Last Saturday we went to York. Besides getting car sick and throwing up on the bus, it was a good trip! =) England has so many windy, narrow roads that it's quite easy to get at least a headache (or worse) from driving. Even though we were technically on highways, there are like little abandoned back roads compared to US highways.

One of the attractions that York is known for is its Roman wall and ruins. I really enjoyed walking around in the ruin areas.
And in case you're wondering what the red mark on my cheek is, it was Valentine's Day so I drew a heart on my cheek in order to be festive. =)

Kate and me
Kate plays the piano and we often enjoy playing and singing together.

a bunch of us poking out from behind pillars in the ruin area.
this particular room used to be a hospital!

While in York, my roommate Kassi and I went to a museum which Kassi's tour guide book had highly recommended. It was a neat museum. My favorite part of it were all the historical costumes. They had wedding dresses representing the various styles from the past 150ish years as well as bathing suits! =)

Last week, some of my friends decided to dress up on an ordinary school day just for fun. We chose the theme of "Rock star". Here's our group photo.
You can't see my outfit too well, but I made my make-up really heavy and borrowed other girls' clothes to fit the style. We all had a lot of fun with it. I had several people tell me throughout the day that if they didn't know what i normally dressed like, they would have bought the rocker look as my style. So I guess that means I succeeded in pulling it off! =)

On Tuesday night, one of the school staff had his birthday and some of the students threw a birthday party for him with the theme of "ugly/awkward prom". We all used the clothes we had to try and dress up and look ugly. One of the great advantages of living with a bunch of girls is that you always have someone you can borrow clothes from! I wore one of my own dresses then added belts from a friend, wore bright pink tights from another friend, borrowed bright orange earrings from yet another friend and used blue eye make-up from someone else too! So my outfit was a total conglomeration of borrowed items! I don't have a better picture of my costume from evening (the other pictures are on another girl's camera). But here's a picture of me from that evening with my friend Hannah:
They played music and we had a competition for the most awkward dance and we played an awkward group game. A lot of people got into character and were dancing and acting awkwardly the entire party.

Last night we had our school's 2nd talent show. I did a comedic song routine to the song from Disney's Mulan movie "Be a man". The song is about training the young woman Mulan, who is disguised as a man, to be a Chinese warrior. So we made up a routine to the song and performed it for the talent show! It was SO much fun! (I'm the fat warrior, 2nd from the left, I drew facial hair, a black eye and everything! we even had one of the guys from China draw Chinese characters on our faces!) =)
We had all sorts of acts, many musical numbers, etc. We even had people perform songs or poems that they'd written. I really enjoyed the entire evening and taped it all so if you're lucky, you'll get to see it if you'd like when I get home. =)

One of my roommates left this morning to go to London for the weekend to visit her sister who is there and won't be back until Monday. But then another of my roommates is leaving Sunday afternoon for the beginning of her "10 day outreach" (except for hers is longer than 10 days because her group leaves before the rest of us). So I realized that last night was our last night as a room together until AFTER 10 day outreach! We return on March 8 from our outreach and then school ends the 19!!!! So we are really at the beginning of the end now. =(
Although I look forward to seeing all of you again, I now I am going to miss this place and my new friends here all so much!

So those are just a few of things we've been up to lately! I hope you are all doing well.
Infinite x's and o's!
~Sarah

February update (and xmas break cont.)

Sorry everybody that I haven’t written in so long! Life here is busy and getting busier as we approach the end of school (even though we still have 6 weeks left, we’re all aware they will go really quickly).

Before I continue my travel log from over Christmas break, here’s a brief update of what I’ve been up to lately:


~on Friday night, we had a "British night". It was an evening hosted by our 6 British students here at school full of quizzes about British history, geography, pop culture, etc. Since I didn't have any clothing with a British flag on it, I dressed in British colors (red and white) and painted a flag on my face =)In this picture I'm with my roommate Kaylene from Canada (in the middle) and our good friend Faye from Britain, who lives just 15 min. from school.

~All the students have been split into teams for our “10 day outreach”. We have teams of 4-12 students going all over the UK, some to Wales, some to Scotland, most to various places in England. Each team is partnered with the local church and helps them in whatever way the church chooses.

~I am on a 12 person team (the biggest team) to a town named Morley about 2 hours east of school. Our team will be doing a lot of school work (conducting assemblies and Bible classes in schools), distributing leaflets, inviting people on the street to free coffee and tea where we’ll have the opportunity to talk to them about Jesus, among other activities.

This is our team with the mayor of Morley. We went went to Morley for the pre-trip a week ago (January 31-Feb.1) to meet with the church and discuss what we'll be doing during the outreach itself. During the church's nightly prayer meeting, the mayor came by to have her picture taken with us for the local newspaper. =)

~This week, we have no “normal” lectures. This week is dedicated to preparing for this outreach (which we leave for on Feb. 27th). We have classes on all the many aspects of our outreaches, on everything from playing games with kids, to preaching.

