Uneventful week + Liverpool

So I found a secret place.... the conference hall has amazingly fast internet... aka it doesn't take 5 minutes to load a page.
This week was fully uneventful.
Well.. thats a lie, but it was well short of exciting.
The week was our prep week for outreach and therefore our lectures were all focusedon us preapairing for the 10 days. They were exciting and interactive and just good.
Yesterday I went on the saturday trip to Liverpool. again... not very exciting. Liverpool is a very dirty city, but is the homeplace of The Beatles. and for that reason, I got a shirt there! yay!
ButI was also VERY tempted to get a dress there, for uh...... 55 pounds. thats... $120-ish. It was AMAZING! but... I had to restrain myself. but I think I need to get a good english dress before I leave this country. I love the style here. its lovely.
But yesterday I decided I don't like the culture too much. its too...rash. too unhospitable. so harsh. I like the friendliness of Canada.
Everyone is getting homesick again. too often I hear 'two weeks till outreach, then ten days, then two more weeks then we are done.' aka- five weeks till I go to africa.
I seriously am fully unprepaired for africa. I don't know what to take. when to take my malaria pills. I don't know what I am doing for my one night in london. I don't know ANYTHING. I don't know if I am mentally prepaired for it either. It makes me feel so much better that mom is taking care of alot of it... but I still need to be responsible for myself.
Today was beautiful out. I loved it.
well.. have a great week again friends!
Love,
Laurel

P.S.- I just realized I didn't tell you ANYTHING about Liverpool. I went with my room mates ADrienne and Heidi. we went to see a Beatles display and then walked to the city center. we shopped a bit.. didn't buy anthing, as you know. And we sat in a starbucks for a bit. then we leasurely walked back to where the bus would pick us up by means of the peir (waterside), which happens to be the bay that they Titanic set off from. It was a nice chill day away from the school.
ok. thats all now.
oh... except that...
JEREMY COMES ON FRIDAY!
I am stoked out of my mind to see him! you have no idea!

Just a Little Update

Hello Friends!
This week has been quite uneventful. Besides classes, we have had nothing to work on, no assignments or anything, well... with the exception of prepairing for our outreach. My group seems to be the most gung-ho group in the school, as we meet every day before Tea to pray, and we had an hour long meeting on wednesday to write out all of our gifts and find out who would be best at certain parts of what we will be required to do. According to my group I am a good pray-er, a good cousellor, comfortable with public speaking, wise, and creative. hm. Don't know what I think about all of that, but its interesting to have friends asses what you are good at- learn from another perspective. Our main goal right now is to become OVER prepaired for our week rather than the under prepaired groups that have preceeded us in this location.
The week progressed from there, with my cold getting ALOT better. It has now desided to settle in my eye... like it usually does, so I look like a freeky cyclops thing. But Its getting better, and I'm sure glad I brought a variety of eyedrops to fix this problem.
Yesterday (friday) was my dear friend Karen's birthday. we had alot of fun with creative gifts for her, from socks, to a purse, to doing her laundry, to buying her snacks for however long they last (currently her snacks are rationed for the rest of the year). So we took her into Carnforth (Sallie and I) and dragged her around town winding up and down streets, pointing at random shops, trying to keep her guessing at what we were doing for her birthday. She was thrilled of course. She was also VERY excited to learn that I would be doing her laundry for the week, paying for it and folding it and everything- CLEAN CLOTHS ON HER BIRTHDAY! yay! I believe that today some boys have scheemed to put Sallie and I in a large box and summon Karen down to pick up a 'package' and have the two of us pop out. Should be interesting.
Today, there is nothing planned, except for a bonfire tonight. I'm excited for that. I'm also excited to... be bored for yet ANOTHER day. I'm thinking, that as the only group member of my outreach team left at the school today, that I will make up some outlines for what certain nights should look like, for youth clubs and what not, and arrange some lists of games and skits and devotional stuff that I know. Sounds like fun, hey? I thought so too!
Um... Spiritually right now, I am a litle down, because I KNOW how much better I could be doing, but I'm not, and I feel like I should be trying so much harder to get devo time in everyday, but its hard, with all of the stuff thats going on, to go for a walk, or find a quiet corner, is hard. So I'm struggling with that a bit right now.
I'm also starting to feel a bit lonely for people back home, and thats hard too. But Jesus is helping me with that right now.
Classes have started to get WAY better, oh my gosh! I am actually fully paying attention now, and taking GOOD notes. God was good in helping me readjust my attitude in that.
Jeremy comes on the 23rd, and I am SO excited to see him! I don't know what we will do... maybe we'll go for a day trip into the lake district or something.. go to Kendal or something... who knows! I hope he doesn't get too bored while he is here. Maybe he'll make some friends. haha.
Anyways. Thats about all the excitment in my life right now!
Sending love and hugs,
Laurel

P.S.- I'd really like to post more pictures for you guys, but internet is rediculous lately, but I may try for it later today!

