Millennium Forest: I don't exist.

Today could be seen as a very unproductive day, but at the same time productive. Why you ask? Well, for starters it's Saturday. I know for some people that means go out and do things in town, etc. but here that means stay home and have fun there. Second, it has been rainy/windy all day so no one is out because of that too.

We were going to take the bus at 11 to the other side of North Uist to a cafe there in hopes to find some people there. We set out this morning to the bus, stopping at the post office and the church here. We are planning on going to church there tomorrow so we were going to stop by and see if anyone was there. The door was unlocked and no one seemed to be around inside or out so we looked around a little. They had some Bibles and things in Gaelic so that was cool. Unlike Castlebay, this church is a Free Church of Scotland so I'm not quite sure what to expect. We'll find out tomorrow though. So after getting some footage there we went to the PO which is in this art museum/store/cafe thing. The ladies there told us that we should come back Monday and interview the manager. I hope we can because that sounds like it would be good! On to the bus stop...oh by this point it's raining pretty bad. Well not really raining, but heavy heavy misting. Like my face was dripping wet. It was crazy. Also I, for some unknown reason, didn't wear my rain jacket. I just wore my semi-rain jacket thing. Mistake. It was totally wet. So we got to the stop and then decided not to go to the cafe because there probably wouldn't be anyone there anyway, it being the weekend and all. We turned back and decided to go back to the hostel and regroup.

The mist was so bad that you couldn't see past a certain point. It looked like a white sheet was covering a 20 foot radius around me keeping me from the outside world. This was the first really rainy longlasting bad weather we've had though since being in Scotland  though so it's been better than what we thought.

After lunch, we went back out. This time the rain had been replaced by the wind. It was so strong! The birds flying had trouble going anywhere. It was like they were flying in place. I felt bad for them. Last night after dinner, we went on this path that is near our hostel. It takes you to a bridge (which is pretty old and scary looking) and then to a place that had a "hut of shadows" and the "millennium forest." We found the hut and it was cool looking although we didn't know what its purpose was at all. We joked and had a theory that it was the entrance to the secret underground pub that all the locals go to. That way, they can get away from all the tourists and leave the hotel bars for them. This theory would explain why no local people are out ever and why we only find tourists. Anyway, the place we walked around was really beautiful and in parts it even looked like pictures I've seen of the west in America. We got to see the sun set too! The only problem was that there was no forest anywhere in sight so I think something might have been wrong with the "millennium forest." And as I thought about forests I realized there were like no trees on Barra at all and only a few on Uist. I thought that was strange. But anyways, this afternoon we ventured back to that little path and walked around again. This time though, Elise figured out what the hut was. It was like this old camera hut thing! It had a hole in the wall with mirrors and whatnot and inside the hut on the wall you can see the picture from outside. So cool!

Also, I saw a border collie on the path but it was with it's owners and I didn't want to take a picture of their dog and it be creepy so I am still on the hunt for a picture of one for Ryley.

Later on, we went back to the art museum/store/cafe thing and looked around in the galleries and museum. I really liked the museum and learning about the history of North Uist. They have it set up really well. They had a map of Scotland in there divided by all the clans. It was cool!

Lastly let me tell you about the bees here (Barra and here in Uist). They kind of divebomb you. Seriously like 10 times we have been walking and a bee has come out of nowhere and buzzed right past our heads and hovered. It's quite crazy sometimes.

Tomorrow is church and then I don't know what because everything is closed here on Sunday. Literally. It's okay though because I know God will provide what we need when we need it!

Sunset in Castlebay from last Monday (I now have internet fast enough to upload!)

Castlebay

Our ketchup packet, Craig

Con Artist Cat

Scary bridge in leading to hut

The hut of shadows

Sunset in Lochmaddy

Sunset in Lochmaddy

Bye Barra! Hi Uist!

I’ll try to pick up where I left off with my last blog. Wednesday night, we went to one of the hotels in Castlebay (like a 5 minute walk from us) where they have dinner at their restaurant and also free wifi. Elise got this chicken stuffed with haggis dish and I tried some of the haggis. I don’t know if it tastes different inside a chicken than just eating it straight up, but either way I had a bite. It wasn’t my favorite. To me (which I thought was so weird) it tasted like stale leftover Chef Boyardee sauce from a can. I had the shrimp and those were wonderful. 

