Merry Christmas!

So... it is Christmas (or rather Advent) again. As you can see from the picture, it actually snowed in Vancouver. :) This year Keith and I are with Keith's family in Iowa. (Luckily we managed to get out of there before more snow came!) There will be 10 adults, 2 children, and 4 dogs, all sleeping in the same house. It will be quite the wild time. :) I like being here, because, now that I am finished marking Hebrew finals, all my responsibilities are finished, and I don't need to worry about schoolwork for the next couple weeks. At present, there is a lot of snow, and nothing to do outside the house, so staying in the house and loafing--knitting, sleeping, reading, talking, watching movies, etc.--is the order of the day. Yay! We worked hard, and now it's time to rest.

Traditionally, this is the time of year to reflect on what has happened in the past year. We don't have too much earth-shattering news at present. We have been very busy at school and at church. However, in spite of that, I think we traveled more miles this year than ever before. We started the year with a trip to North Dakota to witness our nephew, Michael's baptism, went to Kauai in May with my family, took a road trip through the Midwest to visit Keith's family in May and June, visited our friends, Alan, Libby, and Anna Thorp in New Zealand in August, I went to Peru to visit another friend in October, and now we are in Iowa again! Anyone want to add up the miles and tell me the total? Really, the purpose of all this travel was to see people who are dear to us and far away. We had wonderful times with both our families, enjoyed hanging out in New Zealand with the Thorps, and I got to meet Sindy face to face for the first time in Peru! This is typical for us; scenery and activities are nice, but people are more important.






















At school, this has been our busiest year ever! I am working on my Arts Thesis, which is a series of four carefully planned worship services making use of lots and lots of string instruments. I will also be writing a paper on this subject. Meanwhile, I am also keeping myself sane by working as a Hebrew TA (teaching assistant)--I get to keep up on my Hebrew skills, while helping other students learn.

Keith has been working as a TA as well, for Greek! My, aren't we a nerdy pair! A common sight over the summer was the two of us sitting together at a table in the Atrium at school marking the daily quizzes for summer language classes. Keith has been very busy taking upper level seminars and language classes, as well as studying for comprehensive exams. He successfully completed the New Testament exam at the beginning of December, and will be taking the Old Testament exam in the spring. He has been supported through the process by some very helpful professors.

At church, I worked as a worship intern from October 2007 until August 2008. It was an amazing learning experience, which has helped me greatly in my arts thesis. In particular, I learned how to better craft a worship service and how to better encourage others to use their musical gifts. Now that I'm done with my internship, we're both still regularly involved in music at church.

On an entirely different music-related note, I've been teaching cello in an after-school music program. I have three students, whom I share with my friend, Cat. They had their first performance in June. We were so proud of them! A few weeks later, we all gathered at my house (with moms) for a tea party to celebrate their accomplishments.

What's next? We're graduating in the spring (April)! I will complete my thesis, and Keith will complete his exams! Then I think we're done with full-time school for a while, or maybe permanently. That will total 10 years of college for me, and 8 years for Keith! As for what comes after that, we have some ideas, but nothing is certain just yet. Stay tuned for next year's Christmas letter! (Or read our blog.)

I hope all of you, our dear friends and family, have a marvelous Christmas, wherever you are, and whatever you are doing! May you always remember our incarnate Lord who came to dwell among us. Blessings on your celebrations!

Love, Keith and Celia



p.s. We'll have an Olson family picture up on our blog soon, too! We haven't gotten to it yet...

Singing Psalms in the Living Room (and also at church)

Well... everything went off without a hitch! (Let me know if you disagree, because chances are, I will want to hear from you. I'm gathering feedback for my "field research"!) I refer, of course, to Arts Thesis Part I, the All Saints Day service we had at church last Saturday.

Here are a couple of pictures. One highlight in the process was playing and singing Psalms in the living room. Yes, playing and singing at the same time! I have to say, Sarah is very talented. She was singing alto and playing bass. I just was singing and playing the same part... I really think this is just what Calvin intended for at-home Psalm singing. It was so fun! We had 4 viols, harpsichord, and baroque guitar. Mom and Keith came upstairs to sing too. We sounded good. :) Incidentally, this took place on Halloween, so I put on my costume. I guess I was Anne Boleyn. I wonder if she played the viol?


