Small World: A JBU Alumni

Safa, a JBU alumni, and I.

You'll never guess what happened today! It was one of those crazy small world experiences. I popped into a local Christian bookstore today wearing a grey John Brown University t-shirt. After looking around a bit I start to walk out and the owner/manager asks me if I went to John Brown University in Siloam Springs, AR. That had me pretty weirded out - I mean, what are the chances that someone in the middle east would know about John Brown University - this small, Christian school in northwest Arkansas.

Well come to find out, the owner of this bookstore is Safa, a JBU alumni from the late 90's. He went with JBU on their firstever summer studies trip to Ireland in 1998. Billy Stevenson and I had just been talking about him and his brother this summer. He went to JBU for two years, transferred to Asuza Pacific, then returned here eight years ago and married a Palestinian Christian gal. They have one son, Quais, and have another coming in the next month. He started this Christian bookshop - coffeeshop a few years ago.

What are the chances that in a large city like this I would step into the one bookstore that was begun by a JBU alumni? Then, on top of that, Safa's only at the store a couple hours a week - and he just happened to be there when I was. He'd love to get together for tea/a meal while I'm here, but we'll see. I'm not sure if there'll be the time to make it happen. But, he is hoping to connect with JBU's Abila archaeological dig group when they come in the summers - which would be really cool - for him and for them.

Anyways, I just shook my head, amazed at the small world we live in and excited for what Safa's doing here - in the middle east - and the role he has in this community. So, just had to share the crazy story of the day!

Travelling Adventures

It's been a long time since I've posted anything on here. A lot has happened in the last couple of weeks: turned in the dissertation, got to climb a mountain and visit Donegal - two things I hadn't had the chance to do all year. JBU's semester team arrived at Lakeside, I said goodbye to friends, and so much more. It's been a crazy couple of weeks, with many a 2am morning.

As I type this, I'm laying on the couch in my sister and brother-in-law's beautiful apartment, watching, of all things, 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' on arabic t.v. (an edited version, as they all are here) - and I could be watching anything from BBC World news to CNN to Al Jazeera to SAT 7. The mashup of cultures just blows my mind - as our world struggles to cope with/adjust/change/absorb/process globalization. Even in writing my dissertation about 1947-8, I was amazed at the level of globalization in the years following WWII - and here we are 60 years after that. Oh, to prove the point further, I wasn't in my sister and brother-in-law's apartment for 15 min before a friend from the US called about a possible job opening. It was so crazy to be hearing the voice of a great friend from AR on a phone in the middle east, having just left N. Ireland this morning.

Now that I have a week to rest and relax, I'll probably be posting about our adventures and sharing pictures. The first story, as I bring this to a close, was a bizarre cultural experience on the plane tonight.

My seat on the 6 hour flight from London Heathrow was 15c, an aisle seat. I took my seat next to an elderly couple. A couple hours into the flight, the man, sitting next to me, gets up and starts walking up and down the aisle. Shortly after he begins this routine, the guy across the aisle to my right gets up to go to the bathroom. The guy that was sitting right next to me with his wife plops down in this other guy's chair that's across the aisle from me, as if it was no big deal. I mean, the guy had his own personal things in the seat back pocket and underneath the seat - and yet the guy next to me had sat down in this stranger's seat as if it was no big deal. Come to find out, it was a cultural thing, because the guy returned and didn't seem too fussed about it - but I don't think they knew each other.

In the first four hours of the flight, the guy must have been up and down about half-a-dozen times. About four hours in, he and his wife both get out. When the husband returns he pushes me over to the window seat - where his wife had been. He doesn't speak English and I know enough about Arabic culture to know that you respect elders, but I wasn't really excited about moving or having someone else sit in the seat with my ipod and backpack right in front of them. Well, the wife comes back, and the husband just scoots over and I'm stuck in the window seat for the next two hours.

