Liverpool, Thanksgiving, and more glorious times!

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving to everyone! I hope your day was nice. I have so much to catch you up on!

I went for a walk with a friend and God treated us to a beautiful rainbow! (notice the wind, you can see it in my coat, cold England weather + wind = very cold English weather! don't be deceived by the momentary sunshine!)

Steve, do you remember telling me how silly and immature your class’ boys were and how they made a list of the prettiest girls at school? Well apparently boys haven’t changed much in 15 years because the boys this year did that too! but wait, there’s more. Not only did they make a list of who they thought the prettiest girls were, they made a list of who they thought the girls would pick as either handsomest or most datable! Incredible! I was just laughing in disbelief when I heard that one…true story though! Thankfully, I don’t think most girls know about it so it hasn’t been a big deal.

One little English tidbit I thought you might appreciate from one of our English lectures: he said that the old phrase “Red sky at night, sailors delight...” in England is actually said to be a “shepherd’s delight” instead of a sailors! Isn’t that funny? It makes sense though, probably a lot more shepherds around here.

And I’m not sure if I ever shared this, but I thought it might be interesting to know that the students here range in age from 18 to 28! The oldest guy is 24…which makes the oldest girl here 28. =) There are actually 2 German, female doctors attending school here, as well as a female dentist (who happens to be one of the doctors’ sisters).

Two weeks ago (the last time I wrote a real post) we had an outreach here on campus for local teenagers. It was a mix of worship, students sharing testimonies, a short message, and a dance! I had a very small part in the dance. It was fun to do and I think the students really enjoyed having something a bit different. One of the students here, named Kate, is really into dance and headed the team up. She choreographed a dance to the song “Jesus Freak” which told the story of 3 different people with various problems or things they were trying to fill themselves with (drinking, popularity, boys/relationships) and how they came to know Christ.

So, just a few highlights of last week (Nov. 16-23) since I didn’t post last Saturday:

We had a Korean noodle fundraiser night on Tuesday to raise money for the starving people of Zimbabwe. One of the students here named Belinda is from Zimbabwe and had presented on the situation there several weeks earlier. In response to this, another student here from South Korea (1 of 3) named Soku decided to organize a fundraiser among the students for Zimbabwe. I helped him, along with a big team, cook noodles in the school’s kitchen and serve almost the entire student body (it was an optional event to attend). Afterwards, everyone retired to the lounge where Soku’s visiting sister who is training to be an opera singer, treated us to a few songs. It was great fun and we raised over £700!!

We also began choir practices for our Christmas program. I have to admit the practices have been trying. It’s hard to blend people from all different musical backgrounds and experiences into 1 choir in only about 3 weeks! Lord willing it will all work-out. We are singing 3 songs as a choir: “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”, “the Hallelujah Chorus”, and a Jewish song, “Shalom” (I have no idea where they picked that one from!).

Also, we finally have Christmas decorations up at school. During work morning last week, I was part of a team that helped take all the decoration boxes down from the attic and dust them off. Then the team this week (working yesterday morning while the other half of school was in seminar) put all the decorations we unpacked up. The place looks very festive =)

Lastly, the overwhelming theme of last week (Nov. 16-23) was a test on personal evangelism and a paper due on 1st and 2nd Samuel. I was so focused on those two assignments, I felt like a hermit that week! But we all survived and were happy to be done. (of course now we have a memory verse test on Monday and a paper due on Ezra on Thursday. But they’re smaller tasks)


Last Saturday (11-22), I went on our school’s weekly, optional day trip. In fact, almost the entire school went! We took a bus to the city of Liverpool, about an hour away (1 ½ hours maybe? I wasn’t paying the greatest attention). The city is famous for being the birthplace of probably the greatest band ever, the Beatles!

A lot of us from school took a bus tour together that went to lots of Beatles spots including Strawberry Fields...

