Greetings from the future

As the sun has set here in Switzerland, I bring you greetings from the future - Tuesday evening. I'm now settled into the Ecumenical Institute of Bossey outside of Geneva, and am working my way through the busy two-week orientation. We officially begin classes on Monday, October 16 - at which time I will have been in Geneva almost two months!

This year, the graduate school of ecumenical studies has about 35 students, of which 10 are masters students here through June 2007 (I fall into this category). The rest of the folks are just here until February, but for now we're all in the mix together. There is one other American, a woman from (in her own words) "Texas and Oklahoma," from the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, finishing her last semester at Philips Seminary. The rest of the student body is made up of people from all over the world. We interestingly seem to have a divide between gender and geography: about one third of the students are women, and all of them are from the U.S. and Europe (including former Soviet states), except for one woman from Korea. There are no men at all from North America or Western Europe; all are from former Soviet states/Eastern Europe and Africa, save one Korean, one Egyptian, and one Haitian. We are still waiting to see if two other students show up - a woman from Nigeria and a man from Cuba. We come from all kinds of traditions - Reformed, Pentecostal, Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran, Evangelical. Today the Presbyterians led afternoon worship: me, the two Koreans and the Egyptian. At the request of the Korean students, we put together a service centered around peace (given the recent nuclear tests in North Korea), and it was something else to hear Matthew 5:9, "Blessed are the peacemakers," read in Korean and Arabic and then recited by the congregation in English. We've fallen into a pattern of saying the Lord's Prayer, each in our own languages, at every chapel service (currently twice a day). There is nothing like hearing that prayer offered in many tongues - it washes like waves of water over the gathered community.

This post is getting long, but I should also mention my other big adventure this week: attending the meeting of the Presbytery of Europe last weekend. The Presbytery of Europe, which is comprised of all the Church of Scotland churches in mainland Europe, meets twice a year and rotates around to various cities. The last time they met in Geneva was six years ago, so I figured this was my big chance to attend since it might be another six years before they make it back to Switzerland. The big difference between presbyteries in the Church of Scotland and the PC(USA)? To approve motions (called "deliverances") by consensus, they stamp their feet on the floor instead of voting.

I hope that in coming weeks I can post some photos of life at Bossey, as it is an absolutely beautiful fall. From the yard we can look across the huge lake to the Alps on the other side. But fear not - soon enough, winter will kick in and I'll be writing you about icy Swiss mornings.

I miss you all!