Yes, I know the stereotype: small-town girl travels to a big
city in a foreign country for an extended period of time…what must she do? she
must start a blog! The fact that I am an English major doesn’t help the
situation at all. It is expected. It is predicted. It must be done!
But fear not, dear reader; I am determined to break the
mold. And although my blog shall probably include some random musings of a
hopeless-romantic English major and artsy photos of places to make any normal
human being jealous, I promise that is not the point or the goal of my humble
site.
So here are the goals and the things that you can expect
from this blog:
An invitation
to “walk a mile in my oxfords.” I’m finally venturing away from the life
I’ve always known. For the next four months I will be living in Oxford, England of all places! I can't even tell you how excited I am. I would like to
give people an opportunity to share in my experiences. You’ll get little
snippets of the things that I see, the things that I learn, the things that I
think (which may or may not be quite frightening), and the things that the Lord
shows me and changes within me.
100 days,
119 libraries. My original plan was for this blog to be focused on
libraries. For those of you who do not know me well, I have wanted to be a
librarian since I was a junior in high school. As a college senior, I still
have the same goal. So for a small town librarian-to-be, the chance to live in
Oxford for 3 months was nothing short of a dream! I decided to make it my goal
to visit every library in Oxford and document my findings in this blog.
However, I discovered yesterday that there are 119 libraries in Oxford. This
was not exactly what I expected. I thought 30? Sure. … 50? Wouldn’t surprise me.
… But 119!? Seen as though I will only be living there for 100 full days, this
should be fun! So we’ll see if I can still accomplish my goal. But I will have
the help of my little Kona Africa bicycle (which has a basket, by the way. This
makes me strangely excited). But I have accepted the challenge! Wish me luck!
Peeks at my
bookshelf. I have the amazing opportunity to study English Literature in
the place where many of my favorite authors studied and where many of their
works were originally constructed, published, taught, etc. I would love to
share snippets of what I am learning/reading with you all.
Pleas for prayers. This entire experience will be brand new for me…in so many
ways. But I feel so so so so blessed…and a little bit scared, I must admit. Please
pray that the Lord will give me safety, and bravery, and a missionary’s heart
no matter where I go. I definitely expect to be changed. But I also hope to
play a part in changing people along the way. I am excited to share what God is
doing, and I will probably be requesting prayer along the way :)
So grab your laptop and a spot of tea…and think of me.