...and the famous Cavern Club.
to see more of my pics, check out the facebook album:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=73204&l=d3f32&id=720019947

Last night, our school put on an improv comedy night. it was really funny!


here's a long promised picture of my family group =)


here's my friend Kate modeling how incredibly green this tree is! if that doesn't give you an idea of how damp it is all the time here, i don't know what will! =)


And last but not least (at least for now), here's my table at our school's thanksgiving dinner on thursday.


I've added more photos from Thanksgiving, the comedy improv night, and other events to this album on Facebook: (if you've already looked at it, just flip to the newest pics at the end of the album)
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=70631&l=69f42&id=720019947

Well i have to run now but i will hopefully update this post soon because i have tons more to share!!
Love to everybody!!!!
~Sarah Jordan Hope =D

Media Fast...

My dear family and friends,
I'm just writing you a quick note...to tell you I'm not really writing a note! Our school is having a media fast this week (no ipods, computer, internet, DVDs, etc.) and I forgot about it until they reminded us it was starting today. This past week so super busy: we had a paper on 1st and 2nd Samuel and a test on personal evangelism the day after, and then we went to Liverpool (home of the Beatles!) yesterday! whoo... what a week!

I wish I had remembered about the fast sooner so I could have written another real update on here. But now it will have to wait until our fast is over on Thursday (they're ending it early so that all of us Americans can skype with our families on Thanksgiving).

So next week I promised a good update on the past 2 weeks! =)
Blessings to all and happy Thanksgiving!
Love,
Sarah

Fall is almost over and winter is definitely on its way here! the leaves are pretty much gone and it's dark at an ungodly early hour of 4:30!

more to come next week...
=)

Good Morning California!

Good Morning California! I am writing at 9am on Saturday morning, which is early for us because it’s the only morning we can sleep in! Saturday morning is one of the few times when the castle is quiet. I am up so early by Capernwray standards that I am one of only 3 people in this room. Usually when internet is on almost all of the 25+ chairs are filled. As you can see below, it is quite a funny sight to have all of us lined up with our laptops, cheering on our computers, and praying the internet connection speeds up.


(Steve, this internet room is now called the prep room I am told was one of the dining rooms that you must have eaten in before the current dining hall was built a few years ago)

I thought I'd add this picture to show you a bit more of the castle. This is in the main hall/entry way area. This is what i see when i come out of my room.


This week overall has gone quickly but each day is a long day if that makes sense. I’m actually having trouble remembering what I’ve done this week (that’s how long ago Monday feels).

Well for starters, on Sunday after church, I taught another ballroom lesson. This was the 3rd time we did this and we plan to do it again tomorrow. We're working on swing at the moment. We have about 35ish people come. I'm not really sure because I've never actually counted. I'll try to remember to count heads tomorrow. People really enjoy the lessons so I think I'll keep going as long as they enjoy it.

This week we had 2 lectures series: one on Colossians, and one on Exodus. The woman who spoke on Exodus used to be on staff here and is a really good friend of Sue Gilmore, the school secretary (essentially #2 on campus after the school principle Rob). Instead of using powerpoint, she used an overhead projector. I hadn't seen one of those in years! haha =) she was so funny because she used illustrations on the overhead. she had an artistic friend cut out silhouette style pictures to illustrate different parts in Exodus. they made us all laugh! she also imitated Sue's accent perfectly! that was hysterical!

the days of the week kinda mesh in my head, so a few other highlights of the week included:

-watching the office with my roommate Korina a few nights in a row (Korina is a big fan and brought 4 seasons on DVD). one night she even found a recipe and made our little Office watching group cookie dough! yum =)

-getting to spend Tuesday afternoon with my family group at Dougie's (my "dad") house. since family groups meet on wednesday morning and Lisa, Dougie's wife (our "mom") works at her kids' school on wed. morning we never get to see her or the kids. but since we met during the afternoon, we got to see Lisa, Ethan, and Hannah! All the students in my family group are nice, but I don't perticularly click with any of them. So i enjoyed playing trains with Ethan for a two hours. he is really cute (has a gorgeous head of curls!). It was good therapy for me since I've been missing babysitting Hali, Kyra, and Jude each week! and Lisa invited me to come back and play with the kids any time... =)

Yesterday afternoon was the first free afternoon I had all week! So I was finally able to resume working out with the girls. we meet Monday, Wednesday, and friday; but i had meetings during the time we meet on M&W.