Thursday we went to the Heritage Center in Castlebay. They have a cafe as a part of it and we ate there for lunch. I had like the best baked potato ever (or maybe it felt that way because I hadn’t had one in awhile). At the table next to us was three old ladies who looked like they met here often and this was their usual hangout. After hearing them talk a little bit, I came to the conclusion that they were not speaking English. I knew it was probably Gaelic but I couldn’t make out any words. After we finished, we went outside to wait for them (which is really hard to do without looking like a creepy stalker). They came out finally and we talked with them and they had all grown up on the island and were native Gaelic speakers. We asked to interview them, but as soon as they heard the word “video” they didn’t want to be interviewed. It was still nice talking to them though. I came to the conclusion that they are the Gaelic Golden Girls. I'm glad we met them! (Even if it was stalkerish).

Thursday night, yesterday, we went to the Castlebay school summer ceilidh, which was like a talent show of sorts. It was really neat! They had a whole bunch of music and dancing stuff. The kids were so talented. Aalso, one would think that a performance like this would be formal kind of. But this was totally not. People were getting up the whole time and it was like a party or something, but everybody was okay with that. I thought it was funny. I felt like such an outsider though because the village is so small that I'm sure everyone knew Elise and I weren't from there. We saw one of the Golden Girls there too, so that was good to talk again. They are so nice! 

After the ceilidh, we went back to the hostel and repacked. That is quickly rising to the top of my "things I hate to do" list. In order to procrastinate, I played with the owner's cat. Pause. Let me tell you about this cat. It's a con artist cat, as called by the owner's mother. One time this cat totally stowed away on the ferry to Oban and got lost there and someone sent it back! That's crazy! Unpause. Okay back to packing.

Oh another thing, Wednesday night, at the hotel, we didn't know exactly where to pay (one of those do you pay up front or at your seat? type places) so we just passed time by playing a game with a ketchup packet where you flick it back and forth trying to get it to stop halfway on and halfway off the table. We played this for awhile and names the ketchup packet Craig (after the hotel) and decided to bring him with us and document his journey though Scotland. It doesn't take much to entertain us sometimes it seems...

This morning (Friday) we had a 7 am ferry to Lochboisdale. Then from there we got a bus to Lochmaddy, where we are staying until Tuesday. On the ferry, I pretty much slept all the way so it went by fast. Once we got into Lochmaddy, we went to find where we are staying. It looks like we are two of four people staying there, for tonight at least. It seems so empty compared to the hostel in Castlebay, which was always full and lively. From our initial walk around Lochmaddy, it looks even smaller than Castlebay. There is one school with 2 teachers and 20 students. There was like no one out and about, which worried me in terms of getting interviews. Right when we got to our hostel though, the owner told us about a house nearby where two men are that we need to talk to and interview, so that seems like a possibility and I was glad she suggested it!

There is a hotel near us (it seems a a little weird that there are hotels, but not much else in the village to me) that has free wifi, so hopefully I can come and update over the next few days. 

Oh sidewalks! I need to mention this about sidewalks. Here there are sidewalks generally, but they always go a little bit on one side and then just stop and there is no more. You have to walk to the other side of the road to get back on. It's so weird.

Wednesday in Castlebay. That rhymes!

Yesterday, we talked with the Volunteer Center place here in Castlebay about anybody they knew who could speak Gaelic or have input on the culture and the lady working there gave us a lot of names. It actually worked out though, that they knew of a few Gaelic speakers/teachers who they could get to come to meet us so we were excited about that possibility.

So today, we had two goals: get those interviews and also go to the Catholic church here and see if we could talk to the priest.

Before we set out though, we had a little switching around time in the hostel. The couple who runs the hostel was out and their mother was doing the booking today except she couldn't read the handwriting of the records. Anyway, it had us moving into another room tonight and then again tomorrow. She finally figured it out though and we ended up leaving our room with our German friend and going to another room for the next two nights. It's better though because it's just us in the room so that's good!

So after that, we set out to the church and we did get to talk to the priest. He couldn't interview though because he would have to check with his superior and whatnot about what he could say and all that so we didn't get any footage. It was nice meeting him though!

