September 11th till October 14th

I realize it has been quite some time since I have had an update from Scotland. I apologize. Well not that is out of the way I will attempt to wrap my past month into a nice little email sharing what’s been going on in my life.
I got back to Scotland on September 11th. It was quite weird flying on September 11th and really didn’t realize until I was in the air what was going on. So I got back to Banchory and started to get into the swing of things with my job. As a reminder of what I am doing in Scotland, I am a youth worker for the Church of Scotland and more specifically two churches in Banchory. I work with a girl named Caitlin and Reverend Tony Stephens. We call him Tony. As a team we plan the Rock (middle school age youth group, about 40 kids show up each week) and the Edge (high school age youth group, about 15 kids show up each week) and a bible study on Sundays for Edge kids. We also get opportunities to work in the schools and be part of different Christian school groups. The one that Caitlin and myself are involved in is a group called 2020.
2020 meets every Thursday during lunchtime at the secondary school called Banchory Academy (equivalent to a 6th to 12th grade school). This group is cool for many reasons but some are because Caitlin and myself do not have to plan anything for it. It is also good because there is about half of the group that either go to the Edge or the Rock so we already know them and is awesome because we get to know the other half. There are on average 20 kids who go to 2020 each week. This is an improvement in numbers from in the past so the teachers who lead it are encouraged by the growth.
We just had a weekend away with kids and teachers from 2020 and it was brilliant. It was such a great time to hang out with the kids, get to know them a bit better, worship God and learn about Jesus, goof around and do awesome activities the camp offered such as; ropes course, archery and screaming fast zip-line. We also had free time for the kids to choose what they wanted to do and I was the “adult leader” in charge of the gym area, which was so cool. We took out some basketballs and shot around and messed about and I had a good time challenging the kids to try to steal the ball from me by which they were amazed (only cause they had never really seen anyone play basketball before, but it was cool). I spent the two and a half hour ride there in a mini bus full of 14-year-old girls singing songs at the top of their lungs. The ride back was quite different although the same girls were present. They were a bit worn out and ready for home and were very curious about how I pronounced different words and letters. The big hits were the letters h and z, they pronounce the letter h as haych and the letter z as zed. Weirdoes!
The first weekend I was back Scotland was playing France in football (soccer) and its not on regular TV and I wanted to watch it so a bunch of us went to one of the local pub called the Burnett. They had a big screen with a projector showing the game. It was good. By the time the game started the pub was full with people. If you’re talking about a real Scottish atmosphere your talking about what I was sitting in the middle of. Some of you might know that Scotland went up 1 to 0 and when that goal was scored the place went crazy. It was the most excitement I have seen anywhere. From then on every single thing Scotland did was cheered. The defense cleared the ball, the goalie collected a shot, and each pass received was cheered.
The next weeks were great planning the Rock and the Edge and Bible study. We were getting into a great rhythm and I was getting acquainted with what “normal” weeks looked like. Just about the time that happened my boss Tony took his allowed two week leave, leaving Caitlin and myself to do everything by our selves…well it wasn’t exactly but at times it felt like it. Tony and his wife, Fiona were expecting their second child so Tony took time off to be with their daughter of four, Erin and wife. It was great though because we didn’t have anyone to fall back on when we didn’t get something planned and couldn’t ask Tony to make things better if we messed up. While Tony was gone things may have taken a bit longer to plan or get prepared for but everything went well and was quite good for us to get everything out on the table and realize that we could do all the things we were being asked to do.
On Friday the 11th of October Christine (my host mom), Sean (my host brother, 17 year old one), Craig (friend from Banchory and driver) and I drove down to Edinburgh to do a variety of things. First we met Calum and Meg (my host brother (22 years old or something) and his wife (who is actually from Seattle)) at their flat (apartment) to hang out there for a bit. We also met up with Kate (my host sister (middle child)) and her, Christine, Sean and myself went to dinner. After the nice dinner we went back to Calum and Meg’s flat. Once we were all there we walked to the venue of our friend Steve’s band’s CD release party/concert. The concert was brilliant although not necessarily my favorite genre of music. That pretty much rounded out our Friday night.