Oh! I almost forgot, another highlight of the week is that we had try-outs for Christmas choir! We had quite a few people try out (we have a *very* musical group -I'm not sure if i've ever been in a group of people where so many people sing, or play an instrument well!) and I'm not sure how big of a choir they want. So we'll see... =)

Today will be a very busy day because Capernwray is having an outreach for teenagers in the community called "rock solid". i'm helping out with it and need to go to brunch now so i can get my day started.

While i've been writing this i have been able to upload a few more pictures on facebook of my time in New York that I didn't put on the blog. I'm sorry this posting is short, but until i can write more about my current happenings, you can check those out. =)
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=69846&l=558b0&id=720019947
The Lord was so good as to let me be able to upload a *whole album* this morning of pictures of Capernwray! There are several you've already seen posted here, but there are also a lot of new ones interspersed!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=70631&l=69f42&id=720019947
Thank you Lord for fast internet!
Love to all!
~Sarah

Week 6!

Well, we’ve come to the end of another week here at Capernwray! This one has flown especially fast since we had a long weekend and didn’t resume school until Tuesday.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we had the 2nd part of Walk Thru the Bible program, looking at the New Testament. Everybody loved having the presenter, Paul Keyes, back. He has been one of my maybe 2 or 3 favorites so far. He has such great energy and humor and it made sitting through 6 lectures a day much easier. I think it was a very smart way to break us back into school. Even though we only had a 4 day break, I only spoke to one person who was excited and ready to go back to lectures! =) At the end of the lecture series, Paul had us put the Old Testament and New Testament keys words and motions together and it took us about 5 minutes to go through the whole thing. He said we were the first group he’s ever tried that with! =)

I think Paul enjoyed having an audience of solely young people because it allowed him to do certain things that he wouldn’t do with an older audience. For instance, one of the NT phrases was ‘a storm stilled’. When he introduced it to us, he was talking normally and then all of a sudden, he yells “A STORM! – stilled (in a quieter voice)”. It made me laugh so hard! He said he never dared try that with an older audience for fear of giving one of the members a heart attack. ;)

Anyway, the Walk Thru seminar was great and I now have a much better understanding of events and their timing and placement.

On Thursday we had another break in our routine by having a day of prayer. The day was a combination of personal prayer, group prayer, worship, and communion. It was very refreshing and nice to have a quieter day and to be able to just calm our hearts, sit silently, and talk with God. Even though we are at Bible school, it is still a struggle to find quiet time each time (both in terms of devotions and literally finding a quiet time and place with so many people running around campus).

At the end of the day, we were in the mood for a nice and relaxed girl hang-out time, so we watched a chic flick, ‘Wimbledon’, with a few other girls from our dorm corridor.

Then, yesterday (Friday), was work/ seminar day as usual. Every Friday, the students are split into 2 groups. One half attends a seminar, while the other half works, cleaning the entire campus. The boys do outside work like raking, cleaning out drains, cleaning the pool (even though that’s not outside), and I don’t know what else. Then the girls clean the inside: changing sheets, vacuuming, dusting, and everything else necessary to keep a large place like this in good shape! However, I got off with an easy job. Every so often there is a need that isn’t necessarily cleaning for the girls to perform. So yesterday, I got to decorate menu covers for the huge Christmas dinner that is held at Capernwray every year (after the students are gone). Even though we didn’t have much freedom to be creative, it was nice to do crafts instead of hard-core cleaning! =)

However, the gem of the day was our evening’s activity: A SCHOOL TALENT SHOW!! Let me just say it was way better than I expected and it was HILARIOUS! I was able to catch most of it on video. Unfortunately, I have no idea when internet might be fast enough to upload any videos. But *some* day, you will all get to see lots of videos that I’ve taken both of last night as well as videos in all my travels! =)

So… today! Today I went on our optional weekly school trip to Skipton (we go to a different place each time, the 1st time was that infamous lake district trip!) =) Skipton is a small, really pretty and picturesque town that boasts a 900 year old, well preserved castle! The castle was really pretty (and one day you'll get to see pics). The castle is even still occupied by some of the descendants!