Next was the volunteer interviews. We got two interviews; both of them were Gaelic speakers. I think it went really well and I'm happy we met them!

This afternoon, we finally washed clothes (the first time since I left Alabama). They smelled so bad. I don't know how much you know about dryers here, but they pretty much don't exist where I have been so everything is hanging to dry.

Today has been the first day that the weather wasn't sunny and warmish (here that means 60s) too. It's been raining most of the day. Tomorrow is our last full day here and we're going to the Heritage Center to talk to more people.

Also, I forgot to mention this back when we were in Glasgow! We had a TV in the room there and you want to know the first thing I watched in Scotland? Cheaper by the Dozen. I thought that was funny. And then there was a show (that was quite addictive) where a group of 5 people each cooked a meal each night of a week for each other and got scored on it by the others. It was like a cooking reality show. Later on though, Braveheart came on and I have to say that watching that in Scotland feels a little different than in America...

Errr...what's that place's name again?

Today we set out on our first bus adventure on the island to hopefully find people to interview. It's a relatively small place so I knew that the bus rides would be short. But we made our way up to the north part of the island, Eoligarry. I could never remember the name of the place though.There is a really beautiful coastline there. It was pretty remote but then again, most of this island is. Castlebay is the most populated area and even that is like the Stars Hollow of Scotland. So we began to think that going up to this place was a bad idea because there was no one around and if there was, they were tourists. Soon after that though, this couple was sitting on the rocks watching the sea and we decide to go talk to them. They were very nice and we got an interview with the woman! It was great. Even after the interview we talked for a while so that was nice. They didn't speak Gaelic but I think it was still a good time. After that we explored a bit more and got on the bus for the way back to Castlebay. By this time, we had seen the entirity of Barra pretty much.

Last night, we ate dinner at the hostel (grilled cheese and soup. go college students!) We were at the table with our roommate. We talked for about an hour about a ton of stuff. She is from Germany and here for a 2 week vacation. After dinner, she invited us for a walk to a beach on the west side of the island that she had been to earlier. We were going to watch the sunset. It was so pretty! Even if it was 10:45 by the time it finally got close to setting. Very beautiful!

Castlebay, I'm finally here.

Yesterday, Sunday, felt like another one of those long days. We left our hotel in Glasgow around 9 and had a train to Oban at 9:55. We arrived in Oban around 1ish and had a ferry at 3:40. So we had some time to kill. I had a shrimp sandwich from the "seafood capital of Scotland" and it was pretty good if I do say so myself. We walked around a bit in the town, but it wasn't totally ideal because we had all our stuff. A LOT TO CARRY. The ferry was almost like a mini cruise ship. I have only seen things about ferries on like TV or movies and this wasn't what I expected. They had a restuarant, tv lounge, dog area, stores, and multiple decks. It was really beautiful scenery too so I spent a lot of time sitting on the side deck with my camera. It was super windy so it got cold but I liked it. I only got semi sea sick one time so I went and fell asleep to make it go away. The ride was about 5 hours long and we got there in the 8 o'clock hour. Once in Castlebay on the Isle of Barra, we went to our hostel to get settled in. We are in a room for 4 and one other roommate was in there when we got in. After that we went to explore a bit of the town. It wasn't much though because it was like completely dead at this hour, but it was weird because it was so light outside. The sun doesn't go away til maybe 11:30, 12...Later on in the hostel, our last roommate finally came in, except he and his friends were completely drunk and they woke the entire hostel up. Some people yelled at them though and it was taken care of.

Today, our first full day in Castlebay, we went around town to see who we could meet and potentially interview. There is a church here and we wanted to talk to the parrish but he wasn't here today so we'll try again later in the week. We met a guy in this Toffee Shop (which has the best toffee ever by the way) and he is from Glasgow. He doesn't speak any Gaelic though so that was sad, but it was nice talking to him either way.

Right now, we're at the library, which is in the school here so that's a little weird but they have free internet. I think we may go to the post office after this to find out more stuff. Tomorrow we're taking the bus to the northern part of the island...I can't remember the name of the place...starts with an E. Anyway, it's near the airport here. The beach is the airport at low tide. Just so you know what type of place this is.

