Week Two

I left off last in the middle of Thursday if you recall. Thursday night’s activity is the Edge (high school aged youth group). The topic was a question “Does worship only happened in certain places?” We decided that it would be cool to do something that young people would not usually think of doing in a church sanctuary. The west church a few weeks earlier had just got a nice new projector and screen installed. We decided to play the Nintendo Wii in the sanctuary on the projector. It was brilliant. We ended up playing an Olympics game essentially the whole night except for a little bit of singing in room where not many people would think of singing in. It was quite a lot of fun.

Fridays are usually a mellow day. Nothing too urgent to plan for so we usually discuss a book that we have been reading. We are just getting done with a book by Rob Bell called Velvet Elvis. A very good book. We do that over a time called Friday Coffees, which is always good fun, and see lots of people. It is from 10am to 12 noon. There are people who volunteer to serve coffee, tea or juice and have prepared little goodies to eat. There are a lot of stay at home moms in Banchory who come and bring their little children so it is always nice chatting with them and seeing the little guys and gals. After that I don’t do much but got home and occupy myself until 4pm when Tony and myself go to the Secondary school’s game hall to play football (soccer) with the teachers. There are no proper goals because we play 5 on 5 and use a cone type thing that is called a “skittle.” A goal is scored by knocking the skittle down. I did not mention in the last email that I broke one of the janitor’s wrist. We both went up to win a header and he kind of just bounced off me and tried to brace himself from the fall by putting his had down when he landed. So this past Friday when I showed up the teachers were poking some fun at me and seemed like everyone that worked for the school all the sudden knew who I was. On Friday it snowed a good amount, which was fantastic for the next day.

One of my friends Peter Brodie and I woke up super early on Saturday to go skiing. The drive up was beautiful. Every tree had frosty white covering and the lakes were aqua blue because of the ice. We got up after being behind jokers who didn’t have a clue how to drive in the snow. At a standstill they figure that the faster they accelerate the better chance they have to get going so they absolutely punch it, putting their foot to the floor and kicking up an unreal amount of snow. If you have ever seen an artificial snow maker the spits out snow, that is what it looked like these jokers had under their tires. Once we got to the base of the mountain I saw things were different. There were no big four or six person lifts. The best they had was a two person T-bar. The snow was fine although there were instances that required taking off our skis to walk over bits of runs (usually at the top) with a 10-yard field of stone. The visibility was not the best other than those two runs where the sun broke through the cloud cover just enough to see the differences in the slope. Some people joke when they ski that it takes longer to get up than to go down, in this situation it was most certainly the case. All in all it was an experience and I was glad to go up but would never travel to Scotland to go skiing, that’s for sure.


In the previous email I wrote about how it was such a blessing to be able to rework my sleeping pattern and that it was so easy to wake in the morning. This wonderland that I was living in was derailed by the Super Bowl. As you could imagine having the Super Bowl at a convenient time for everyone in America to watch makes it so people in the UK get screwed. The coverage started at 11pm and ended at 3am. I had come home from our bible study that meets on Sunday evenings and was shattered. Was just ready to get into bed when Ian (my host dad) reminded me of the game and how we had a few brave souls coming over for the long hall. We came out with the caffeinated drinks and munchies to fuel our journey. I am not going to lie. I slept through most of the third quarter, but was alert for the rest. The frustrating part was that half the excitement about the Super Bowl when one doesn’t really care the victor is the commercials. They were nowhere to be seen or heard. During the times where there were meant to have commercials they had these three suits put their two cents in. A major let down to say the least.

Monday was a horrible morning to wake up. Once I eventually got up we planned a bit but didn’t have a whole lot to do. When evening rolled around I got picked up to go to a basketball game. Instead of going to the University aged bible study I decided to go to my basketball game. A decision I was ok with but soon changed. I got picked up and was driven to Aberdeen, 40minutes away. Got to the gym and saw our opponents. Very small guys and two girls. I later found out they were 16 year old boys and two girls. Don’t get me wrong, I think it is great for girls to get involved in sports but I don’t care to play against them especially at what is suppose to be a competitive level. I was jumping for our team, when the ball was in the air I jumped and the guy from the other team jumped and he reached maybe as high as my elbow. At that moment I asked myself what I got myself into. I am not the best athlete or the tallest person but I was faster, stronger, could jump higher and was about 6 inches taller than anyone else on the other team. Let me say also that they were not good basketball players. I continued to play thinking I could get something out of this experience but after getting two nice scratches courtesy of the girls on the opposing team and the score keeper jerking my chain around saying that I was not on the score sheet so I was disqualified from the match I ended up getting two technical fouls and was relieved to not have to play any longer. I have a game tonight (Firday), hopefully it will be a better all around experience.