It was a very fun trip. It took us about 1 ½ hours to get there via our school minibuses. Not too many of us went so it was a nice change-up to not have dozens and dozens of students there and get lost in the crowd. After visiting the castle, I walked around with my roommates Maggie and Angelic, and another student named Adrielle from Manitoba, Canada. Today was market day in Skipton so we got to browse lots of street vendors in addition to all the cute shops. Surprisingly, there were at least 4 thrift stores in town! There are lots of different chains of them here in England, and I haven’t even seen a Salvation Army or Good Will store! It seems to be an almost trendy way to get clothes. All the thrift stores in Skipton were down the main street! Since things are so expensive here, thrift stores are a pretty popular destination for students here. =) Before heading back to school, Adrielle and I stopped for a snack at a local bakery (we had split up with Maggie and Angelic by that point).

And now this evening, the optional school activity is a game of capture the flag. However, I’m not playing… it was raining today and I don’t feel like getting all muddy just now. But you know, while I’ve been sitting here, we’ve heard fireworks going off in the distance and I have no idea why. Today is not a holiday, as far as I’m aware.

God’s been really good to me, esp. in the past few days. Making friends is just an on-going issue. Everyone here is really nice, but it’s been hard getting to know anyone well since there are so many of us. My room was talking about this and I know I’m not the only one feeling a bit lonely at times. But slowly and surely I’m know I’ll get to know people better and make close friends. Specifically though, my answer to prayer is that I’m developing a Christmas travel plan with my roommate Korina. I was praying for someone to travel with and was getting a little bit nervous about it because SO many people (most, actually) are going home for Christmas! I’m still hoping we might be able to find another person to travel with for a least part of the time. But we’ll see. All in God’s timing!

I’ve uploaded a few more pictures from Scotland onto facebook. Again, slowly but surely, I’ll get more up for you! =) I probably sound like a broken record, but the internet connection here is really medieval. I always upload pictures whenever possible so if you haven’t seen some in a while it doesn’t mean I haven’t been trying. =)

Well I’m going to go be social now!
Thank you for all your prayers.
Tons and tons of love to all.
~Sarah

Field trip!!

Salutations from a girl who’s freshly arrived from the land of kilts, thistles, and bagpipes! This past weekend, Capernwray gave us a long/ travel weekend during which I went to Edinburgh, Scotland, along with many other students from school. It was a whirlwind trip and I loved it and learned so much!

The above picture was taken when we climbed to the top of the hills surrounding Edinburgh on Sunday. You can see the city in the background. Read on to find out more... =)

In past traveling experiences I have discovered the validity of the phrase “a picture’s worth a thousand words” and found that taking tons of pictures better captures the trip than writing pages and pages in a journal. Therefore, I took tons of pictures during my time in Scotland. In fact, I took over 1,100 in barely 4 days! (how’s that Erringtons?) =)

In light of that, I have decided it would be easier if I simply uploaded pictures onto facebook instead of here on my blog. I already succeeded in uploading a few last night and I hope to continue with more tonight.

To give you a better sense of my time there, I’ll give you an overview of my weekend’s activities:

We left school around 9am on Friday morning, packed into 2 tour buses (called ‘coaches’ here) and arrived in Edinburgh around 2pm. We then “hiked” up through the city to our hostel which was in a great location, carrying our luggage and following a small city map. Thankfully, we found the place with little difficulty and I was pleasantly surprised to have the hostel far exceed my expectations. It was clean, neat, colorfully painted, safe, and not bad smelling either. =)

We were all tired and not fully interested in exploring the city after we unpacked but we forced ourselves to go out, knowing how limited our time would be. We walked around the city, browsing shops, and just exploring to see what was there. We (me & the 6 other girls I booked with) had dinner at Maggie Dickson’s, a pub with a great discount for students staying at our hostel. To see a picture of it and hear the unique history behind the place, you’ll have to check my photo album on facebook. ;)

Friday night, being Halloween, we decided to play it safe and turn in on the early side. We returned to our hostel and enjoyed watching a free movie (The Wedding Singer) in the hostel lounge.