We stay in Castlebay until Friday. Then we'll travel to Lochmaddy, North Uist.

Glasgow

So yesterday was the last full day here in Wales for me. And it was a full day indeed. And it rained all day too. It was a lot of getting final details and final sessions on things. In language class, we went over some of the last bit of the cassettes. John also gave us a little packet of language stuff. It was intense. Later on, we had a session on personal evangelism. I thought it was really relevant because we focused first on why sometimes our evangelism strategies don’t work. I feel that way all the time, so it really hit home. Instead of placing emphasis on the presentation we give people, we should just live a life that is so reliant on God and Christ’s resurrection is so alive in our lives, that things just come out of our lives in the relationships we have with people. I realized that’s why I have always been terrified of evangelism. I might say the wrong thing at the wrong time or in the wrong way...but if I focus on my own relationship with God and make sure my life is what He wants it as, evangelism will happen through my life. 

Later on we did a lot of cleaning to get ready to leave. Another group is coming in today. After cleaning, the PLL fans gathered around and watched Pretty Little Liars, which I was very excited about. We were huddled in the office in the dining area though and anytime a person walked by it made a shadow on the wall and scared everyone. It was fun. I think I’ve laughed more in this week than in the past month combined. Like really. 

Elise and I left at 7 before everyone else this morning, so a lot of goodbyes happened last night. We have two debriefing weekends, so some of us will see each other again, but some won’t. It was sad to see the end! We meet all these awesome people and then have to leave! We all wished we could be one big team for each of our own assignments. Reunions will happen though.

So onto Scotland. We left for Glasgow at 7 this morning. We had a train out of Bangor, Wales to Glasgow. We are staying a night here and tomorrow heading up to the Isle of Barra. We walked around the area by our hotel this afternoon. It was raining the whole time, but still really pretty!

Yesterday we met to go over logistics for our trip specifically and it was a giant amount of information. We had like a box of stuff, while most everyone else had a pack of papers. It’s because we are traveling so much in a short time though. We stay in 5 different locations, not counting Glasgow. We will be seeing a lot!

Escaping conversation

Thursday...we’re getting near the end of the week. I feel like I’ve been here with all these people for like a month now though (And I mean that in a good way). As Molly put it, we are all so different and each are a nutcase in some area but work together so well. We could be a really good sitcom if we were filmed. I agree. Totally prime time ready. 

Let’s see, Gaelic class was good today. I like this TV/workbook thing we have but my only complaint is that they sometimes include stuff early on that is of no relevance to me. For example, like right after learning the basic “how are you?” etc. it goes on to name my wife, my children, and stuff like that, never mentioning sister, brother, mom, dad...It’s basically stuff I don’t want to fill my head with right now because there are more pressing phrases I feel like I need to know. But there actually is a set of cassettes that go with the program and it has way more stuff on it than the video. And today we found that the cassettes go further and continue on while our book’s lessons end. We’re going to make sure to get good words/phrases tomorrow. It was funny because one of the sections on the cassette was called “saying goodbye / escaping conversations.” You don’t hear that phrase a lot and I pictured someone elusively escaping a conversation and it looked funny in my head.

Tomorrow all the different teams will be presenting a song that they came up with in a mini talent show of sorts. It can be an original, a parody, a well known song with different lyrics...whatever really. Today we used team time to work on those songs. Mine and Elise’s is pretty good and I’ll share it with you tomorrow.  

Tonight in our devotional time, we went over the story of Jesus’ resurrection. It was a continuation on from yesterday’s story of the crucifixion of course, but it was interesting having the stories broken up like that. It is neat to break them up into separate things because often we read the crucifixion and resurrection just straight through as one thing. Separating it really gives a sense of the real time that took place in between the events and the feelings people had in that time.

Tonight, with some of the leftover throwaway dough from something John cooked, some people decided to have a dough war. They went to a field on the campus here and played some kind of war like game. I didn’t play but it was really funny to watch because it looked for awhile like a Narnia battle...with dough balls. I half expected someone to yell out “And for Aslan!” really loudly with a fistful of dough.

Tomorrow, all the teams are meeting with John to go over logistics for each of our assignments and where we go from here. I’ll have hopefully all the details of what’s ahead!

