Joseph and Sherwin’s blog

I guess it’s about time I talked a bit about the major change in my life this school year. Back in September, I accepted a position as pastor of Hyde Park Alliance Church, the church I’ve been attending for the past five years here in Chicago. I must say I feel truly blessed to be able to serve such a loving, supportive congregation, who are understanding of the academic side of my calling, alongside my current pastoral work. It’s also very rewarding to apply much of the ‘theory’ that I gained from my time at Regent College, though it’s also been a great learning experience, even in this short time. By the way, the picture above is of me in my ‘office’… er… our Sunday School room.

joe and i just finished watching hours of election coverage. i’m sure many of you saw the big rally at Grant Park in downtown Chicago. here are a couple pics i managed to take while driving through downtown on my way home from work (since the highway was closed for security).

it was actually a very surreal drive; thousands of people everywhere with relatively few cars on the road…and then there was the black sedan with entirely black windows driving ahead of me as i headed into hyde park. hmmm…more secret service perhaps? in any case, regardless of who you supported, it’s exciting to know that we just witnessed something historic happen.

with the US election only three days away, everybody’s obama or mccain signs are posted. here’s one from chinatown.

for the last few months, there have been barricades with secret service and police only a few blocks from where we live, securing the street with obama’s house. i wonder what it will be like after tuesday if he wins?!

last weekend our church held a fall yard sale. we hoped to meet some people from the neighborhood, serve some coffee and apple cider, and if we were lucky, make a few bucks for the church. on the day it was a bit wet and cold, so we opted for the warmer option…indoors.

we had a mish-mash of things, including a kitchen sink! one yard sale visitor even thought he found an authentic medieval chant score (which we thought was just a cheap poster). very antiques roadshow.

thanks to everyone who donated items and helped out!

our next stop was Cinque Terre, a group of five small towns on the Mediterranean coast. we stayed in Riomaggiore from where we explored the neighboring towns. there is apparently a Department of Good Taste, which keeps the paint colours looking good.

again we tried to use the local ingredients to cook every night. the local specialties were pesto, anchovies, and focaccia bread, and mom and helen would wake up early to buy fresh seafood from the local fisherman. it was soooo good.

the towns were connected by a trail, which provided terrific views.

after a few relaxing days, we took the train to Venice. there happened to be a train strike that day which complicated things, but luckily we were able to plan around it. Venice was really beautiful and although figuring out the maze of streets was a bit daunting at first, we quickly got the hang of it.

after a day of the major sights, we opted to spend the next day exploring the lagoon around Venice. we went to Murano (famous for it’s glass), and then to Burano (famous for it’s lace and colourful houses)…

…before returning to Venice for a ride down the Grand Canal. here’s one last family pic in front of the Rialto bridge.

the next leg of our trip was to siena and florence, to get a taste of tuscany. we stayed a little bit outside of siena, so it felt like we were right in the middle of the countryside. the air smelled so good…especially with the fragrance of grapes being fermented into wine.

siena is a well-preserved medieval town, centered around its main plaza, Piazza del Campo. we enjoyed some coffee and ofcourse, more gelato!

florence was only an hour and a half train ride away, where we’ve visited a lot of museums and basilicas.

i have to mention the food. we are really enjoying the italian flavours, and since we’ve tried to cook once in awhile, we’ve also been noticing the quality of the local ingredients. we found many varieties of tomatoes in just one small corner grocery stand!

our feet are pretty tired, but we’re still eager to move on to our next stop at Cinque Terre…

hello…from rome! we are here with my side of the family for a two week holiday in italy, which so far has been going well. we did have a rough start though as we witnessed a robbery on the train, so we’ve been extra careful with our pockets and belongings. one of the first things that we noticed was the large number of ancient ruins everywhere, as well as graffiti on practically every public surface.

during our first few days, we’ve seen a lot, including the famous trevi fountain where we enjoyed gelato…

…and a memorable visit to the colosseum.

those ancient romans were really quite impressive with their art and engineering. hard to believe we could still enjoy things and places made 2000 years ago. now onwards to tuscany!

Despite the fact that I am Canadian, I’ve found the coverage of this year’s U.S. presidential election extremely fascinating. (Even Sherwin is hooked!) In particular, I’m very impressed by the sophistication of a number of websites that have been tracking the plethora of polls and (in some cases) make predictions of what will happen on election day:

Electoral-Vote.com

FiveThirtyEight.com

Princeton Election Consortium

So what’s been going on with the upcoming Canadian election?

we headed to US Cellular field (aka Comiskey Park) with our friends Tom, Anne and Ibrahim to watch the White Sox play against the Detroit Tigers in an evening game last weekend. after a couple days of pouring rain, we were lucky the rain stopped just in time. we sat right behind home plate (although the second row from the very top of the stadium)…it was a great view!

after the white sox built a 7-0 lead after 6 innings, we watched the Tigers bring it back to a 7-7 tie with a grand slam home run, but the sox managed to hit their own grandslam in the bottom of the 8th to win 11-7. what a rollercoaster!

here’s a great view of downtown from the stadium. it was fun!

now that we’ve settled into our new place, it was time for another visit to ikea for miscellaneous things we needed including a kitchen island, cabinet door knobs, a garbage can and mirror. as always, an ikea trip wouldn’t be complete without some swedish meatballs and an extra long receipt.