Both Saturday and Sunday mornings, I ate the £2 breakfast at the hostel (pretty much the cheapest option available). On Saturday morning after we all ate a “continental” breakfast together consisting mainly of toast, cereal, and croissants, we walked a few blocks to a Starbucks in the downtown area (yes, they have them here too! I was sorely disappointed in my fellow students to see how unadventurous they were about Edinburgh and how much some of them clung to Starbucks!!). We walked to the Starbucks to meet in front of it for a free city tour we had heard about. We were really surprised to see many other kids from Capernwray there too! what a small world… =)

This tour was fabulous and probably my favorite part of the weekend! (and it was free! though I did tip) The tour was 3 hours long with an ½ break in the middle to grab some lunch. I learned SO much about the history of Edinburgh and was fascinated to see and learn things that one would never be able to guess simply by looking at a building or even reading its plague. Edinburgh had a much more interesting history than I imagined (I know Daddy…imagine that) ;) For instance, did you know that the famous novel, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, was actually inspired by a true story that took place in Edinburgh? I know! Me neither! (well, not until Saturday, that is) I took tons of pictures of things we learned about and plan to upload them. So enough said about that for now.

After the tour, I walked through the Princes’ Street Gardens with 3 other girls and we explored the city for the rest of the night together. The sun continues to set earlier and earlier here and it is almost dark by a depressingly early 5pm. I am beginning to understand why people say we are spoiled in California! =) And maybe due to the limited daylight hours or some other unknown reason, the shops in Edinburgh close really early! Each night, after 5ish we had difficulty finding things to do besides go to a pub and drink (which we not allowed to do). So had a late dinner and ate take-away food in our hostel room on the floor. Not very elegant, but a lot of fun. I think one of the girls had too much sugar or something because she was just going ballistic which made the rest of us laugh hysterically. =)

Sunday morning we decided it would be excusable to miss church since we practically have it everyday at school and had really limited (esp. daylight) hours left. My roommate Angelic and I had planned to meet another two girls to take a ferry to a nearby island for the morning but plans fell through when the other girls realized they had somehow confused their information. It turns out the island we wanted to visit is on the complete opposite side of the country! I still don’t know how they got such faulty info…

So we decided on a Plan B. We walked all the way down the “Royal Mile”: a street that goes straight down from the castle, all the way to the palace. The street has many shops and interesting buildings on it, so we took our time. When we got to the palace, we stopped and had lunch and then went for a hike.

We hiked up the nearby mountain/large hill. One of the boys from Capernwray said it took his group about 20 minutes to climb. I’m wondering if they either had a group of macho boys who ran all the way up and down or if this guy is a severely poor judge of time. Either way, we somehow made the “20 min trip” last a couple of hours! =) it wasn’t so much a difficult climb in it of itself, but the path was extremely slippery and muddy which forced us to take it slowly for fear of face-planting or sliding backwards…and then face-planting (not to mention 3 of the 4 of us had shoes with no traction on). But we survived, we had a great time, and we *sweating* when we reached the top. Oh, did I mention I was doing this wearing my heavy winter coat and carrying a purse and shopping bags too?