There were a lot of us! That's what I wanted for this part: lots of congregational involvement. I invited people from church, school, and from the local music community to be involved. It did my heart good to have a worship service with viols. :)


The next one will be November 30! That's a Sunday night. Same time and place. This one will be Advent themed, with 19th and 20th century music. There will be less emphasis on congregational singing, but more silence, scripture, and instrumental music (this time, it will be cello and piano stuff). I hope to see you there!

Part 1, coming up!

Part 1 of my IPIAT/"arts thesis" is right around the corner... less than a week to go! Wow, I have a lot to do this week. This first worship service is much less cello-intense than the others will be, but there's still a lot to do, a lot of people to organize, etc. There will be a lot of people involved in this one--4 viols, 4 singers, guitar, harpsichord, and organ! We're sticking with the theme of Reformation-era music... although Calvin would be rolling over in his grave. Genevan Psalms... played on VIOLS??

So, I wanted to give a few details about this worship service. Although my project is on instrumental music in worship, I wanted to start with baby steps in that direction. Thus, instrumental music in this service will be interwoven with hymns, sung psalms, scripture, and times of silence. Also, I would like to help my church learn to worship by listening, by allowing others to pray on their behalf through music, and to pray with them. Basically, I want to have music played as an offering by a small group, without losing the sense of corporate worship. Then in the next several services I will remove more of the words from the service, but for now they stay as a reference point.

Well, I'm looking forward to this! I just hope that I will not be so busy that I can't enjoy it. That can definitely be a problem.

I have posted the invitation, which has dates and details for all 4 worship services! Everyone is welcome to come (and bring friends)! There will be coffee, snacks, and discussion afterwards... and that's also a great time for you to give feedback, since these worship services are somewhat experimental. I hope you can come!

My other blog, and also a recipe

Greetings.

I want to tell you about another blog I'm a part of. My neighborhood, or rather, my parents' neighborhood, hosts a chili cookoff every year. Now the chili cookoff has its own blog, but so far I am the only one who has posted! In any case, at present, I have contributed 3 chili recipes and a whole bunch of pictures. I'm hoping other participants will also post their recipes soon. So, go have a look. And make some chili!

Just because I have been in a cooking mood lately, here's a recipe I invented. It was delicious.


Fettuccine with mushrooms and gorgonzola cream sauce

Ingredients:
1 package fettuccine (preferably fresh)
Butter
A medium onion, chopped
Salt
Mushrooms, chopped (I used about 3/4 lb chanterelles and oyster mushrooms)
A small leek, chopped
3 cloves garlic (or more), minced
Flour
Cayenne Pepper
Broth (I used homemade turkey stock)
White wine
Cream
Gorgonzola cheese
Spinach
Parsley
Pepper

1. Cook the fettuccine according to package directions.
2. Melt the butter in a large saute pan. Saute the onions with some salt, until they are a bit soft. Then add mushrooms, then leeks and garlic. These will release some liquid...
   
3. Sprinkle flour over the mixture to thicken it up. Also add a dash of cayenne pepper.
   
4. When it is beginning to get thick, stir in some liquid: this will be some combination of white wine, broth, and cream. It should still be pretty thick, but not heavy-thick (ie. don't use enough cream to turn this into "coronary on a platter"). When everything is thoroughly blended, stir in some of the gorgonzola, reserving some for a topping.
5. Stir in some spinach and parsley. You can actually use quite a bit of spinach, since when it wilts, it will get much smaller. Cook for only a minute or two until it wilts a bit.
6. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground pepper. Serve over noodles with the remaining gorgonzola. Yum!
   

Tonight's dinner will be some sort of quinoa dish making use of leftover roast veggies from last week's turkey dinner! If it's good, maybe I'll post that one too. I love cooking. (I also love procrastinating.)

Thanksgiving, and actually some pictures from Peru

Greetings. It's been a week since I came home. Actually, getting my pictures up this quick is pretty good for me. Usually it takes a month or two. Hey, the New Zealand pictures, still aren't up, nor are the Chili Cookoff pictures. Oh well. This week, thankfully, has been reading week at school. This means lots of homework, but no class. It was also Thanksgiving on Monday, here in Canada. Thus there was a beautiful display of fall vegetables at church, which went home with the congregation after the service. So, I spent this week cooking: lasagna on Monday, vegetable soup on Tuesday, borscht on Wednesday, turkey and all the fixin's on Thursday, squash and bean mole (there should be an accent on the "e" in that word--I'm not talking about the little animal, but rather the chocolaty, spicy sauce) on Friday, potato soup on Saturday, and today, squash soup for lunch (with a crowd from church), and mushroom and spinach pasta for dinner. I made double batches of most of those soups, so our freezer is very full. Good, since I won't have time to cook for the next couple of weeks! I like to eat well, even at very busy times.

