2009 Year in Review

Since our "December Newsletter" was mostly about what we've been doing the last few months, I (Celia) thought I would post a "year in recap" sort of post. It's been an exciting year. Click on the links to read more about each item and to see some pictures. I was originally going to post a whole bunch of pictures, but since I already posted most of them anyway, I changed my mind. Just use the links. So, on to the recap...

We started the New Year (2009) in Seattle with my family. Our friend, Carla came to visit, too.

At school (Regent College), we were busy with big projects. Keith took the Old Testament comprehensive exam, while I worked on my arts thesis, which was a series of worship services with lots of instrumental music. (Incidentally, this was the year when I got over "artistic block" and started practicing my cello again.) Meanwhile, we both worked as teaching assistants for Greek (Keith) and Hebrew (me). Busy times. We were really glad when it came time for...

Graduation!! 

That's right! We graduated from Regent College on April 27! After 3 1/2 years of noses to the grindstone, we finished. Both of us got a Master of Christian Studies degree. Keith's concentration was in Biblical Studies, and Celia's was in Christianity and the Arts. Keith received prizes for Greek and Old Testament, and Celia received prizes for Christianity and the Arts and Hebrew.

We went to Colorado to visit friends and prepare for... the next step, finished up stuff in Vancouver, including my cello teaching job at St. James Music Academy, then we went on a road trip to visit Keith's family and a couple of national parks. We came back to Vancouver, packed up our apartment, said goodbye to our friends, then we were off to...

Japan!!
After spending 3 1/2 of our 4 years of marriage in Canada, we thought, why not try living in a third country? ;) We're presently living in Sapporo on the island of Hokkaido. We're here for 8 months (until around the beginning of April 2010) working for Overseas Missionary Fellowship International (OMF).

Since we arrived in Japan, we've been studying Japanese, working at Satsunae Lighthouse Church, playing concerts, working with students at Hokkaido University... as well as eating and generally enjoying and growing accustomed to Japanese culture. That's a very short summary, so please check out the links above, and also our September and December newsletters if you haven't done so yet.

December was a very busy month. I prepared for and played 4 concerts (1 of which could have been a Master's level recital). There were many Christmas parties and events to attend and help with. Meanwhile, we carried on with our usual activities--Language study, meeting with students, and playing music at church. We celebrated Christmas without our families for the first time ever... and yes, it really is true that Japanese people eat KFC on Christmas Eve...

It was a little lonely, but we were glad to have a few days to rest. Keith made a roast, and we ate Christmas dinner with our "house parents" and some friends from their church.

At present, we are enjoying the company of my parents and brother here in Sapporo.

They arrived on December 28. We celebrated New Year's together, I played a concert on Jan 3... but maybe I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, since now it's 2010. I'll post more specifically about the concerts and Christmas things soon, but for now, check out my mom's blog about family time in Sapporo and New Year's.

As we say in Japan... 新年おめでとうございます！ Happy New Year!

Update 4: Graduation Festivities

Okay, now we've caught up to about 2 months ago. Has it really been 2 months since graduation?? Actually, yes...

The last day of classes, which was also the day of Keith's comprehensive exam (hence the odd apparel--he likes to dress up in various ways for exams, usually like the professor... this time, he threatened to shave his head to dress up like Phil, his adviser, but I told him no, so he did a 3-piece suit and Klompen instead... but I digress...) we held a surprise farewell party for one of our professors, Dr. Clemens, who is retiring. Keith and I had been his TA's in Greek and Hebrew for the past year. We gave him gifts, said nice things, and prayed for him. He has been an inspiration to all his students! Dr. Clemens' comment when all of his students came into the classroom with a cart and drinks was, "Those of you who know me well will know that this is making me very uncomfortable... give me something to parse!" He's a very humble guy, and doesn't like people making a fuss over him. (I kind of hope he doesn't see this.) We will miss him! (Thanks, Roger for the pics!)




















There was an end of the year party for school. We're not really party people, but I made Keith go anyway. We ended up sitting at the CRC table... most of the people at the table go to our church. The "Love Crusade" performed old-school Christian rock from the 1980's, complete with appropriate clothing and sound equipment. Good stuff, that.








Graduation weekend was crazy. On Saturday, we went to three parties. One was brunch (at the BullTucker house), the second was lunch (Brazilian BBQ with Carla and her family), and the third was dinner (a BBQ in honor of some different Brazilians--Rene and Sarah). In between, we ate gelato.

































On Sunday, my Arts Thesis quartet played for the Graduation Tea.




































Monday (April 27) was graduation day. We went to Van Dusen Garden for lunch.






The Arts Thesis trio played for the ceremony. There are lots of pictures of us, since we were sitting right in the front row! In case you were wondering, both of us received Master of Christian Studies degrees. Keith's concentration was Biblical Studies, and mine was Christianity and the Arts. Each of us received 2 prizes. Keith's were in Greek and Old Testament, and mine were in Christianity and the Arts and Hebrew. It was a bit overwhelming... We used the prize money to pay our deposit for our trip to Japan.


































On Tuesday, the pressure was off, so we went to bother our friend, Kayoko at work. She made us drinks.










On Wednesday, we had a picnic.






















On Thursday, Carla and her parents came over for dinner: North Dakota steak! They told us the "polite" way to kick guests out of your home in Brazil: put the broom behind the door. This has become a running joke.



On Friday, we visited the Nitobe Memorial Garden at UBC.











On Saturday, Keith played with our three broken laptops (not the one in the foreground... thankfully that one still works! It's been a bad year for computers.)

Well, there you have it. We graduated! Hooray!