Saturday was an early wake up call to eat some breakfast and drive to a field to play for Calum’s IM football (soccer) match. It was pretty boring for me during the first half being that I didn’t get in and even at the start of the second half I was a bit eritated to not get in. I think they had seen me warming up and realized my level of ability. Finally five minutes into the second half I was subbed in. Forward was the position I was told to play. There had been three passes my way and one where I had to fun hard to track down. I was getting into the game. Loosening my legs up and starting to breath hard and feel good. Some how our goalie got injured and couldn’t play on so Calum knowing I play a bit in goals yelled for me to put the gloves on and stand between the posts. I was semi-relieved to be in a position I knew so I put the gloves on and started to play. The other team was yelling, “Lets test him!” “Lets see what he’s got.” After being tested three times with shots on goal and me showing off my drop kick the other team’s tone towards me changed. I was asked to just let one go in and to not try so hard. With my response to all being a big smile. It was brilliant. The game ended and the score was 4-0, us. We shook hands with the opposition and thanked them for playing. My team basically jumped on me and told me how well I had played. It was really funny for me to think about how I had gone from being a bum on the team and the only one who didn’t get in the first half to being celebrated as a good player, and was asked to play in more of their games. The goalie on our team who got hurt was telling me that he thought he was out of a job. After assuring him that I wouldn’t be making the two-hour commute to play an IM football game every Saturday I gave him his gloves back and told him he still had his job.
Although that morning was heaps of fun the second half was about a billion times better. After getting washed up and got a bite to eat we made the journey from Edinburgh to Glasgow where the Scotland, Ukraine football match was being held. In the car were Ian (my host dad), Calum, Meg, Kate, Sean (all of who you should be familiar with by now) and myself. We got near the Stadium and parked. We got out of the van and saw seas of blue and white. I was pumped. What an atmosphere it was even just outside walking to the stadium. There were people with Scotland strips (jerseys), kilts and Scotland flags or scarves, singing and chanting already. We got in and sat down. That would prove to be the last time we would be doing that for the rest of the game. The electricity of the cheering/singing/chanting fans was incredible. I loved seeing how passionate this group of people was about everything Scottish. The national anthem was not sung it was shouted from within each and every one of those fans. The match started and like I said no one sat down and for that matter there was rarely silence. It was just nothing that I had experienced…ever. Scotland went up 1-0 early and we were shocked, amazed and ecstatic. The place went crazy. Everyone was jumping and cheering and going nuts. Shortly after that we scored a second goal. Again no one could have fathomed going up 2-0. Ukraine scored and that rare silence I was typing about was right after they had scored. The two Scotland goals were right in front of us because we were on that side of the field but the Ukraine goal was way at the other side and just eerie that they scored. We though it surely had to be off sides or something. There was no way Ukraine could score, but they did. They put it on the board. That was the first half. A brilliant display for the most part of what football should look like. The second half was fairly uneventful but was quite nerve racking because we were only up by one goal. That problem was solved when James McFadden, the same James McFadden who scored the only goal against France, scored Scotland’s third and final goal. The match ended and it was amazing.
We drove back to Edinburgh and had a great meal because it was Kate’s birthday the next day. It was a fantastic meal and a great time to just chat, eat and drink. We woke up the next morning (Sunday) and went to a church we had heard. It was a good service but started with the Preacher not using a microphone, so I thought he thought his voice was loud enough to full the sanctuary but later realized that the microphone was just out of batteries and got some new ones. It was amusing. We left the service when it ended and started home. One the way home we stopped at Rosslyn Chapel. Rosslyn Chapel is a 15th century absolutely beautiful church. Its recent claim to fame is being included in the book The De Vinci Code. Supposedly there was a big boom in visitation after the book came out. Funny what people are drawn to. We poked around there for a bit and continued on our journey home to Banchory.
That was the beginning to my two-week holiday (vacation). It was such a great start. Also on my holiday I went to Italy, specifically Florence and Rome. I will leave that story for another email being this one is absolutely massive.