arsenal v. liverpool

we were fortunate enough to have been able to attend a football (i.e. soccer) match already in the little time that we've been here. people had said that watching a football match is something we should try to do if we get a chance, since it's such a different experience to anything in north america. europeans are pretty enthusiastic (if not fanatical) about their football, and the english are no different.

we were very lucky to be able to catch a match so early on. in fact, we got to watch two fairly prominent clubs do battle at the emirates stadium. it's a fairly new, modern stadium and was very nice. we should also mention that it was the first leg of the FA cup final. all this may sound very impressive, but for those of you who follow football will know very well that arsenal and liverpool were not the two finalists in the FA cup this year. the match we attended was, in fact, the youth FA cup final.

of course, this wasn't necessarily the same as watching the big club play, but it was still an awesome experience (especially since we managed to get tickets through our season-ticketholder friend for only 5 pounds each). despite it being only the youth team, the announced attendance was still about 34,000. can you imagine that? the capacity at the ACC is only 20,000 or so. and even at 34,000 fans, the stadium was only a little over half full. we learned from our friend that the capacity for the stadium is 65,000, which makes it the fourth largest stadium in england (wembley, twickenham and old trafford are the other three).

the match itself seemingly started off on the wrong..er..foot, with both teams misfiring on a number of basic passes. however, once they settled their nerves, the level of play picked up and the game flowed quite well after that. the level of skill, even at the youth level, was quite impressive. on a couple occasions, a defender would take a pass off his chest and play the ball to the other side of the field without it ever touching the ground. other times, the strikers would pull off impossible changes of direction while still carrying the ball at a full sprint.

even the substitutes were incredibly talented. during the halftime break, the reserves came onto the field to practice and stay warm. they were just messing around, but demonstrating some impressive tricks that were probably showcased on some previous nike or adidas commercial. one of the guys who was in our group is from yorkshire has a brother who played at a similar level, and even he noted that the reserves were quite 'handy' (as he called it, even though you never use your hands in football).

then there was the singing. we happened to be on the side with the majority of arsenal supporters. the liverpool fans were concentrated in the corner opposite us. as such, we were treated to several chants intended to rouse the arsenal side to acts of footballing glory. it was extremely difficult to make out exactly what it was they were chanting, but it was good fun nonetheless. one day, we'll ask our friend to teach us some so we can sing along. (she told us a funny story of a group of arsenal fans at the local pub - aptly named "the gunners" - who sang this song called "let's pretend arsenal have scored a goal" which is essentially an invitation to celebrate as if a goal had been scored, i.e. go crazy)

at one point, the crowd even got a wave going. it kept going round and round until one section stopped it. this was met with a chorus of booing from the rest of the stadium. the wave was restarted and when it successfully passed through the offending section this time around, everyone cheered.

in the end, arsenal were victorious by a score of 4-1. we were treated to goals of all different sorts, including one off a long, hail-mary type pass, one from a quick counter-attack, one from a corner and another that involved almost the entire team. watching a football match is something that you should try to experience if you're ever in the UK. we can only imagine what a proper match would be like, let alone a euro or world cup event.

since we live in the area, we likely will be adopting arsenal as our club. unfortunately, they won't be winning anything this year (much like the leafs), but there's always next season!

The cart before the horse

The challenge with being here is figuring out what it is exactly that God wants to show us and how He wants to use us. The natural question everyone asks us, Christian and non alike, is how the job search is going. It’s...well...going. I mean, we’re still working at it. And we want to work at it professionally, putting a good effort in, because it’s a reflection of the gifts God has given us.

But we also don’t want to get caught up in it either. It’s very easy for our jobs to become idols in our lives. It’s not that we worship them overtly, but we do place a lot of importance on them. When we meet new people, we almost always ask them what they do at some point, as a basis for forming their identity. And our jobs take up a lot of our time. Even though it’s not exactly intentional devotion, we are fairly devoted nonetheless.

We often mention that beloved Scripture from Colossians, to work as if for the Lord, not for men. And so we pour ourselves into our work, because it’s for God, right? But it can get very tricky to differentiate sometimes. Sometimes, we just...work. And that’s it. We work for nobody in mind. Not for ourselves, not for our families, not for God. We just work. Because that’s what’s been grilled into our heads. If you're human, then you work. It even says so in Genesis and Ecclesiastes, right?

People mean well enough when they ask how our job search is going. They’re genuinely concerned for our well being. And we’d be lying if we said we weren’t concerned as well. There’s a sense of anxiety and urgency that creeps into our thoughts every now and then.

