First Full Week!

Hello!! From, currently sunny Paisley, Scotland! WOW!! I am blessed. Can I just start by saying, once again thank you for all your prayers! What a rich and beautiful experience and privilege to be living here at the Stanley House.
I have only been here a total of 9 days, but it feels much longer! A good kind of longer, I feel at home. The Manor that I’m living in was built in the mid/late 1800s. It is gigantic! There are currently 22 people total here, 7 of which are children all under the age of 12! SUCH FUN!!! It is a wonderful community of people to get to dwell with! There are actually 6 people doing the Discipleship Training School (DTS): 5 girls (4 American, 1 British: Kelsi, Cerina, Beka, and Sarah[from England]) and then 1 guy (Corbin) (He and his wife (Stacy) and four boys moved here from the states). I am the oldest of the girls; we get along all so very well! All five of us share a room. It has been good! The rest that live here are the staff, student staff, and interns.

I have gotten somewhat adjusted to the time change, the trick is trying to get my mind to turn off before midnight. The sun doesn’t set fully until 11:30ish so that took a little bit more time to get adjusted and then it rises around 4:00 in the morning! Craziness.

This whole past week has been orientation, getting into the slight rhythm of things and getting the training of how the household is run and how we are apart of it all. We have an incredible schedule! (Our week long trek is in just two weeks! We will be camping the whole time; Google St. Cuthbert’s Way and that is the one that we are going to be doing!)They have it all laid out for us, the whole six months, and have the days broken down, within the days they have hour blocks of what is when and where and what reading is due! It is great. There is daily “Connect” time where we have 7:30am-8:30am to have our quiet time not in our room . Then “Office”, which is where we all gather and have worship , group liturgy prayer (we have these old Celtic prayers that we recite three times a day: once in the morning, one at lunch, and one at dinner: they are three different prayers), and open prayer! Then after office, we will either have lecture, which will be a couple times a week. If it isn’t lecture then it till be blocks of intercession or creative worship or group house projects or reflect time or cleaning house or community outreach projects or setting up for Create or book discussion times or film and theology class or group hiking or group workout (which is two times a week) or testimony/teaching prep class, or whatever and these thing are spread throughout the day and evening. We typically have Sunday off or if not it is then we get Saturday!

Yesterday, Saturday, we did a group hike. It was incredible. We definitely slept well, last night. I’ve posted some pictures on Facebook; the hill overlooks Loch Lomond. We were blessed with incredible weather as well. Today we went to a great church that some of the staff goes to, I love going to church in other countries, because it helps to remind you that God is indeed all knowing, all seeing, and He is everywhere and for everyone! What an AMAZING God we serve, my hope and prayer that I will continually grow faithful as His follower.

This coming week is going to be the first week of lecture, it is on the Character/Nature of God. I’m stoked. We are also having several times where we are praying together as well as separately for where we are going to go on out two month outreach. So, be praying that God would speak clearly and concisely to each one of us and that we’d be ready to go wherever He desires! We had a group intercession time on it last week and it was really cool to hear and see what God was saying.
There are of course so many things to tell you that would take so much, so if you have any questions or whatever fell free to write me. I will try and update my blog every Sunday, and perhaps even more whenever I get a chance.

May this week be filled with blessing. May you readily know that His Hand is upon and His grace is indeed sufficient in and for all things. Take time this week and be still in the mighty and calming Presence of our Creator, God, Friend, and Daddy. Love you all and let me know if you ever need me to pray for you! Thank you for your prayers.