At the top of the mountain, we met more Capernwray kids and took our time enjoying the fruits of our labor and soaking in the spectacular views of the city and faraway sea! Then all the Capernwray kids on the mountain (about 20/25? of us) traveled down it together. We then indirectly made our way back to the middle of town where we were meeting up with more students to go to dinner. Once we got there, I went off with 4 other students to go eat at the Elephant Bar, the birthplace of Harry Potter (where J.K. Rowling was sitting when she thought of the series). However when we arrived we decided it was more than we wanted to spend. So eventually after much searching, we found a cheaper place for dinner. I definitely experienced the ‘staring college student’ lifestyle while away this weekend. Everything was so expensive, and I’d rather spend money on something that will last, like a souvenir, or an experience instead of food. So I had maybe 2 or 3 good meals in Edinburgh and survived through the rest knowing that I’d have plenty of “free” food when I got back to Capernwray. =) …but don’t worry, I’m not turning anorexic, I ate…just not very well.

Anyway, after dinner Sunday night, we wanted to go to a church’s evening song and walked to the other side of town only to discover we had had the wrong time and had already missed it. Wanting to do something else before retiring that night, we found a free piano bar that we could sit in and listen to, but had to wait another 1 ½ hours until it started. So we went to the McDonald’s across the street to burn time. we played cards there and ending up making friends with some Scottish teenagers who joined in our game. They guessed that I was 20 years old which made me laugh! That’s definitely a first.

Then at the right time, we traveled back across the street only to find the gig hadn’t started and the doors were still locked. We didn’t know what to do and didn’t see any more options so we returned to our hostel and watched the 2nd half of a movie that people were playing in the lounge.

Monday morning before the bus picked us up at 11, I ran to the National Scottish Museum with 2 other girls. We first went to the roof of the 7 story building like our tour guide from Saturday had recommended and enjoyed the citywide view. The other unique aspect about the museum roof terrace was that it had greenery from every of the 10 or 12 (?) different plant climates/regions in Scotland organized by their location. To be honest, the variations between landscape regions didn’t have a large visual difference but it was a cool idea.

We quickly browsed through the rest of the museum and then power walked (I think you would have been proud E) down the city hills to the bus stop. I actually enjoyed the bus ride back to school more than the one to Edinburgh because it felt like such a long time since I had seen some of my friends whom I hadn’t run into in the city, since pretty much you were with the people you roomed with the entire time unless you arranged to meet others which was nearly impossible without any kind of phone or way of contacting each other.

I think it was a good move on Capernwray’s part to give students this travel weekend each year, because when we were gone we started missing our “home” and wanted to shower there, see friends, have hot food, etc. and now we’re happy to be back at school! (although I could have lasted longer and enjoyed at least one more full day in the city).

Now, regular school life continues as normal: four lectures in the morning, “free time” from 2 to 5:45 when we have “tea” (aka dinner), 2 more lectures at night. And a slightly changed schedule depending on the day (for instance, Tuesdays we have 3 lectures in the morning and during one of the normal lecture time slots we have worship and extra time to read our Bibles). And I say “free time” in quotation marks because this time is quickly eaten up with meetings and practices for different things. For example, yesterday (Tuesday), I had 4 meetings to attend, 2 of which conflicted, so I only made it to 3. I had dance practice for our dance outreach team, worship band practice, a meeting for the Christmas production, and a meeting for my outreach team to a Polish church we’re going to this upcoming Sunday. So everyday is a very full, but good day!

Similarly to NorthCreek, Capernwray puts on a Christmas production for the community about a week or two before Christmas itself and before all the students leave for break. It is totally student led, directed, organized, and performed. So no pressure… =) Any student who was interested in the program could come to the meetings to give input, so I joined and now I’m helping write the script for the production. We’ve only just had 2 meetings so far and we are in the very beginnings of the project, but I am really looking forward to it already! Probably in part simply because I love Christmas!! =)

Well you have passed the test and survived all the way to the end of my writing! That’s my life for the past few days and I pray you’re all doing well and taking advantage of whatever situations God has you in now back at home.

You can check out my facebook pictures album through my fb profile, or follow this link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=68370&l=49c9a&id=720019947
If there's not a ton of pictures yet, don't worry I'll upload more as soon as I can. I have lots to share!
Tons of love, fresh from Scotland! =)
~Sarah