Open Mic Night

Last night we had another outreach hosted at Starbucks - this time an open mic night. It was amazing! I honestly don't have words. There were over 50 people there and at one point I counted 25 new students. That is incredible! Five of the students who preformed were first timers who had been invited by a friend to the outreach. I felt overwhelmed, almost to tears at one point, when I looked around and saw all the students that God has entrusted to us, and thought about the brilliant relationship He's given us with the Starbucks staff. He has been so good to us. Our next outreach is an end of the year PARTY on May 11. It's gonna be an end of semester elation extravaganza! Please pray that the relationships we've started building with these new students will continue to deepen and that the life of God, in us, will draw them to Him.

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There was quite a variety of creativity expressed: short stories, poems, music (both original and cover songs), and comedy.

Sarah and Natasha started out the night with a short story they'd written about superheros.....

...and they had volunteers act it out. Very amusing!

Some of the first time guests singing away.

Natasha has been writing poetry for years. She read two poems, one she'd written before she was saved and one she wrote just recently, to show the contrast between what her life used to be and what it is now.

Students enjoying themselves

The very talented Nathan played the guitar and harmonica (at the same time) and sang (when his mouth wasn't full of harmonica).

Music by David Karon read poetry he had written, and a couple from his favorite books. He's from Trinidad and speaks with a lot of rhythem. It was brilliant.

And of course, the hilarious Rachel and Andy had everyone in stitches with their corney jokes and comedy routine. What a laugh!

Our Norway Peeps

The past four days we have enjoyed a massive blessing: visiting with our missionary friends who are pioneering campus ministry in Norway. Cortney, Brett (pictured to the left), and Kelly (pictured below with Cortney and Brett) are about nine months in to a two year missionary assignment. They came out this weekend to see how we're doing things here in Scotland and draw from Sarah and Joe's vast wealth of wisdom and knowlegde, as well as enjoy some major chill time with their favorite missionaries to Scotland (us, of course).

When we weren't discussing principles of pioneering campus ministry, we were doing equally important things like taking jumping pictures.
We also took them to see the Crathes Castle. Fantastic!

More photos can be viewed here.
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And now, for something completely unrelated to the above paragraph...

Cheers to my good friend Dave for bringing me back sugar-free flavored creamer from the States! He went for two weeks to visit his fiance and returned bearing gifts for all us Americans who are way too far away from home :o)

Looky, looky!

I take a lot of pictures, way too many to post on this blog. I really want to be able to share them all with you so I've made myself a little online photo album thru google (yeah google - you rock the party). Now you can veiw and love all the hundreds (not kidding) of pictures I don't have room to post on my blog. It's a special gift from me to you. Enjoy!

clicky-clicky: picturesque-extravaganzaness

p.s. you can leave comments, too. just for funness.

Art Gallery @ Starbucks

Starbucks is still loving Radiate like it's their fulltime job. It's pretty awesome how much favor God has given us with the manager there. Sarah met with her after the first outreach event we did there (red nose day promo) and she had nothing but good things to say. She and her staff really enjoyed the atmosphere that night and are happy to let us use their facilities in the future. God is widening our sphere of influence and the people we get to reach, while majorly blessing us with an awesome venue to use for outreach at the same time. Did I mention it's free as well?

Last Tuesday we hosted another Art Gallery Cafe, this time featuring 6 artists (3 Christian students and 3 nonChristian. It was fantastic! The picture to the right is of two of the artists, Rachel (one of our Radiate students) and her friend Sarah. There were 11 first time guests, which is really amazing. I spoke with two guys for quite a while that had never been to a Radiate event before and didn't know anyone in Radiate, but saw one of our posters advertising the event on a bulliten board on campus. It's kind of funny cause when Bethany and I were putting those up on Monday we were both thinking, "Does anyone even pay attention to these?" Answer: Yes! Another student approached me at the end of the night, asking when our next event is and thanking us profusely for putting on the Cafe. "So, do you do this sort of thing often?" he asked, raving about the band, the atmosphere, and the artwork. He went on to tell me that for years he was a hard out athiest, but recently things in his life have been changing. "The past couple years I've been getting more into.....oh, how do I say it.....um, not really religion, but I guess you could say I've been getting more into spiritual things." It all started when he heard a Creation vs. Evolution debate between two professors at Oxford, one Christian and one Athiest. That got him thinking and he started reading some of the agnostic writings. "It occoured to me that I've never read the Scriptures. I've know about the Bible but always thought, 'What a bunch of crap. Who would ever believe that?' Then I realized that I'd never actually read it or given it a chance. So I've been reading it lately and it's actually really interesting!" Yeah, I'm pretty sure God's doing something in his world :o)

The set up was similar to last time. The students covered the walls with their artwork, the band played acoustically in the background, each artist had the opportunity to share about their work and where they get their inspiration if they so desired, and Sarah shared some thoughts to wrap up the night. We are really excited about the potential these Cafes hold. Our next outreach will be an open mic night on May 1. Please pray with us for continued opportunities to introduce university students to their Savior. Thank you!!