Anyway, since it was Thanksgiving the day after my return from Peru, I took advantage of the Open Mic time during the church service, to share what I'm thankful for... specifically regarding my trip. (I wrote the whole thing out, since I have a tendency to babble inanely when I get in front of people.) I'm thankful for a lot of things, actually, but these were freshest on my mind:

"I’m thankful for the worldwide priesthood of all believers. As some of you know, I spent this weekend in Peru. You may ask, why did I go to Peru for the weekend? It’s because I have a special friend there. Her name is Sindy. We had been exchanging letters for four years, and finally met face to face for the first time on Friday. Sindy was born in a slum in Chimbote, and raised in poverty. She became a very good student, and through the intervention of Compassion International, was able to go to college to study education. Shortly after she started college, I became her sponsor through Compassion’s Leadership Development Program, and this weekend we celebrated her graduation. Through the letters we sent, we each saw the work of Jesus in the life of the other. When I finally met Sindy, I saw a person who was beautiful inside and out, transformed by her love for Jesus and for others.

"At the risk of sounding like and advertisement for Compassion International, I am thankful for their work. I first became a sponsor at the age of 13, and Compassion linked me with a 14-year-old girl in Brazil. Through letters and visits—this was my second visit—I became aware of Christians living, working, playing, and serving God in other places, in very different backgrounds to my own. I am so thankful for this opportunity, not only to bless others through gifts of letters, prayers, and financial support, but also to receive so much love. Through Compassion’s work, the communion of saints in Canada, the United States, and other developed countries has deeper ties to the communion of saints in developing countries like Peru.

"I am thankful for the optimism I saw in my Peruvian friends. Sometimes poverty seems too big to combat, but our God is bigger than poverty, and he has sent his church to serve the world. Even these people, confronted as they are by dire poverty every day, are convinced that someday poverty will end. I was inspired both by their faith and their hard work towards making that happen.

"I’m thankful for Keith, who supported me when I decided to go on this trip, and who welcomed me home with flowers and homemade pizza.

"I’m also thankful for clean tap-water, safe-to-eat raw, unpeeled fruits and vegetables, the speed of air travel, and my grandparents, who encouraged and supported my college education for the past ten years."

And now, some pictures. There are a lot, although they don't really do justice to my trip, since I really spent most of my time talking to people. It's funny, people ask me, "How was Lima?" but I really don't know how to respond, since I mostly saw people. The first day I visited a Compassion project. The kids were eating lunch, having reading help, playing, etc. I visited the kitchen, where some of the moms were cleaning up from lunch. (Lunch looked fabulous, by the way!) Check out those awesome soup pots. I think I have a fixation on soup, or something. :)














These kids were learning how to recognize common illnesses, by acting them out... why wasn't my health class more like this??





One highlight in Lima: there were olive trees, and they actually had olives on them! How cool!






Finally, meeting Sindy face to face! I also met her classmates, John, Joel, and Rosa.











Praying before the ceremony, and celebrating after!













Many people came to support Sindy: her pastor, her project director, her mentor, her mom, Sonia, her nephew, Israel, her grandmother, her cousin, Cesar, and me. (Am I really that tall??)












The president of Compassion, Wess Stafford, and Sixto, the LDP director in Ecuador, also attended. I ate breakfast with Wess, and watched him film a message for the Compassion workers in Peru. I also had a great chat with Sixto, who encouraged me to visit Ecuador as well.

After the ceremony was a dinner party, with great food and entertainment! We saw drumming and dancing by kids from Compassion projects (could you imagine an American or Canadian boy doing this sort of dancing??) and a Christian band playing traditional Peruvian music. Look at that guy... he's got 3 sets of pan-pipes, a flute, and a rattle! All at once! How cool is that?

I was also part of the entertainment, marking my first time playing viola da gamba outside of North America. I played early American hymn tunes. My viol was an object of curiosity wherever I went, from the guy at the hotel's front desk, to fellow travelers, to the security people at the airport, to Sindy's nephew...










Betsy helped me with my translation needs, and also with photography and general bag-shlepping. Silvia helped me the other two days.