Pre-Outreach Weekend

So here I am, sitting in bed, listening to about the most random mix of music, and a growing mountain of kleenex beside me, and yet still eating chocolate. But it is my most favorite chocolate from home- a cadburry Burnt Almond that I got for my birthday. So... I have a cold. The first time I have been sick away from home. and it sucks. my nose hurts like nobody's buisness, and english people don't understand the words 'Lipton Chicken Noodle Soup'. Instead I had to make myself some tea with honey in it. Not like I don't get enough tea here. Seriously, this weekend I had more tea POURED into my throat than ever in my life.
Oh, right, I haven't told you about my weekend yet. Well... let me tell you! oh, just let me tell you!
Alright, the big finale of the winter school here at capernwray is a 10 day outreach where we split into groups and go out and work with churches in local areas and stuff like that, outreach stuff, right? So our class had already been split into teams ranging from three people and 10 people. Jesus blessed me with an AMAZING team of six people. four girls and two boys. There is our team leader, Brad who is from Spokane, Washington, Heidi (aka my room mate) from Idaho, Cherize from Seattle, Washington, Ashley from Lethbridge, Alberta, and Paul from Manchester, England. Oh, and me, Laurel from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. And our placement is a town called Barnoldswick about an hour away from me. I think it is north, but I may be VERY wrong.
Anyways, the point of all of this is that this last weekend we went to our placements (aka for us Barnoldswick... or Barlick for short) to stay the night at our hosts, and find out what we are to be doing for our 10 day outreach.
So, the weekend started at 7:30 am Saturday morning with breakfast. we were SUPPOSED to have a TEAM bonding breakfast... but the boys didn't show up. dang. Then shortly after ten we were picked up by Peter and Vince from the church in Barnoldswick. we were split into two groups of three for the ride down. who was I with... the boys... hah, again, I am just 'one of the guys'! we Dropped the boys off at Kathleen (Beech)'s house, and then I was taken to my 'home' with Kathleen (Barr). Heidi showed up not thirty seconds later, and we were shown our rooms by about the most awkward old lady God ever created. I think the entire weekend she said like a total of (maybe) 100 words to us. SO awkward! we had lunch and met up at one of the two churches we are going to be working with. We were then handed a schedule of not only our weekend, but the ten days that we will be there. we spent the next 4 hours talking about what we would be doing, and filming an intro video of our team and what we are about.
We are going to be doing alot of work in the local schools. We were broken into two teams- Team A is Brad, Ashley and Heidi, and Team B is Paul, Cherize, and myself. Team A will be going into Primary schools (age 4-11) and Team B will be going into Secondary Schools (age 12-17). I'll tell you about team B, because I am sure you are much more interested in what I'll be doing. We will be going in to teach RE (religious education) classes to high school students. The difference between this class here and in Canada, is that this is a required class, and it is completely fine to go in as a group of Christians and blatantly present the gospel. The only thing we are not allowed to do is ask the kids if they would like to invite jesus into their hearts while at the school. But at the end of the week we are putting on a big finale at the Church where we WILL be doing an altar call, and hopefully we will have a couple new christians at the end of the week. Anyways... the RE classes are about an hour in length. So we are going to be going in prepaired to have a real dead class and a lesson and a half prepaired, but prepaired to do half a lesson in case the class gets really into it. We are going to be REALLY interactive with questions and games, and be REALLY relevant to the life that these kids live. But what you don't understand is that going into an English high school is literally suicide compaired to ANY north american high school. These kids are ruthless and scary. Pretty much what I can say is... you know those scary punk/goth/smoker/skater/emo/hiphop/rebel kids that hang out in the alley near MMGCI? or on the corners, or the Mac's store, or where ever they go in their herds.... yep... thats like EVERY english kids. loud. obnoxious. and VERY opinionated. They are not quiet kids with well proper manners. nope. But while I'm scared spitless, I am also excited to see how God uses me in these situations, how I may relate to certain kids, and how they may relate to me. But in the mean time I have to prepaire an hour long interactive session for these kids. Oh, and did I mention we have an assigned topic? worship. yup. wide as.... heaven? haha, yeah, oh well, it will be good, I'm sure of it.
Anyways... the weekend consisted of ALOT of eating and drinking TEA. and chatting with old people about Canada. Ok, not even kidding you... the old english people swarm you when you are canadian... the couldn't care less about the americans... but they flock to me, telling me that they lived in Wayburn (of all places) for two years in the '40's, or they have relitives in BC, and Ontario, or that they visited the great lakes once in the '70's. seriously. most boring convorsations OF MY LIFE. exept I pretend to be interested, and ask questions and the like. And the Kids want to know if the americans know anyone famous. quite funny. And the girls flock to Brad and Paul, especially Paul, although I'm not sure why because he's not even cute. ....he's a 6'4 GIANT.
Oh, did I mention that the boys picked me up (completely against my will, may I add), and put me in a tree, 8 feet from the ground, on a branch that was no more than 2 inches thick. I almost died. and then to get down I had to sit on brad's shoulders. not fun. ok, maybe a little bit, but thats all.
Oh, and within about 5 seconds of meeting someone they said SOMETHING about how short I am. unreal.
Anyways... the weekend was good. and the outreach will be fun. I have a super great team, we laugh alot together and thats the best part.
If I could ask you to pray for our outreach wich will be from march 2-11, that would be AMAZING! and if you could pray for this cold I have too, that would be fabulous! It'd be great to feel alot better really soon!
I hope you all have a great week!
Much love,
Laurel