Gnip gnop

So I need to first say: that ping pong game is called gnip gnop. Now I feel better about that. 

Secondly, last night after everything, we were all in the girl’s building an we had an impromptu dance party in the dark. Well everyone except Alex who was already asleep. And since she was, we then proceeded to go in her room and dance while she was asleep. It was really funny. Even I (who is definitely not a dancer) thought this was fun. Dancing ballet to the Biebs’ “Down to Earth” is always fun. 

Today’s schedule was similar to the rest of the week. Our language class today was a little like yesterday except this time I was tired because of staying up later the night before. We learned more about saying things we like, etc. Coffee and tea in Gaelic are pronounced “coffee” and “tea.” Too bad I will never want to order that ever so the easy words are wasted on me. I just need to know how to say water and will be fine. Water is pronounced “ooshka.” 

Team time was a bunch of games again. This afternoon, John talked to us about storying again and also about dealing with children in the UK. There is so much different here that I would never even think about. It’s crazy. During free time, a lot of people took naps because today we were allowed to take them for the first time since being here (because of jet lag). Molly and I sat outside and went through a bunch of Disney songs and had some Disney moments. It was a good substitute for a nap. 

Dinner tonight was quite American. We had hamburgers, hot dogs, and what John called “special squash.” First let me say, “squash” here is like a juice. It’s orange or blackcurrant. I don’t really like the orange but the other is okay. They are both not as good as juice in the US to me so I haven’t drank a lot of it. Anyway, our “special squash” was code for soda. So we had coke tonight. Then ice cream for dessert. Very good.

At dinner, we had  a special guest, Rhys, the pastor of the Welsh church we visited Sunday. He is not very old, maybe like mid 20s. He talked to us about Wales and the culture here after dinner. 

Tonight we also had another storying session thing. This time, we spent part of it going over the crucifixion story and making our own storyboards of the story. This is a method in learning to recite a story. It was hard because there is not a way to draw out every line of a story. This resulted in me frantically drawing planes with a man in it for Pilate, and crowns for kings, and palm trees for paradise. Fun times.

Internet hour is over. Until next Internet hour...

Toilet bowl tag

Tuesday, June 14. So I’ll recap yesterday for you now because yesterday I couldn’t really get online to blog. See, we are allowed an internet hour from 9-10pm here so naturally we are all on it at that time eating up all the good internet. I could barely open Facebook for a little while so yeah...this is why you get it today.

So what did Tuesday, June 14 in Wales consist of for me? Some of the same stuff as Monday. Breakfast, worship time, discussion groups, another Gaelic class. Today in Gaelic we continued on with our video series/workbooks. I don’t think I mentioned that about Monday actually. We are going through a “Speaking our Language” series so that’s what is actually teaching us the pronunciations and such. It’s a really helpful thing and it’s very funny because it acts out different scenarios to put the phrases to use we are learning. One scene was at a bank where a woman was writing a check and she dated it 1993. That can tell you a lot what this video looks like. The fashion is wonderful. AND THE HAIR. Even in Scotland, they had a 90s look. Language-wise today was a little harder for me for some reason. I knew the old stuff from Monday pretty well, but learning anything new wasn’t sticking for some reason. I’ll get it though.

The afternoon consisted of an hour of team time. We played a bunch of variations of tag and other little games. My favorite was toilet bowl tag. When you got tagged you had to kneel on one leg and put our arm out for another person to come by and sit and flush it. It was a funny sight to see all of us doing that.

Our first video/photo session was today. It was more of a general thing, but it was good to get started thinking about it. There are 6 of us on video teams: 3 two-people teams, one going to Wales, one in Ireland, and one in Scotland of course. 

After dinner, we talked about working in schools here in the UK, in case any of us went into schools to connect with people. Following that was another Bible story thing and a prayer time. Tonight, John’s dessert to us was sopapilla. I really feel as if I am on a trip getting gourmet cuisine or something. He can really cook well. 