Update 3: Random stuff this Spring

Here we go again. Another update. We didn't take too many pictures this Spring, since we were busy all the time with schoolwork. But hey, there's a few pictures of that...

Taste of the world. It happens every year... but this year is our last year! The lovely Carla Faria was working on that day (having already finished school anyway), so instead of doing what I usually do (joining forces with the Brazilians), I represented... sigh... my own country. I made Green Bean Casserole. It's my favorite unhealthy-Campbell's-soup-based-Holiday-recipe. (I was so embarrassed--I had to check the box for "contains MSG" on the tag.) I also "dressed to represent" our country as our fearless leader (Eunice) suggested... I went all out with Red Sox garb, complete with red socks. There is a picture on Facebook if you are interested. ;)

Keith "represented" with his full PE uniform stolen from Grand Forks School District. Of course, the usual spam display also made an appearance.





My cello students had starring roles in their school play. Awwwww... The two in the overalls are my students. Student #3 was in the choir. The kids also put on a 3 course dinner! I was impressed...


My birthday, like usual, came right at the end of term. I decided to celebrate by doing nice things for Keith, since he was too busy studying to do anything fun. Here he is marking Greek quizzes, and preparing to eat a bento that I prepared for him.

Then, I went home, and I cooked and cooked and cooked. The result? An impromptu birthday tea party in the atrium at school. Anyone who walked by was welcome to join in and have a piece of chocolate cake.

Yes, it was a crazy semester... see previous update post. Soon, I'll actually get around to posting pics from graduation festivities, and other good stuff. :) Oh, it's so hard to re-integrate to normal life after all that school craziness.

Update 2: Big Projects

Here we go again: another update. This was a busy semester, and now you will see why.

Keith took his Old Testament comprehensive exam. He read 9000 pages for the OT and NT exams together (he took the NT comprehensive exam in December), and was tested on all that material. He met weekly with Professor Bob Derrenbacker last fall and with Professor Phil Long this spring to prepare (hooray for awesome professors who take time to meet with students!) That's Phil's book he's reading upside down there. Keith also took classes on the books of Mark and Joshua and continued working as a teaching assistant for two Greek classes.



I spent this year working on my "arts thesis" (officially it was called an "interdisciplinary project in the arts and theology"), which was a huge project with both written and practical components. Having finished my worship internship at our church, I was ready to use what I had learned through the internship and in my classes at school to try something new: contemplative worship services with a rather high proportion of silence and instrumental music.

This was not something my congregation was accustomed to, and there were concerns about how the congregation would be able to participate in a worship service in which they were "observing" someone else's worship. With the help of my two wonderful advisors (Janet Danielson and Maxine Hancock), I set up four worship services with the aim of educating the school and church community in worshiping through music and silence. The first three services progressively had less words, until the only words in the third service were the call to worship and the benediction. I expected that one to be really difficult for most people, but I was surprised that people seemed to respond well. The final service took a more balanced approach, incorporating the passion narrative from the Gospel of John (read by Keith), a few hymns, and a lot of vocal and instrumental music.

I wrote a paper, too. It was very long. I traced the development of thought among Christians from the early church to the present on the subject of instrumental music, and I dealt with possible problems. I actually want to write a book... and Maxine suggested that I might want to start a blog with weekly posts on this subject and other worship-related topics. I'm sure I will have lots to write about in Japan! So... look for that coming soon. And now, pictures.

Part 1: "All Saints Day: Community." Lots of musicians, lots of singing (Genevan Psalms and Reformation-era hymns), lots of scripture. I posted about this service previously.



Part 2: "Advent: Longing." Music for cello and piano (played by Andrea Tisher and me), scripture readings, a few hymns. There was also a chance for everyone to light prayer candles. Most of this service took place in the dark. This was hard for the word-oriented people. Still, using candles as a symbol of hope is not effective unless it's dark.



Part 3: "Epiphany: Joy." This one had no words at all other than call to worship and benediction. Well, that's not entirely true. There were printed words to guide the times of contemplative prayer, but people were free to use them or ignore them. Music was string quartet, piano trio, and string duo (viola and cello), provided by Kathy Kwon, Jon Ng, my brother, Colin Wilson, and me.



At one point in the service, we did "origami prayer." Everyone received instructions to fold an origami star for Epiphany. The sounds of rustling paper became the sounds of prayer.


Here is the string quartet. I also had some wonderful visual elements for this service, including an icon made for Keith and me by a fellow Regent alum (Matthia Langone)! She's still tweaking things on it, and won't give it to us until she's convinced it's perfect. :) Thus you only get a picture of it from a distance.


Part 4: "Lent: Reflection." This service was built around the reading of John 18-19 (read by Keith) and Isaiah 52-53 (read by Maria Beversluis). In essence it was a Tenebrae service, but not on Good Friday (that would have been too late in the term), and we heard an entire passion narrative rather than bits of all four. After each section of the reading, some of the candles on the table were snuffed out, until we were left in darkness. (The sun cooperated too--sunset happened 10 minutes into the service.) Music this time was a variety of ensembles made up of the same crew plus Catriona Day, who teaches cello with me at the Saint James Music Academy. The selection of music was chosen to fit with the scripture. Afterwards everyone had a chance to ask questions about my project.






Oh yeah... when I wasn't busy with my arts thesis (when was that, you may ask), I continued work as a teaching assistant for 2 Hebrew classes and studied Biblical poetry and the Dead Sea Scrolls--in Hebrew! (My update took up much more space than Keith's... there's just not as many pictures to be had from a comprehensive exam. Although he did wear a 3 piece suit with Dutch clogs the day of the exam. That would have been worth a picture...)

More updates coming. Look forward to it!