The Week in Review (December 9, 2023)

Oh, how the weeks fly.

1. My daughter Sophie has had a very enjoyable week traveling Europe before her soon return to America. From Amsterdam, she meant to go by train to Strasbourg and then to Munich. God or chaos theory intervened. A railway strike kept her from France, leaving her to look around the scintillating Karlsruhe (sarcasm). Then unexpected snow and frigid temperatures stopped her train journey at Ulm (it has a spectacular minster which I don't believe she was able to see in the end). Finally, after a night staying warm on a parked train with free coffee, she actually had to take a taxi from Ulm to Munich, thankfully at Deutschebahn's expense.

I have a strangely clear memory of most of these locations from my European days first in the 90s and then on my two sabbaticals in Germany in 2004 and 2011. The privileges of another life when I was a scholar. We spent late 2011/early 2012 in Munich, so Sophie revisited some of the old haunts from our time there, including the Gisele Gymnasium where Tom and she went to school.

Last Friday, Ken Blake in Munich unexpectedly found out he was in danger of a heart attack. God graciously drew attention to the situation before it became really serious. The long and the short of it is that Sophie was able to visit with the Blakes for several hours the afternoon he came home from the hospital. We attended their Wesleyan church when we were there on sabbatical.

She then spent a couple days in Vienna, another place we had visited in 2011. Then on to Copenhagen, a place still on my bucket list. I provided her with a few tales of Soren Kierkegaard and Niels Bohr. I'm so thankful she has been able to do this and that God has kept her safe.

2. I had the idea to make a video of a fun algebra ditty a former Greek student once showed me. It takes an equation and reworks it into the form of "merry x-mas." I put it online Wednesday and it already has over 600 hits. It will probably turn out to be the most successful YouTube video I've made.

I haven't had much time for my science and math goals, unfortunately. Just too busy.

3. The Kingswood Learn platform with free micro-courses for the church has been shared with a beta group but will launch officially at the end of the year. I will make sure that you know how to sign up when the time comes. I've finished my part of Bud Bence's "Brief Guide to Church History" and David Smith's "How to Read the Bible." This week I've slipped in Eric Hallett's "Missional Ministry Development." This resource is going to be huge. And your church can upload things too!

4. I am so very grateful to be doing what I'm doing. The young people I work with are so smart, so sharp, so talented. They dance circles around me in so many things. I am grateful to be part of what we're doing and, hopefully, I'm doing my part too.