Oh forgot to mention, free time today consisted of a lot of ping pong playing. But it’s not normal ping pong. I don’t know the name of the game, but it’s like a lot of people can play it and the net is down on the table. You all are in a certain order to hit and you go around and try to make it hard for the person getting yours. I’m explaining it really bad so I should just stop trying. The point is, it’s really fun and we played a lot today. And not to brag or anything crazy like that, but I made the most awesome play ever. It was my turn to hit and the ball was in a really hard spot like I was turning and I thought it was impossible. But somehow I stuck the paddle under my leg while twisting and hit it back to the table. Don’t ask me how I did this. But just know it happened. Too bad there isn’t instant replay slowmo in real life.

I almost wish there was that as much as I wish there was “control-z” in real life.

Ciamar a tha sibh?

Day 3 at Tyn-y-nant. So it’s still weird for me to think that as my Monday morning started, it was still only 2am at home and people were sound asleep, but the day started nonetheless. Jet lag really isn’t a problem anymore, and for that I am extremely happy. Now I don’t have anything to blame my tiredness on except...um me but that’s no different than back home. 

This was our first day of actual training in specific areas. After breakfast, we had a time of praise and worship which was lead by 4 of the students. Each day, a different group of students will “lead” worship in whatever way they want to. After that time, we broke out into discussion groups in which we read through Luke 10:1-12 and discussed some things about it. 

Next, was our first official language class for 2 hours. We have teams going to 3 language areas: Welsh, Irish, and Scottish Gaelic. Oh by the way, “Gaelic” in Scottish Gaelic in pronounced like “galaxy” without the “see” sound at the end, if that makes sense. I had no idea it was pronounced different that “gay-lic.” Speaking of Gaelic, that’s what I will be learning. It’s just me and my teammate, Elise, that are going to Scotland, so our class is a little small, but I like it that way. John is teaching the Welsh group, another colleague is teaching the Irish group, and someone is “teaching” Elise and me. I say “teaching” because she doesn’t actually speak Scottish Gaelic fluently and stepped up to learn with us and help guide us. We’ll all learn together. The learning approach we are all doing is very auditory and all about the hearing and speaking of the language as opposed to the visual/reading it part. Since we only have a week to get down basic knowledge this is the best way. That’s better too because in the languages, well in Gaelic at least, the words are pronounced so phonetically different than we are used to that looking at the words doesn’t help that much. In fact it might confuse me more. Our class is using a video series that is coupled with a workbook thing that is very helpful. It was a good first day of class, I think. We got a lot of phrases down and I think by the end of the week, all 3 of us will be much better. The first thing we learned was “ciamar a tha sibh?” which means “How are you?” It’s pronounced kaymuhr ua ha shiv. See how different it is? Our teacher did tell us a tip she learned from speaking Irish where she lives...even if you’re not sure of the right pronunciation just spit it all our really fast and don’t linger and it’s probably more right than you think. A lot of the native speakers do speak this way, fast and running together words. So that’s what we have been trying to do.

Lunch was next followed by some “team time” which is basically going to be teambuilding games and exercises. Today’s game was called Harbor..something I can’t remember. Basically we had a blindfolded team member (Elise) who was a boat and they had to make their way through a maze of tables and chairs to the finish line while another teammate (Me) yelled directions to them from afar. Like any good game, there were obstacles to overcome like other teammates flicking water on boats, people making loud noises to muffle other people, other people yelling to be heard, and someone going around telling the boats the wrong thing on purpose. It was crazy but fun. 

After the rousing round of Harbor...something I can’t remember, we had a session with John about personal evangelism and just a general overview of what that looked like. He said we’ll go over that more in the coming days. He did talk a lot about what the different schools of thought concerning religion were here in the UK and I thought that was really interesting because it’s so different in some ways to America.  

Later on today we had something Hungarian and really hard to pronounce for dinner. It was some kind of soup. And John played Hungarian music through the speakers while we ate. It’s safe to say we will not go hungry at all this week with John’s cooking. We have had some pretty good stuff and also I’ve had some of the best desserts here. We had like 5000 beignets tonight. John was alluring us to eat them with his deep voice and talk of a winter wonderland. Much laughing happened. 

Tonight we had a panel type session on the sports and music of the cultures in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. There is apparently a sport really big in Ireland called hurling. Look it up. It’s intense. We also had a time of Bible storying which listened to then proceeded to act it out. Storying is a way that we can hopefully reach out to people. Lastly we had a prayer time. We’ll have one of those every night. Every one will get in the “hot seat” and we have to, in 3 minutes, tell how we cam to Christ, how we came to be here this summer, and a prayer request. This is to help us all get to know and pray for each other and also to help us get used to speak quickly. 

