Veritas

Good Evening. The seasons are quickly changing as most of the leaves have gently fallen and the chill of winter is blowing in. The forecast called for snow flurries Thursday evening, yet the view Friday morning from our window showed none of that white magic. Joshua and I are anticipating the inaugural snowfall of the season: a highly criticized opinion, as most people here are already counting down the days until summer. This past week was filled with various activities and varying degrees of interest. Christmas shopping, babysitting and work filled our days, while the two highlights of the week were the Veritas Forum and Divsgiving. The Veritas Forum is an event done at many different schools all across the nation that feature two speakers (usually one who identifies with the Christian faith and one that does not). This years event at Yale featured Dr. Kagan, a philosophy professor at Yale, and N.T. Wright, a New Testament professor at St. Andrews University in the UK. The discussion is meant to be friendly and they try to avoid the word debate. It was a nice evening and the discussion failed to even reach the anticipated topic, Living Well in the Light of Death, because both the professors were asking many questions of each other. I appreciated the ability of the men to be honest with each other and admit the difficulties within their views. The event took place in Battell Chapel, another beautiful place on campus we had yet to see.

 The following morning Joshua got to have breakfast with N.T. Wright and a small group of students. Last night was Divsgiving, an annual meal with the other Divinity students. I made some challah rolls and we sat and talked with our friend Jonathan. It is nice that we are beginning to really develop friendships among some fellow students. Joshua has one more week of classes then gets to take a week off for Thanksgiving. We will be headed to my parents house on Wednesday night before Thanksgiving and spend a couple of days there. We are happy to see everybody and get some time away from New Haven. Work is still a learning experience and I am very grateful to have a job but have decided I do not want to do this for the rest of my life. Hopefully next school year will open up some opportunities for me to get a job in a school again. I am still looking at some schooling programs and trying to decide what I would like to do. Other than that we are having fun and love all of you guys! Love, Joshua and Alissa

Finishing up Fall

Hello All! This past week has gone well as Joshua and I are preparing for the cold that is quickly headed our way. Although we still have pleasant days,many are rather chilly, requiring  full coat and gloves. It is crazy to think that Joshua is almost one fourth of the way through his program already. I do not think he would come to that conclusion quite as quickly as the bulk of the papers that have yet to be written remain on his mind. We are having fun, though, and taking time to spend with people and get to know the wide range of people living near. Today we went on a hike at Sleeping Giant State Park with about 20 other Yale Divinity school students/spouses. It was a very international group consisting of people from Germany, England, Singapore, Hong Kong and Jamaica. It is a fun experience to spend time with such a variety of nationalities. It is funny how some stereotypes prove to be true with those you are with such as the British man wearing a tweed jacket and scarf to go hiking and the Jamaicans wearing a bright smile and bubbly personalities. It was a short hike (1.6 miles each way) that provided great views from the top.

In this picture you can see the Long Island sound in the distance and the city of New Haven is on the right side of the horizon. Sadly, the peak of the leaves has come and gone and many trees lay bare. It was still so nice to get out in nature and have some fun! Last night we had some other friends over to play a board game and eat some pumpkin bread. I really enjoy baking and like to make something sweet when we have people over. We had a lot of fun and most of our friends stayed until past 1 am. These are the only nights me and Joshua are not in bed before ten. This week we have some exciting things coming up. N.T. Wright, a well known Biblical scholar, will be in town on Wednesday and Friday is Divsgiving. The whole Divinity school community gets together and eats a traditional Thanksgiving meal. We are very excited as we will be making our way to Ohio in a few weeks for Thanksgiving then to California for Christmas a few weeks after that. We are very blessed to be able to be making these trips as we know many friends who will not be able to head home for financial reasons or not being able to get off work. We love our families and are sooo sooo sooo excited!

I am still working about 34 hours a week and although I do not love the position, it is a good job and provides for now. I will hopefully get some sort of teaching job next year and am looking into masters of education programs. Joshua is still working away very hard and learning lots and lots of vocab words. We hope that you guys are all doing well and look forward to seeing as many of you as we can in the future. Love, Joshua and Alissa