The speed with which things are ticking along is quite amazing, although it's never really fast enough. A quick update on events since I last spoke with you on Saturday.
I guess the house is still at the forefront of my mind. I was pinning everything on the nice young couple we met on Saturday, then got a surprise call on Tuesday morning from the estate agent to say that a couple who viewed it 8 weeks ago (and put in a rather cheeky offer back then) had phoned to let us know they are still interested, and have revised their offer to £162,000. It's still low, as this will mean around a £3,500 loss once all is balanced, but they're in a secure financial position and happy to get things moving asap so it's worth taking seriously.
For now we're sitting on this offer awaiting the decision of the nice young couple who came again yesterday and have gone away to think about it. I spoke with the estate agent this morning and we agreed we wouldn't be pushy with them but if they're still dithering on Friday we'll turn our attentions to coaxing the £162k couple up a little bit. It all feels entirely sensible, but I still don't like the waiting!
The 'which course will I do?' issue continues to be confuddling. While the college seemed happy for me to start on the MPhil without having cleared it with the funding panel, Becky was concerned that starting a course without funding may not be a wise idea. She has checked with the Ministry division who have requested I start on the MTh and negotiate with the college about applying to next May's funding panel and perhaps switching to the MPhil or something similar after a year. So it still looks like I can train for three years but what I will end up with I do not know! I'm not too disappointed. As I've said before the academic element of this comes third for me after the spiritual (doing God's work) and the practical (helping people), and at least doing the MTh, which is taught, not research, will mean learning alongside fellow students rather than being all on my lonesome.
Talking of the practical elements, I've been filling in the form about what sort of placements I'm going to do in my first term. I get to do two - a Sunday placement (which unsurprisingly is with a church) and a midweek placement (in a secular setting).
I'm very clear on what sort of Sunday placement I want. The first placement is purely observational - no sermons, no leading groups - just watching, reflecting and talking to people. I think this is a good opportunity to go to a church that is out of my comfort zone. I flirted for a little while with conservative-evangelical free churches during 6th form and University, but this model of church never really sat right with me, nor me with it. But I'm keen to be placed at a free church in order to really understand what attracts people to them. Do people tend to come over from the more traditional forms of church, disenchanted with the worship and teaching? Or do they come to it fresh, attracted by the cultural familiarity of guitars and drums and the clarity of the simple gospel message? I'd also like to know how these churches manage without the formal leadership and accountability structure you encounter in established churches. Fascinating.
Myaking my mind up about my midweek placement was a bit more difficult. I have four options - community project, youth work, schools work, hospital chaplaincy. My immediate thought was to go for the first one as I've loved my time at St David's soup evening and feel that reaching out to the poor and marginalised is a vital message of the gospel. However, I realised that the soup evening has given me a pretty strong grounding in this sort of work and maybe I should pick the placement option that I felt least comfortable with. With one hand in front of my eyes I reached for my pen with the other and shakingly ticked 'youth work'.
I am now off to post the placement form and prepare myself for a summer of waking up in a cold sweat having dreamt of myself floundering before a sports-hall full of moody teenagers, them wondering where their normal trendy youth workers have gone, amazed that I don't own an i-phone and don't know who or what N-Dubz is...
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