“It is not only wrong to worry, it is infidelity, because worrying means that we do not think that God can look after the practical details of our lives, and it is never anything else that worries us. Have you ever noticed what Jesus said would choke the word He puts in? The devil? No, the cares of this world. It is the little worries always.” + Oswald Chambers

The big challenge for us is to stay the course while we’re here and keep our priorities straight. As much as we want to find a job soon, and as anxious as we get, it's important for us to remember that we're measuring the success of our adventure on a different stick. Our experience may very well involve working here, particularly with the gifts and abilities with which we've been blessed. But ultimately, success will be defined by the deepening of our relationships with God more than any job we get to do here. Did we get to know God better? Did we get to see Him work around us and through us?

“God sometimes allows you to get into a place of testing where your own welfare would be the right and proper thing to consider if you were not living a life of faith; but if you are, you will joyfully waive your right and leave God to choose for you. This is the discipline by means of which the natural is transformed into the spiritual by obedience to the voice of God.” + Oswald Chambers

dreams

It’ll cost nothing to dream and everything not to.

Those words are found on a painting we recently inherited from a friend. The painting is lovely and fits our new flat perfectly. And, considering the journey we are undertaking, the words are quite fitting. We had dreamt of living overseas for a long time. And now we’re living that dream. Wondering what would have happened if we had never had this dream is definitely a better spot to be in than wondering what would have happened if we had dreamt bigger. The former is really just introspective, an exercise in idle thought. But the latter is simply regret. Dare to dream.

much to celebrate!

our first wedding anniversary is in 2 weeks (tomorrow)! YAY!! we've finally made it to our first year, and look at that, we're still married! =P praise God!

so to celebrate, we've booked a one week holiday to an all inclusive resort in the city of rethymnon, crete (the largest of the greek islands)!!

as you can imagine, we're both super-duper excited about this trip! first of all, we're celebrating our first year anniversary, and we get to go to greece!!

so many markets, so little time!

we visited two markets last saturday. one is called borough market, located by london bridge. the other is called portobello market, located in notting hill.

borough market
it is london's oldest food market, and has a long and distinguished history as a wholesale fruit and vegetable market. but believe us, this market provides much more than just fruits and vegetables.

once we entered the market, we were greeted with the delicious smells of baked goods and coffee! although we grew quite hungry at the site of so many food options, we wandered through the market, carefully examining the variety of product offerings before we made up our minds on what to try.

the market was also filled with many food samples - chocolate, cheese, wine, sauces, dips and even pâté! it was all so savoury and we wanted to buy it all! of course we didn't. but we are very glad we had the sampling to tide us over until we finally decided what to buy for lunch.

finally, we decided to share a venison burger. for those of you who don't know what venison meat is, it's deer meat. of course, teresa didn't know it was deer meat. she thought venison was something of the buffalo meat variety. once she found out it was deer meat, all she could think of was poor bambi. needless to say, she didn't take another bite of that burger after that image was placed in her head.

for dessert, we bought two pieces of brownies (£2 for one piece, £3 for two pieces. so of course, we had to buy the two pieces - it just made economic sense!) from flour power city bakery. and oh my goodness, they were good brownies!

look at the slabs of brownies! we would SO eat it all =P

SO GOOD!!

portobello market

located on the famous portobello road (location of the famous blue door, travel book store, the garden fence, etc from the film notting hill, staring hugh grant and julia roberts - by the way, we didn't find any of these famous locations from the film and we didn't want to be all touristy and ask =P), the market stretches for about 3.22km. it was uber crowded, of course, it being a saturday afternoon with yet another day of great weather and all.

in the first section of the market, most of the shops were selling antiques. there were antique cutlery, service ware, restroom accessories, frames, display units, etc. antiques are nice to look at (for a little while), but since we don't collect antiques, or have a desire to collect them, we quickly moved past them.

the next section of the market is the food section. everything looked so good! (to all our fellow gourmands, you would love it here!) there were loads of fruit and vegetable stands, baked goods, meat vendors, and many many other food stands!

we saw a few spanish stalls, and they cooked mixed and seafood paella with their very large paella pans right in front of you! it was such a treat to just watch how they cooked it, and what ingredients went into each pan! we'll be sure to try it out next time and report.

the great thing about london is that there are markets everywhere! these are just two of the more famous and popular ones. each market has its own flavour and character, which makes it so much fun to try to explore all of them. keep posted for our head-to-head best brownie ever challenge!

and...we're back!

it's an amazing experience these days to live without internet. our drought started when we moved to our new flat last tuesday. that's right. for a total of 8 entire days, we have not had regular access to the internet. and we're alive. amazing!

of course, we managed to be resourceful and get some access (free, no less) at the local library. you have to reserve time and are limited to an hour per session and two hours max per day. but still, it's better than nothing.

so what have we been up to? well, this past week was mostly "tourist week," as we like to call it. we got around the city to see some of the more typical london sights. an afternoon in the westminster area allowed us to rack up quite a list of attractions, including: westminster abbey (we didn't pay the £15 to go in, though), big ben, british parliament (for you v for vendetta fans), the london eye, and buckingham palace. teresa even had fish & chips for the first time! sadly, we didn't get to meet the queen on this occasion.

