My roomie...Dorothee from Germany. Me. Bailey. On a walk around the Capernwray property. I think I'm going to go read by that big tree in the background right now...I think.

Eis van Dijk. One of the guest lectureres this week. Amazing. Really. I love him. He's so fun to listen too, and he's so clear, and has described and explained perfectly, things that I've only recently learned. I almost cried after his first lecture. He's been lecturing on Galations. Here's some stuff he's talked about:

Walking by faith works like this:

TRUTH (what God says) produces BELIEF in us, which becomes BEHAVIOR, which then produces EMOTIONS. 

Walking by sight is backwards. Like this:

TRUTH produces EMOTIONS, which produce BEHAVIOR, which we then analyze to decide what it is we BELIEVE. 

Here's some more stuff from my notes:

"Do I think of myself as a sinner? If I'm walking by sight then I do. God doesn't see me as a sinner. If I see myself as a sinner, I will believe as a sinner. I am saved though...If I believe truth about what God says about me, then I will behave according to the truth. I'm saved."

The gospel isn't..."Jesus died for my sins and saved me." That's just the first part.

It's... Jesus died for my sins and cleansed me. Then he filled me with himself. Then he sealed me with the Holy Spirit. That's the gospel. 

Hm. That's random. And I don't know if it makes sense. But whatever. It's a blog post so it will make you all happy. :)

Today...we adventured to Carnforth. The closest town to school. We stopped at Tesco...the grocery store. It's kind of like a Red Apple. But someone compared it to Walmart. They haven't been to Wal-mart.

Then we went to the three story book store. I'm going to spend a whole saturday there sometime.

I really don't think you've been to a real cafe until you've visited the Edelweiss. I'll take pictures for ya sometime. The friendliest little man served us. He made me tea in a teapot and gave me a little cream pitcher to go with it, and a white mug on a saucer. And the three of us shared an deliciousness scone. When he asked how it was we told him good...of course. And he acted all surprised.

"Nooooo...no....really?"

"Well did you make it?"

"Yes, of course I did!"

"Oh. It wasn't any good. Nope."

"Oh well good then!"

The red head in the picture is Kristin. She's from the US and has an big gorgeous smile. I didn't get any pictures of Carnforth yet, but will next time!

1...the door to the castle
2...the castle!
3...the conference hall. where church, lectures, and crazy running around games happen
4...a thingy in the fence that you can climb over to get to another pasture
5...the ceiling above the castle lobby area
6...the castle from the pasture
7...this picture doesn't give the view any justice at all. there's sheep and cows all over that far hill. it's amazing. really. even though it doesn't look amazing. :)

To get to room 15, you go up the main big staircase, through a door, down a few steps, and my room is to the right. I'm not kidding when I say you can get lost in the castle.

I have a French roommate, a German roommate, and a British Roommate. Hannah, Doro, and Deborah...respecitively.

It's funny how I keep finding little things that I've read about in lots of British books, but never really thought about or hoped to experience.

I finally know what Digory's house was like in The Magician's Nephew...all connected to the other houses. It really is like 3 or 4 double story brick houses squished together side by side.

I tried ginger beer. No...not ginger ale, or beer. It's a soft drink that's ginger flavored. It was deliciousness actually.

And today for dessert at dinner (lunch) we had cake with custard. And not cake as in chocolate frosted sugar. But more like cobbler topping with some berries in it type cake. And custard is amazing.

There's sheep all all all over the place here. I went on a walk with my family group on Friday night and we walked through field after field  with sheep, rolling green hills, oak trees, hedges and stone fences.

And apparently I have an accent.

Our ever so beautiful faces after about 15 hours of traveling, with 2 more left to go. Everything went smoothly until we got on the train to Carnforth. No one was on the train, so we didn't know what all the reserved signs were for on the seats. Whatever. We sat in them anyway. Put our small (30 pound carry ons) above us on the storage shelf, held onto our backpacks, and stuck or 50 pound suitcases on the seats in front of us to make the aisle clear.

Next stop, a madly giggling, crazy bachelorate party got on. And...guess what...we were in their seats! Problem was, by then we didn't have a way to move because the train was so full we couldn't get our luggage moved out of the way. Eventually we moved over and had to ride out the rest of the train ride hanging on to the bags and trying to keep balance.