The next day I spent wandering around Lima with Sindy, Sonia, Israel, and Silvia. We exchanged gifts (a homemade shawl for Sindy, and a homemade scarf for me... how funny!), talked, ate lunch, had coffee, and finally found a park where Israel could play, since he had a lot of energy. There was a clown in the playground, and somehow I also ended up with a clown nose.




























Yep. That's about it. I had a good trip. Tell me if you want to hear more! :)

And now I´m in Peru.

Actually, I´m going to leave Peru in a few hours, having been here for three days. Ahead of me is another sleepless night on the plane. At least I will arrive home just in time for reading week, so I can probably afford to spend a day sleeping.

Let me explain what I´ve been doing. For the past four years, I have been an LDP sponsor through Compassion International. This means I support, write to, and pray for a college student in a developing country. In my case, I was linked with Sindy in Peru. Yesterday, I attended her graduation. She was one of the first four graduates from this program in Peru. She is a beautiful person, inside and out, and it was an honor to meet her face to face. She has graduated with an education degree, and now she will teach fifth and sixth grade. It was amazing to see how passionate she is about serving her community, her church, and our Lord. I am inspired to go and do likewise. I also had the opportunity to meet a number of family members and close friends. When Sindy´s nephew, Israel, registers for a Compassion project in January, I will be his sponsor as well. :) He spent the day with us today, and I think he gets to have the nickname my cousin, Evan used to have: "little tornado"! He´s smart and very active, full of personality!

Pictures are coming. I am not on my own computer, so I will have to wait until I get home to post them. Yesterday at the graduation, I gave so many hugs, brushed cheeks with so many people (according to the Latin American custom), and smiled for so many pictures that my glasses were thoroughly smudged, and my cheeks hurt from smiling so much. Yes, I feel truly loved.

So, that´s my report. I´m bringing coffee home with me--several kinds. I had help picking it out, so I think it will be great. So, come over to my house and we´ll have coffee and talk about Peru! :)

Mark your calendar!

Greetings! I have dates for my Arts Thesis events. Details are below. This is my promotional picture. Cool, yes? It features me (playing the cello), my cello students, a mom of a cello student, and my co-teacher, Cat!

Praise the LORD with Stringed Instruments:
Instrumental Music as Participation and Contemplation

Praise the Lord with Stringed Instruments explores the use of instrumental music in Christian worship, especially in the Protestant context, through a series of three experimental worship services, each with progressively less words. Praise the Lord with Stringed Instruments seeks to challenge the nature of participation; the congregation’s involvement will be encouraged in listening and in contemplative prayer. Wordless music will become a means of being silent before God. Each worship service will be followed by a time of coffee discussion. The fourth worship service will serve as a reflection on the previous three services.

All events will take place at Vancouver First Christian Reformed Church, 2670 Victoria Drive, Vancouver, BC, at 7:30 p.m.

I: All Saints Day: Community
Saturday, November 1

II: Advent: Longing
Sunday, November 30

III: Epiphany: Joy
Sunday, February 22

IV: Lent: Reflection
Saturday, March 28

Gallivanting around the world

Well... we were thinking of taking a nice vacation after summer school was over, to have some recovery time before school started in the fall. So, we decided on New Zealand... and here we are! Our friends, Alan, Libby, and Anna invited us to visit them in Auckland, and so we have. We did some travel around with them last week, and now we are on our own for most of this week. Yesterday we tasted wine at 7 wineries!! It was a tour; we learned a lot... and we are very impressed by the wines here. (We're in the town of Napier.) Monday night there was some excitement: Keith got to experience his first earthquake! This is a very earthquake-prone region. It was a 5.9, and we were 30 km from the epicenter. Luckily there was no serious damage or injuries... except in wine shops, where some wine bottles fell off the shelves! Below are some picture highlights. Just a few for now.

Celia and Libby went frolicking through the daffodils in the park in Auckland.

Keith and Anna painted lovely pictures in the window fog.
Anna discovered that sand is lots of fun.
Anna loved the spaghetti Keith and Celia prepared for her.
We all enjoyed looking at the interesting plants and animals of New Zealand.

Update to the previous knitting post

So, when we were in Seattle on the way back to Vancouver, I photographed my dad's foot in his sock, and a closeup of the cute froggie pattern.



Update on Keith's sweater, which I had to start over: I've finished the body up to the armpits, and I'm halfway finished with the second sleeve!! I'm hoping I can finish it in time for our anniversary (July 9), but that might be pushing it. We'll see.