Martha Had A Little Lamb

This weekend I had the awesome blessing of visiting Martha way up north in the Highlands of Scotland. Martha is my closest friend here and one of the students in my home group. She's studying Radiography (yep, she's a smart one) at RGU but has finished classes for this semester and returned home (which is about 4 hrs north of Aberdeen) until she goes on placement in late May. We got to do all sorts of things in the three short days I was there, including a visit to Loch Ness, John O'Groats, Inverness, Dunrobin Castle, and various other wee villages along the way. But in all of our galivanting about the Highlands of Scotland, my most favorite part was the visit to her grandparents' farm. If you know me at all, you know I'm a seriously dedicated fulltime animal lover extraordinaire. The mulitudes of sheep, cows, donkey, chickens, and other barnyard animals were almost more than I could handle. Needless to say, I hugged every animal in sight and it was awesome. The picture directly above is Martha and I on her grandparents' farm. The ocean is behind us (north coast) and all surrounding us are hills scattered with grazing sheep and cows. The little lamb with Martha in the picture above was just born (which is why it still has blood and birth muck all over it). They get on their feet pretty quick after birth, but are still pretty disoriented and wobbly so it's easy to catch them in the fields. If you're not careful they'll think you're their mother and start following you around. Seriously cute but not the best idea when the mother sheep is standing close by giving you a death stare! Click here to see a little video I shot while hanging out with the sheep.

Yeah, I really wasn't kidding about the hugging bit in the paragraph above.

Chatting it up with my new donkey friend.

This is part of the land owned by Martha's family behind her aunt's house. We were trying to chase down some sheep :o)

Baaa Baa sheep on her grandparents' farm.

Just some beautifulness in the Highlands of Scotland

I got to hold this little lamb for about two hours! I fed it a bottle and it fell alseep in my arms!!

Oh my goodness, SO ADORABLE! She was the cutest thing ever.

I only petted it's head because the rest of it's body was kind of gross.

All kind of animals everywhere, including dead crabs. I borrowed this cool yellow jaket from Martha's grandma.

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Loch Ness

The picture to the left is proof that you can be a tourist and still look extremely cool.
Important Update: I was unable to locate Nessie during my short visit to the alleged monster's home, seeing as Loch Ness is about 30 miles long and one of the deepest lakes in Britain. Sorry to disappoint! But don't dismay, the monster lives. Keep the dream alive.

To the right, Martha and I are looking seriously windswept, with the beautiful Loch Ness and Urquhart Castle in the background.

This is another cool thing to do if you're a tourist.

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John O'Groats

Martha and I also made the treck up to John O'Groats, which is the northernmost part of Britain/Scotland. The little village is basically just ocean and a few gift shops, as well as a sign pointing to the North Pole, but it's fun to be able to say you've actually been there. In the picture below you can see that I'm standing in front of the "last house in Scotland" (que the 'ooooo, ahhhhh' from the crowd). Get it? It's the last house cause it's the very top edge of Scotland, so there's nothing beyond it except ocean. Ha ha......sigh. Cool.

If you've never taken a jumping picture than you're really missing out.

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Dunrobin Castle
Dunrobin Castle was seriously beautiful and I took about a hundred pictures (not kidding). This blog couldn't contain them all, so I'll just post this one because it gives a good view of the castle and the gardens, which are located right on the sea.

Last but not least, Martha treated me to my first ever Fish and Chips supper, complete with mushy peas - a real British treat! I usually try to avoid things that will make me fat (except cheesecake, chocolate, and peanutbutter and...well, okay, let's not be silly - everything in the sugar food group is an exception) so I've somehow managed to live on the coast of Scotland for 8 months without partaking in fish and chips even once!

As you can see, it was an exceptionally lovely visit in every way and I'm very grateful to Martha and her incredibly hospitable family. The best part was probably just getting to spend some time and catch up with Martha, who has been a very dear friend and a major blessing from God these past 8 months in Scotland.

Hiya!!

Hey Everyone!

So sorry it's been ages since I've written. The students were on spring break for three weeks so there wasn't much going on to write about, and since they got back to campus this week my life has been busy, busy, busy! I have some exciting things to write about but it will have to wait until Monday......cause this morning I'm leaving for a little adventure. One of my students and close friends, Martha, has returned home to Thurso (waaaay up north in Scotland, almost to the very tip) because she's finished with classes for this semester. So today I'm taking the train to visit her for the weekend! It's going to be so fun because

a) she's awesome and I love her to pieces
b) it's a new area of Scotland I've never seen
c) we might get to visit Nessie the Loch Ness Monster (I'm a believer)

d) her grandparents have a farm that is full of baby lambs!!
So for the next few days I'll be exploring the northern lands of Scotland and hugging large amounts of sheep. Yessss!

Twister

Twister is fun, people.
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All the university students are on spring break right now (they get three weeks off!) so things are kind of quiet around here. Some students went home for break, others stayed here to study for final exams or work on essays and projects. Since a number of students were away I decided to have all the girl small groups over to my flat this week for a little friendly banter. I made a bunch of food, we hung out, then we played Twister. Remember that game? Yeah, so fun. Although, I'm not nearly as fexible as I was at the age of 10, which was probably the last time I played.

Ohhh, it's just getting started.

"You want me to put my leg where?"

I'm pretty sure she's laughing, not crying. I could be wrong.

I bet Jo loves the fact that I have a picture of her butt on my blog. Not.

I totally almost won this game.

Blood rushing to the head.

Props to Rachel (on the right) for playing in a pencil skirt. She's got skills.

That looks rather painful.