Being squished against the train doors, two bags over your shoulder, sitting on one, and holding onto the other one because it always falls over...isn't too bad. Until the door opens and people crowd on and you have to try desperately not to fall out and get left behind. 

We survived all everything that came our way and arrived at the school after a perilous drive on the wrong side of the road.

Now if you could please pray that i don't get lost in the castle again. It's a maze. Literally.

sorry...they're not the greatest pictures but they work. no pics of the school yet...but soon. :)

Farewell! I'm off to Amsterdam tomorrow morning! Amsterdam...then Manchester...then Carnforth...then Capernwray Bible School.

I already told you about my lovely last couple months. And...I could elaborate, add more details, other big crazy life things that happened, and even give you the story of the last couple years. But I think you get the picture. Life sometimes sucks.

But I lived through it. It's not like everything was ok and fine. But I could see enough of God's hand to know that it was under control and for the better. But still...it was the hardest couple months of my long lifespan of 20 years.

Through it I would tell myself: "Oh it's just life I guess. I'll survive."

But even though it was "fine," and there were alot of good parts to it, it still was pretty much misery. And I couldn't wait to leave my little life behind.

What did leaving life behind look like? It looked like a long plane ride to a castle in England. It looked like sitting in Bible class lectures. Reading...alot. Tea. A train ride in England just like all the ones I've read about in my favorite books. Getting a British accent. Finding a friend from a different country.

It basically has nothing to do with work, accounting class, work, pneumonia, work, keeping up with friends, family, daily life, and work.

The day finally came. Two suitcases and my messenger bag were stuffed with a million shirts, my favorite skirts, 2 pairs of converse, my black hat, green bag, camera, and books. Passport. Itinerary. Boarding pass. School acceptance letter. Everything perfect and ready.

Then. In Iceland. A wicked little bird told the angry volcano gods that a certain excited girl in a pear skirt and black hat was planning to fly to England. And the angry volcano gods laughed loudly and made plans to bring the excited girl's life to ruins by spewing ash all over Europe so that any plane destined for England would never be able to take off because of engine failure, crashing, and...death.

Ok...sure...that might be a little over the top. But. It felt like that.

You'd think it's be like..."Oh, big deal. No problem. We'll catch a different plane in a few days. Miss a couple days of school. What the heck. Who cares?"

Um...ya...no. It wasn't like that.

I could get through 60 hour work weeks while getting over a fever and dealing with a...difficult...boss.

I could cry about lost friends, hard family life, moving from my childhood home, and failing a class.

I could miss Mei Mei just as much as I did 5 months ago when she died, or 10 months ago when I last saw her.

But it was fine. It was all good. He somehow kept my trust and let me see enough of the amazingness that He was doing in my life that I could get through it without going on depression medication or anything.

Then the stupid volcano blew.

And I fell apart.

I thought I was leaving my hard little world. Taking a break. From the moment I got on that plane I thought my life would be all grand with no worries.

Not.

I sat on the slab outside my bedroom door and bawled. I was frustrated that one more stupid thing had to mess up my life. I was mad that He would let it happen. I'd had enough. Hadn't I learned enough already? I thought life would be done happening. But apparently it wasn't. And I couldn't get over it.

All that stuff I had thought of as just "life," wasn't life. It was Him. He'd been teaching me the whole time. I was going to escape "life" and leave. But I can't escape Him. And He wasn't finished with me.

I was mad at myself. I was immature, I was selfish, I was letting a little setback completely get me down. I thought I trusted Him. And now I was a failure. In front of Him.

I'd been excited to spend hours in Bible lectures, reading God books and my Bible. I was going to learn from studying. But instead of teaching me through all that, He chose to teach me through the absence of all that.

Weird. Not what I would have expected. Obviously.

A friend told me this: You should be looking back - not going "Wow, I've been through so much." But more like, "Wow, look what God has gotten me through."

And she's right. I'm still sad. And have kind of given up on hoping to hard for anything really nice to happen to me in the near future.

The same Him that got me through everything before, will get me through a long, boring, sad week. I failed miserably, but He's ok with failure. He's not gonna look at it and think, "Pft...forget her. She can't deal with a little trial and get past her stupid problems." I might think that...but He won't.

He gives you problems and expects you to fail. Otherwise what would be the point of the problems?

at this moment...

...my 17 year old brother is wearing my black hat.

"I like this hat. It makes me look...special."

Undeniable truths from the mouth of my little brother.

Bobby and our amazingness cousin Amanda