now that we've rejoined modern society, we'll write more on what we've been up to in the next few days.

hillsong london

ever since we decided to come to london, we had been looking forward to worshiping at hillsong london. right or wrong, there's a certain mystique to that name. this afternoon, we finally got around to it, our first time there since arriving in london. we thought about going sooner but wanted to wait for bea & tim, who go there regularly, so we wouldn't be lost. we left with a sense that God had ordained that we should go when we did and to that specific service.

we didn't know what to expect really. we'd heard lots of things about hillsong church, whether in sydney or london. there were good reviews and other reviews that were not as enthusiastic. still, part of our little adventure is to see how other churches worship and see how God wants to teach us through the experience.

i'm always a little hesitant when it comes to hype. i know it's quite ironic, being a marketer myself. but maybe that's why i'm a bit if a skeptic at times. it's because i know how hype works and how hype tends to overshadow substance. we can get so focused on the sizzle that we forget we came for steak.

and so it was that i we found ourselves holding back when the service started. it's quite hypocritical of us, seeing how we often lament how the congregation at scbc seems reluctant to engage in worship freely. we didn't want to lose ourselves in a spectacle and become consumers rather than worshippers. and it's hard when you have a church that works very hard to ensure that its production is worthy of the glory of our God. we plan on visiting again and hopefully, next time, we'll be able to let go without losing the true spirit of worship and find that amazing, freeing balance.

christine caine was the speaker for the service we went to. i'm sure you can find her bio somewhere on the internet, so i won't repeat it here. it's really hard to ignore what you hear in terms of other people's opinions! we had heard comments that the preaching at hillsong can be a little loosy goosey and light on Biblical grounding and so, again, we were cautious. But God definitely had other designs in mind and anointed her with a healthy dose of the Holy Spirit because, boy, did she preach with power and conviction! and what she preached on was just another example of how God has been affirming us in our decision to come here.

she spoke on how life is inherently risky and how the point of life, particularly for Christians, is not to arrive at death safely or comfortably. here are some key points that we took from the message:

"Jesus came so that we might be saved, not so that we might be safe."

"the purpose of light is to find darkness."

"when he came, there was no light. when he left, there was no darkness."

- epitaph for a.w. mill, a one-way missionary

"If you have men who will only come if they know there is a good road, I don't want them. I want men who will come if there is no road at all."
- david livingstone

"don't sell out to lesser priorities."

but it wasn't all stories, and she wasn't just saying this stuff from the pulpit. she was living this out herself. as a 40-something mother of two, she responded to God's call for her to start fighting human trafficking, starting in greece. some would say that it was a job for someone else, someone without responsibilities like a raising a family. but God called her. and she stepped out in faith, took a risk, and obeyed. we wish there was a recording of the message we could share with you because it was that good. we'll try to find it if we can and post a link.

maybe not every week at hillsong is like this. and maybe our reaction was because we walked in as skeptical as we did. but for this one week, at this one service - the one we attended - there was a tangible sense of God's spirit moving mightily among his people.


as a side note, joel houston is REALLY tall. and the drummer was insanely talented.

best ice cream ever

today we met up with one of cas' old friends from high school. he's been in europe for eight years or so and is finally headed back to toronto, which is unfortunate since we just got here. but we got to spend most of the day catching up and meeting some new friends.

we asked for all of his recommendations on places to go and his favourites in the city. he gave us lots of great tips, including a shop that sells 'the best gelato ever.' we were a little skeptical. we asked him if he'd ever been to italy, and he had. still, he insisted, this was better - way better. amidst his praise, he even went so far to say that there were not enough superlatives in the english language to describe just how good the gelato was. we received his personal guarantee that this would be the best ice cream that we had ever tasted.

"this guy probably graduated from the top of his class at the school where they teach you how to make gelato and came to london because he figured he could make way more money here."

of course, all this ice cream talk sparked a craving and since it was yet another gorgeous warm, sunny day in london, we decided to go together. the store is called scoop, and it's located in the covent garden area, an area we had walked around previously. it might be a prerequisite to be italian in order to work there, or at least part of the family, but i suppose that adds to the credibility/authenticity/appeal of the place.

the place was busy, which was a good sign, and a queue streamed out the door into the street. they have a number of different flavours from which to choose, including two kinds of chocolate (milk and dark), lemon, pineapple, strawberry, cinnamon, just to name a few. we opted for a medium cup, which gives you two flavours. teresa chose chocolate (naturally) and caspian chose pistachio (the flavour on which he benchmarks all gelato).

the verdict? well, suffice it to say that the guarantee was fulfilled because it was, in fact, the best gelato we have ever had. you can take that as you like, since we may not have tried that many places, but it was really really good. don't take our word for it, though. come here and try it for yourselves!

as a bonus, they also deliver and we happen to be in the delivery zone!

http://www.scoopgelato.com/