A day-trip to Wheaton
Yesterday, I traveled with my parents to Wheaton, Illinois. Brian was graduating from college. He is my youngest cousin. I hadn’t seen him since he was a year old; he grew up in Indonesia.
He was very pleased to meet me, and we were immediately photographed together (I don’t have the picture). Then, we hardly spoke to one another. He is a pleasant young man, but very quiet. I am unpleasant, and also rather quiet.
Here Brian is with his parents, my Uncle Tim and Aunt Aphing (Ah-PING).
(My Uncle Tim is my mom’s brother.)
My Aunt Linda and her daughter, my cousin Tanya, visited from Kansas City.
Aunt Aphing served lots of good Indonesian food. But there weren’t enough seats at the table.
“Where will Brian sit?”
Aunt Aphing: “In his room.”
“But this meal is to honor him!”
Aunt Aphing: “But you are the guests.”
Brian and Aunt Aphing ended up eating in the kitchen, on barstools.
Not all of us went to the ceremony. Tanya and I stayed at home and read detective stories. Later, we livestreamed the ceremony, and my dad joined us. The greatest applause was for the ROTC graduates – which my dad thought bizarre (“at Wheaton, of all places,” he said); I thought it perverse but typical.
Watching this ceremony – and the baccalaureate religious service, earlier in the day – I was strongly reminded of Quito’s English Fellowship Church, in which North American missionaries would gather to use their mother-tongue. Wheaton’s organ music surely helped to remind me of the EFC. But the whole vibe of the place was familiar.
Wheaton’s evangelicals are more straitlaced, more prim, than those with whom I now associate in the United States.
Billy Graham was mentioned during the ceremony, of course, as were the famous missionary martyrs of 1956.
He was very pleased to meet me, and we were immediately photographed together (I don’t have the picture). Then, we hardly spoke to one another. He is a pleasant young man, but very quiet. I am unpleasant, and also rather quiet.
Here Brian is with his parents, my Uncle Tim and Aunt Aphing (Ah-PING).
(My Uncle Tim is my mom’s brother.)
My Aunt Linda and her daughter, my cousin Tanya, visited from Kansas City.
Aunt Aphing served lots of good Indonesian food. But there weren’t enough seats at the table.
“Where will Brian sit?”
Aunt Aphing: “In his room.”
“But this meal is to honor him!”
Aunt Aphing: “But you are the guests.”
Brian and Aunt Aphing ended up eating in the kitchen, on barstools.
Not all of us went to the ceremony. Tanya and I stayed at home and read detective stories. Later, we livestreamed the ceremony, and my dad joined us. The greatest applause was for the ROTC graduates – which my dad thought bizarre (“at Wheaton, of all places,” he said); I thought it perverse but typical.
Watching this ceremony – and the baccalaureate religious service, earlier in the day – I was strongly reminded of Quito’s English Fellowship Church, in which North American missionaries would gather to use their mother-tongue. Wheaton’s organ music surely helped to remind me of the EFC. But the whole vibe of the place was familiar.
Wheaton’s evangelicals are more straitlaced, more prim, than those with whom I now associate in the United States.
Billy Graham was mentioned during the ceremony, of course, as were the famous missionary martyrs of 1956.