I realize this update may be longer than the last so I will try to shorten the descriptions of the next days. Tuesday went well with the Rock. Lots of fun. Wednesday we went into a fifth grade class and let them ask questions about Christianity (were loads of good questions and was brilliant). Later in the evening we went to a thing called the Guild (a group of older women in the church) and told them about what we have been doing with different programs. Then on Thursday Sean (host brother) left for his trip to Fiji to coach soccer for five weeks, we had the school group at lunch 2020, was good and then the Edge in the evening which was great as well.

Week One since being back

The trip back to Banchory was a good one. I have not had a poor journey so far which I am grateful for. This trip was a bit different with the amount of vacant seats on both flights. It was nice because the SeaTac to Heathrow flight I had the isle to my left and an empty space to my right. Although the space factor was a new experience the regiment I have fallowed did not waver. The objective: watch as many films as possible. To complete it means no sleep and no sleep it was. Once I got back to “The Neuk” (the house’s name in Banchory) it was 6pm and crashed shortly there after. Jet lag is always an issue but I consider myself a seasoned jet lag over comer. It is nice to be able to reconstruct ones sleeping patterns so drastically. I wake without trouble at 8am or earlier and get to bed by 11pm. A drastic change from the norm I will assure you.

I got back on Wednesday and went to the Edge Thursday night, which was great to see those young people and just get right back into the swing of things. On Fridays we go to Friday Coffees in the morning, which is always great and again good to see people I have not seen in 6 weeks. Later that day I was invited to go to Caitlin’s house for Burns Supper. I was not aware of the significance of this night and celebration until I arrived. Turns out Robbie Burns is a famous Scottish poet who some say invented hagis or at least made it popular. Scots celebrate him on his birthday, the 25th of January. The night was filled with interesting food (the hagis) and loads of Burns poetry. It was with out a doubt a real life Scottish experience. The next day I realized I had been volunteered to do the children’s address at church on Sunday and also leading the bible study also on Sunday so it was a day of preparation. After spending the middle part of the day in my bible and brainstorming Calum (my host brother who is in Edinburgh University) and Meg (his wife, also at Edinburgh University) showed up and we had our own Burns nigh celebration. So back-to-back days of hagis! To be honest I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone. For those of you of Scandinavian decent I will dare to compare hagis to lutefisk. Being that it makes no common sense to consume such food in these modern times, the taste is one the be acquired (which I will not spend the time to do so), and commonly there are people who are presented with the chance to try a taste and have not. After dinner we went to a friends house and had an actual meal to be consumed. We then played a came called Articulate for a couple of hours and then had to finish planning the children’s talk. The great things about getting into a better sleeping routine is that when before there was no time to do things in the morning, now this is. I therefore finished up what I was to say in the morning before church and then went to church. After church I had a choice to make. To go into town with Sean, his girlfriend and Calum to bowl or to stay and plan the bible study for later than night knowing that we were all to go out for a meal at 5pm and would not get back until just before bible study. I decided to bowl. It turned out to be ok bout would have been a wiser choice to stay and prepare although the bible study turned out well. The next few days were early risers with school assemblies 8:45am and planning after that. Monday evening we had a university aged bible study, which was good to get some good conversation and discussion from a little bit older people. That was good and on Tuesday night we had Rock, which was out of control (in a good way) with 45 people. Wednesday was good and that night was the first time back on the basketball court since being back in Banchory. It was good seeing all those guys and getting in a good run. I realized however that I although tried to get in shape while I was home did not. Even though my sleep patterns had changed it was still difficult to get out of bed on Thursday morning on account of the sore body.

It has been really good getting back into things over here and it really doesn’t feel as if I were gone for so long. I apologize for the length although this was just a week. I will work on my selectivity of details in the future.

The forecast predicts heavy snowfall so it might be me hitting the hills of Scotland to go skiing. Oh and I have planned a trip to Milan, Italy on February 15th to visit Jay Free. I am very much looking forward to that.