What made it slightly worse was the cultural differences in body odor. Needless to say, to an American nose, the BO wasn't the most wonderful smell in the world. Well, when he pushed me over to the window seat where his wife had been sitting, I just felt like I sunk into this fog of it as the smell settled over me. Bleh.

As we began to decend for our landing, the husband then leaned over me every couple of minutes to see if he could see lights and the city. In my mind I was like, 'If you wanted to see the lights, you could have kept the window seat?'

It was definitely a cultural experience in personal space, smell, and so many other things. It was my welcome back to this wonderful place that I got to spend 7 weeks in a few years ago. A very, very different place then Belfast or the USA, but so very wonderful in its own way.

Making it all the more wonderful is my 5 month old nephew Ben that I got to see for the first time tonight - which was amazing!! He's so adorable and his smile is the best thing in the world! His dad, Allen, was holding him and said, 'Here's your Uncle Daniel' - and Ben instantly reached out his arms to me and gave me a big hug. Oh man, it was amazing!! He's so adorable, loves hugs, and has this great smile. I'm so excited to get to be here for these 6 days with him and with my sister and her husband, love on them and get to rest in their company.

Chaos Ensues :-)

Oh man, what a day! Who would have thought that today, Tuesday, 8 September, would have been such a crazy day!

Today marks the one-week mark for my dissertation deadline. During my editing this morning, I realized just how much work I still have left to do this week. I'm just finishing editing Ch. 1 - so I have 2, 3, 4, 5, and the Conclusion to go - before figuring out how to format the more difficult parts, print it off, and get it bound before turning it. So, there's a certain level of stress involved there - and then the day got crazy! :-)

The JBU students arrived today - which was great and no big deal. The rest of the staff took care of welcoming them and getting them moved in while I worked on my dissertation. Then....

...about 2pm I get a phone call from John Lenschow my roommate. You see, for the last 3 weeks we've been trying to find out from Belfast Bible College whether or not they had students who were going to live here this semester. We had heard NOTHING from them, so Billy and I make the common sense gamble that they probably weren't going to send anyone - they'd been having major problems with visa's for their students. Well, John calls me at 2pm to let me know that one of the couple's arrived today and was on their way over - and, ON TOP OF THAT, there are 6-7 other students that will be hear by Friday/Saturday! Yikes!

Well, it took us a couple hours to get the breakdown of guys/girls in the Belfast Bible group - but once we did, it meant shuffling around nearly everyone. All the guys had to move rooms and all but two of the girls had to move. There's not as much room to spread out and everyon's living a lot closer together. The JBU students were great and understanding once we explained it to them - but to have moved into a room, be tired from jet lag, and then be told you had to move into another room with more roomates - they had a lot of reasons to not be too thrilled.

With the Belfast Bible students and JBU students, we only have 1 bedroom free in the entire house right now - until I leave in two weeks. Well, there's a JBU family coming in on Saturday to spend the night here until Tues - and it's a family of 3! Yikes! So, the parents are going to go in the one bedroom adn we're going to set up a bed in a spacious office room for their daughter.

Needless to say it's been a crazy day! I don't feel like I've made much progress on my dissertation and now that I'm sitting down to it I'm having a hard time focusing (obviously, since I'm blogging) since I've been busy all day having to trouble shoot rooming logistics.

So, there's a part of me that's loving having the students here and I kind of wish I was sticking around for the next three months to experience life with them (and Hadden Wilson could really use another driver). They've got a lot of energy and seem like an amazing group!

But, it's days like today that make me so ready for a vacation. The deadline for Fulbright and other scholarships are less than a month away and I haven't gotten to put enough time into those. So, I'll finish my dissertation next Mon/Tues and then start working on scholarship/grant applications. Oh, and the Oxford app's re-opened, so I need to try to get that app in ASAP to hopefully get some money from Oxford. I need to apply for jobs in the US - both substitute jobs and others, close down a bank account here, and tie up loose ends...

Man, it's a crazy time.