I forgot to tell you the story about how I went to book heaven. It was a few weeks back when my senior pastor told me someone who used to be our church member long ago wanted to donate part of his library to our church. Oh, that's very nice of him, I said and didn't give it a second thought. And then two days before I left for England all the office guys went to pick up the books. And I still didn't think much about it, even when they told me later that they had run out of boxes and they needed to go back the next day. It was only the next day that I realised they were talking about a LOT of books. So then I smuggled myself into that old man's place with the other guys to help carry the books... and I almost fainted. I think it was the biggest private library I had ever seen in my life. The whole apartment was just full of books. And he gave a small part of them to our church, which meant 3000 books. Like, three flippin' thousand books. So I sat in his living room in the middle of books and boxes and my senior pastor drew my attention to the fact that I kept saying 'Oh my days, oh my days' over and over again. I didn't even notice it myself haha. And man, there was everything. Just name it, it was there - Kierkegaard, Merton, Niebuhr, Schweitzer, Bonhoeffer, Karen Armstrong, Hybels, Lucado, early church fathers, Bultmann, Moltmann, Tillich, Hebrew lexicons and text books, Greek lexicons and text books, couple of sets of decent Bible commentaries, everything, everything. Madness. So now I have about 50 boxes with theological literature (mostly in English) on my attic, waiting for decent rooms and shelves. I feel like I never have to go to the library ever again haha!

But my rendesvouz with the attic library was interrupted by my Newbold visit and the books I got from there. I read two of the books last week which Dr A. N. gave me in England and I was very pleased to realise it was - phew! - real adult stuff she had given me. Some tough reading (one of them a terrible & terrific book about Vietnam war, the other one good ole G. G. Marquez). I'm glad she takes me seriously enough to recommend me such literature.

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I've started noticing some moments in a very special way lately. Sometimes I have a tendency to define myself through my losses and failures. I think it's very human. We think too often about things we don't have any more or not yet. That's why I'm glad for moments which remind me how enormously much I still have in life. Over the past two weeks I've really been surprised by joy and by moments like...
- having an Operation Ice Cream with my senior pastor's 10 year old daughter
- sitting in my kitchen with my Bible and a cup of tea early in the mornings
- eating crepes with my cousin's family in a French cafe
- reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer's prison letters and wanting to marry him
- listening to my dad play the biggest organ in this country
- trying to trick my senior pastor to my living room with my office colleagues for a surprise birthday party
- having a surprisingly deep conversation with my little brother
- receiving a long and sweet letter from Dr A. N.
- starting a little writing project with a friend I thought had forgotten all about me
- getting the first sermon manuscript from my homiletics class student
There's a lot to thank the Almighty for.

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And here are couple of bad quality pictures from my vacation. I haven't missed my camera as much I missed it in England this time.

The Isle of Wight in the distance

Lepe Beach

A postcard view