Week one's Top 10

This first week has flown by!!!  I can’t believe that I’ve been here over a week already, and yet at the same time, it feel like I’ve known the people here forever…I love how being connect in Christ can do that!  We are from all over the world, literally, but there is still that oneness of spirit…simply amazing!

Anyway, I thought I’d update you all with my top 10 (good and not so good things) from week 1…so here it goes in no particular ranking order:

#1.  Finally getting over my jet lag – after about 6 or 7 nights of waking up multiple times, and some nights not being able to fall back asleep for hours on end, I think my internal clock has finally adjust to Scottish time.  But let me tell you, even though there is definitely no lack of sheep to count here, those first few nights were brutal!

#2.  Hamish the Highland Cow – On Thursday we got to have an outing as a class and they took us all up north about an hour and 45 minutes to the Trossachs National Park.  It was very beautiful, but one of my favorite stops along the way was to see Hamish!!  Very friendly and very huge…

#3.   Pantomime – My first Friday in the country was spent attending an amateur play at the village hall…a pantomime of Jack and the Beanstalk.  It was very entertaining once my ears adjusted and I could understand their accents.

#4.  Receiving first letter – We were at a healing training all day today, which was really cool to be a part of, but I was already exhausted when I woke up this morning.  So as you can imagine, I was even more wiped when we arrived home after all day in lecture.  However, I just happened to check the mailbox and much to my surprise and blessing, I got my first letter!  So thank you Scott, Mara, Elise, Micah, and Tobin…love you guys too!

#5. Discovering that they only have instant coffee – One of the things that I have not so much enjoyed this past week is finding out that there is only instant coffee here at the base.  My fear of being coffee deprived, or at least GOOD coffee deprived, has definitely come true.  Living in Seattle spoiled me the last few years!

#6.  Walking around Lock Katrine – Also on our outing, we stopped at Lock (that’s Scottish for Lake)Katrine and went for an hour walk around part of it.  The cool thing about this lake is that the history of it inspired Sir Walter Scott’s poem “Lady of the Lake”.  It’s crazy to think how much history is in this land, especially coming from a country that is just 234 years old. 

#7.  Healing of Jazz’ back – Definitely one of my most memorable moments of the week happened today actually.  One of the staff here, Jazz, was in a bad car accident a few years ago and since then has had a lot of back pain due to slipped discs.  So, during our healing training today she was prayed for and healed.  She says that there is no pain, praise the Lord, and can now easily do simple tasks such as putting on socks that were painful to do just this morning.  Isn’t God great!!?!

#8.  Hearing from God/prophetic words – For me personally, the highlights of the week have been in the form of encouraging and even prophetic words I have received from others here, as well as hearing from God himself.  One of the big focuses at the beginning of the week was really just taking time to be silent before God and listening for what he wanted to say.  We did this one exercise where we were told that there were 3 categories and we had to pick one of them and ask God to tell us about it, to give us a word or something about it (without us knowing what the subject of that category was even).  After about 10 minutes we came back together as a group and were told the categories; one was a certain person, two was our whole DTS group, and three was self.  So we all shared what we’d heard for whatever number we’d chosen.  It was really cool because it all fit together.  Group one’s words all resonated with the individual they were for and there was definitely a theme emerging out of the words for the second category, the DTS as a whole.  It was just a really encouraging way to start off the six months!

#9.  Finding the hot water pipes – So no laughing too hard, but as I mentioned last time, I can often be found hugging a hot water pipe or sitting on a wall furnace to try and get warm.  As requested, here is a picture.

#10. The ample supply of carbohydrates – The other thing that has me worried for the next six months, other than the lack of good coffee, is the ridiculous amount of carbohydrates in every meal!  I’ve been trying to find a way to eat other things, but there isn’t much fruit and veggies aren’t served all the time either.  Not that I am a health freak by any mean…I am actually quite looking forward to trying the Scottish delicacy of a deep fried mars bar…but I am think that eating nothing but carbohydrates for six months could have an adverse effect.  I may just have to stop being cheap and go buy some at the market.

Well, there is my week 1 top 10 for you.  I’ll try and make it a weekly thing, but no promises.  Also, I have had lots of requests for more pictures and I will get some, but the weather hasn't been too nice this past week, so I haven't really taken a lot of the beautiful outdoors.  I'll post some when I do though!