just what you think it would look like when you think “academic, old Oxford”. Lots of stone buildings, green English gardens, and cobblestone streets. It’s remarkable to see all the different colleges whose very foundations were Christianity—Christ Church College, Corpus Christi College, Jesus College, Magdalen College. There are 38 colleges in all that make up Oxford University. The oldest date back to the 1200s! We went up in the highest church tower in the city to look at the view from the top. We walked through the courtyard of the world famous Bodleian Library. We walked through Oxford University Park. We even ate lunch at the Eagle and Child Pub, the “Bird and Baby”, where C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and their university friends/fellow professors met every Tuesday as “the Inklings” to discuss literature from the early 1930s through 1949. That was a special treat! It’s amazing to walk around Oxford and think of the notable people that have studied here over the centuries. It was equally gratifying to walk in that little pub and see the very corner where men like Lewis and Tolkien met to eat and drink. Very, very cool!
Tomorrow, I will be attending St. Aldates Church where Bruce attends when he’s in residence here at Oxford and where Ravi Zacharias will be the guest speaker for the morning. That should be very uplifting. It’s so very intriguing to me to be in such an academic setting that is producing some of the serious neo-atheists of our day and the most anti-Christian scientists and philosophers yet those who study and teach at colleges that were very obviously founded in Christianity and in most ways haven’t turned from that. What a world!
I am so thankful for you who continually lift me and my family up in prayer. The week ahead will be a tiring one as we travel to Ukraine and participate in the Eastern European Leadership Forum in Kiev and for Karen as she balances five children and the demands of homeschooling and keeping the house by herself. My financial support came in in full two days before I left, so I know that God is answering prayers for this trip! I trust that He will continue to do so!
More to come…
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