Offically Done! Part 1

I am officially done with my first year ... of classes. Of course, I'll be much happier when I am officially done with my finals exams of my first year, but all things in their due time. For now, I am very happy to say I survived my first year of classes. In some ways they have been exactly what I was expecting; in other ways they have been a bit disappointing. But that is part of the experience, and thankfully spring has been a much a better semester than fall.

The year has been winding down rather nicely. I feel comfortable with where I will be during the summer. I am glad that I am starting to follow through with and will continue to pursue projects that will help me discern my vocation. I think starting the ordination process and working on a thesis will be good ways to keep myself actively thinking about where God is calling me.

I'm also really happy with where I will be next year. The new curriculum is going to be much more conducive to learning, and it will give me more time get deeply into my reading material. I'll be moving into a different dorm and room that is quite a bit bigger than my current room (it will give me about 32 sq. ft more than what I currently have) and it will move me closer to the center of campus. It will also allow me to keep more at school and less to ship home. Just a great situation all around.

Finals are coming soon, but in the mean time I am enjoying my last two weeks at Princeton before heading home for the summer. I had a surprise visit today from one of my old professors, Michael Bruner, who was in the area for a conference. It was great to see him again and having a chance to talk about the end of my first year. A good distraction from my endless reading and writing as well. Speaking of which, I should probably get back to it. Too much to do in too little time.

Falling into Place

I am slowly starting to set my schedule for next year, and yesterday I finally solidified another piece of the puzzle that I have been working on for over a month. As soon as the Registrar begins accepting the forms, I will officially be working on a thesis next year in the area of Theology. Pending approval, I'll be working with one of my professors with whom I have been taking classes this past year, John Flett. The working title of my thesis is "Is the West Beyond Salvation?" It's basically an analysis of the development of Christianity into a fully world movement and how that effects a post-Christendom West (U.S. and Europe essentially). Put in laymen's terms, I'm basically talking about how the U.S. and Europe can see itself in a world where it is no longer the center of Christianity. It will also focus on the lack of attention given to mission in our home, that we can live next to poverty in the heart of Los Angeles or other major cities yet spend thousands and even millions of dollars sending missionaries to other countries to the neglect of the needs at our doorstep. This was a prevalent theme at APU, one that caused quite a bit of tension within me. I'm looking forward to it, but it's going to be a rough year. I'm going to start doing my research over the summer, shoot for a 40,000 word (roughly 114 double-spaced pages) draft at the end of Fall semester, and revise it throughout the Spring semester. It will be a lot of work, but a good exercise and one that I am looking forward to.

I'll write more later. For now, I'm off to class.

A Walk through the Woods

A friend and I went on a walk last night through the Princeton Battlefield (one of the famous Revolutionary War battle sites) and the Institute for Advanced Study (the academic home for scholars like Einstein and Oppenheimer: see here for more info). I took some pictures, so I'll put the link below for anyone who wants to see them. It was nice to get away from the school for awhile and see some of the surrounding area that I hadn't had a chance to see yet. Very refreshing.

Here are the pictures.

I am very excited to annouce...

that I can watch up to 6 baseball games at one time!

OK, not really (though I am really excited about that).

I have been almost two months to make this announcement and the pieces have finally fallen into place to make it work. I will be coming home this summer and working at La Crescenta Presbyterian Church as an intern for my summer field education placement! This placement has taken some time to put into place but it has definitely come together because of God's good graces. I was convinced that I would be struggling to find a job that I wouldn't really want to do for the summer or sitting around jobless, but God opened this door in a huge way and everything fell into place. Here's basically how it worked out.

Back in February, I wanted to know if there were any CA church placements available, so I asked my field ed advisor for any sites that were available. For whatever reasons (God's direction probably) La Crescenta stood out. It's a nice city, I have family that lives there, and it's close to home. So I checked out the website and e-mailed the pastor to introduce myself. Turns out the pastor 1) went to my high school (graduating in the 70s) 2) was a member of the marching band 3) went to my church's youth group at that time and 4) knew very during that time a person who would become one of my mentors while I was at APU. He has two PTS grads working for him, one the spiritual director (worship leader), the other the youth director. They have some great outreach programs and other events that are focused on mission. It looked like a great fit. I visited the church while I was back for spring break, and met with the pastor and the spiritual director. At that point, it was simply a matter of funding, so I couldn't make any official announcements. And today I found out that everything had settled into place, and I received an official offer.

I'm really excited. I'm basically going to have a hand in every part of the church I can. It will be a great intro to life as a pastor, an experience that will be very helpful. So now everyone can know. =) Like I said, I have been wanting to announce this for awhile, so I'm glad I can finally tell everybody.