Oh also, I’ve had some of the best hot chocolate here. I don’t know what brand it is but it is so good. 

Lastly: yes, I’m excited that it’s cool enough here to actually drink hot chocolate and not pass out from heat.

Sheep and castles

We left the Manchester airport around noon to make our way to our camp center thing for orientation in Gwynedd, Wales. We have 16 students that make up 7 teams and we'll go our separate ways on Saturday, so we'll be together here until then. On our way from the airport, we stopped for lunch. As John, our supervisor, called it, we had our choice of a few restaurants...the Scottish delicacy: McDonald's, and the Royal Burger King. So anyway, my first meal here was at a McDonald's that was actually having a "Taste of America" special going on this summer. It was a New Orleans sandwich or something. I thought it was funny they were doing that. 

After lunch we got back on the road to North Wales. We stopped at Conwy Castle, which had a lot of history that John told us but I can't remember any of it because I was half asleep the entire day. Speaking of this sleeping thing...we weren't allowed to go to sleep until bed time last night, which was the hardest thing ever since the last time I slept for real was Thursday night, before my flight. Car rides didn't help the matter either, but we all made it. Back to the castle...I took a lot of pictures mainly because it kept me awake. I'll try to post a few here later. 

There is a lot of sheep. I expected that, but it still is funny how they are everywhere. On the sides of mountains, near the beach, everywhere. My goal now is too find a border collie herding the sheep in honor of Ryley, my dog at home. 

So after the castle, we got back on the road for about another hour. We stopped one last time at a beach somewhere. Not exactly sure where. I just know it was really cold. Oh and I was still wearing shorts because that's what I was wearing in Alabama the day before. I was cold, but didn't care because I would trade Alabama weather for this weather any day, especially the summer. We stayed at the beach for a little while and then left. We finally got to the camp center about 5 or 6. We ate dinner and had free time until bedtime. I met Ben Nuss and his family and Ella officially became the cutest baby ever to everyone. Sleep was welcomed with open arms last night and I think we all fell asleep within 2 minutes.

This morning we went to a Welsh speaking chapel for Sunday service at 10. John told us the church normally had about 8 or 10 people attending so we would definitely fill the place up. It was really funny because it was a lot of little old ladies who came in the chapel after we got there and they were so surprised. They jumped a little and their eyes got bigger at the sight of us. We didn't understand most of the service since it was in Welsh but it was an experience. We came back to the camp after it was over to eat lunch and then had our first official  orientation meeting. 

The meeting was very general, but we went over the different people groups and languages and the vision of the CeLT. We'll start the more detailed orientation starting tomorrow. 

I'll leave you with a thought we talked about and something John tries to implement into the CeLT.

Love goes.

The gospel counts.

The journey's worthwhile.

The journey begins!

And so it begins. As I get access to internet, I will try to post entries here as much as I can to keep everyone updated. Just an overview - for the next month, I'll be serving as a summer missionary with the Celtic Languages Teams (http://www.thecelt.org/wp/), an organization that seeks out the people groups in western Europe that are still a part of the Celtic culture and share Christ's love with them. I'm on a videography/photography team that will be in the Outer Hebrides in northwest Scotland. As far as I know, our goal will be to capture the stories of the people there and use that as a means to minister to them.

Today, (well yesterday) I flew out of Birmingham to Atlanta at 3pm. Well, we didn't actually take off until 4 something because of a thunderstorm delay. I decided I could have driven to Atlanta faster than it took to get there by plane. That's flying for you though. Anyway, I got to ATL around 5:50 local time, then boarded my flight to Manchester. Long flight, but it went fast. I sat next to a girl going to Scotland and Paris. She was nice. We landed in Manchester about 9:30? I can't exactly remember or know what time zones are what. It's confusing. Today will be a "dead day" because of jet lag so I see it being very tiring just because I want to go to sleep really bad right now. Actually I think we are going to sightsee at a castle. Not sure which one...

We are having an orientation week before the teams go their separate ways. I'm sure I will know a lot more details about the upcoming weeks soon.