On my birthday, Friday December 26th, Karena and I went to the train station only to find we were one of the many privileged travelers to be stuck in place by one of the many famous French strikes! Eventually we were able to get on a very slow train and finally arrive at our destination, our friend Anne-Sophie’s house. Anne-Sophie wanted to show us the place where she rides horses, so we biked to the field about 30 min. from her house. I brushed a horse for the 1st time in my life and discovered something that you don’t get a good feel for in movies, horses are very dirty! In fact, they get their hair and mud all over you too! haha Since we didn’t have enough horses available for all 3 of us girls plus Anne-Sophie’s friend to ride at the same time, we took turns. So I road a horse bare-backed with Anne-Sophie, holding on to her for dear life (falling off the horse didn’t sound too appealing)! But I survived and enjoyed my 1st real horse-back riding experience. Then the 3 of us biked back to Anne-Sophie’s place (even overcoming the obstacle of a flat bike tire) and had a small dinner at her house before getting back on the train to go back to the Lippoldts where we were staying on the other side of Paris. We arrived back at midnight, very exhausted due to all the train delays!

Here's me, Karena, and Anne-Sophie from the time we visited Anne-Sophie the 1st night we were in Paris.

Saturday the 27th was one of my favorite days. Karena and I went to Versailles, the famous French palace, (only about 20 min. from where we were staying). Even in winter, the grounds were so pretty and peaceful.
As we walked around the property, I had flashbacks of when I had been there when I was little with my family when we lived in Paris. I remembered one particular picture of my brother and I posing in front of what I thought was Versailles, but I looked for the spot and couldn’t find it. So who knows where we are in that picture!

That evening, Karena and I stayed in a small hotel and enjoyed watching a little bit of television for the 1st time in 4 months, even though it was in French. =) we had a good time making voice-overs for French shows which we couldn’t totally understand.

Sunday the 28th, we woke up bright and early to jump on an early morning train to Luxembourg! Since we purchased a rail pass to the Netherlands that included the small countries of Luxembourg and Belgium, we thought we’d make the most of our money and visit those 2 countries briefly as well! So we spent 1 day in Luxembourg and were really surprised how quickly we saw all the city’s sites (Luxembourg is both the name of the country and the capital city) while lugging our luggage around (since it was too early to check into our hostel). The city wasn’t quite as small to Karena who is a small town girl, coming from a town of 15,000. but believe me it was small for being the capital and only main city of a country! Then again, it is Luxembourg…
We enjoyed going to a museum which had information about this small country’s history and getting to see a wall from Babylonian times! Unfortunately the caves were closed. =(
These are part of Luxembourg's pretty ruins. =)

We left the next morning on another train to Brussels, Belgium. While in Brussels, we had some delicious Belgium waffles, walked around the town square, and saw the famous “peeing boy” statue.

We arrived in Rotterdam, The Netherlands late at night and were so happy to see our roommate Angelique and her dad ready to greet us on the train platform!

We stayed with Angelique and her family for a full week. Karena and I really enjoyed the comfort of staying in a home with a family where we would talk together and drink tea often, or watch a movie together, have a family dinner, etc. It was the most relaxing week I had had in months.
Constance, John, and Angelique Van de Heuvel, and Karena, and me in their living room.

While in the Netherlands, the Van de Heuvels took us to see their local windmill. It was unique in that it is one of the few mills that is still working and producing flour in the Netherlands. Fortunately, the day we visited, the mill was turned off so we got to have a tour of the entire insides of the mill.

We also visited 2 beaches on the Dutch coast. It was so cold that there was frost on the sand! (I didn’t even know that was possible!).

Karena and I were staying with Angelique over her birthday and celebrated it by going out to a tea shop with her and her best friend.
This was a true tea party: we had 5 courses of tea and 3 courses of mini sandwiches, snacks, and desserts. We were all so stuffed that we couldn’t fit our 6th course of tea in!

We were also in the Netherlands over New Year’s and celebrated this in the comfort of Angelique’s home. We watched the London fireworks display on TV, and Dutch concerts in celebration of the New Year on TV. But the unique element of the evening was watching neighbor’s fireworks from the comfort of Angelique’s living room window! In the Netherlands, large fireworks are legal for individuals to put off. i.e. the kind of fireworks that we would consider large and for professional use only is the kind that everyone is allowed to use in the Netherlands! So many people put off their own fireworks that we had more fireworks to watch than we do at professional shows!

There are so many more things to share about our time over vacation! Next post I summarize the last leg of the trip in Austria. Until then, you can check out my 2nd travel photo album on facebook which has more (a lot more) pictures of our time in Luxembourg, Brussels, and the Netherlands.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=86304&l=f0822&id=720019947

A little bit more about activities since break:

This past Saturday I went on a walk with friends (below)to what we affectionately call "the ruins" (it's a stone house that's falling down and in reality it's probably not too old, but it's much more exciting to pretend it's an old abandoned castle or something).

The ruins are about a 20 minute walk from campus and you have to walk through a field of “highland cattle” to get there. (below) They remind me of bison from old west stories.


We decided to make the walk more exciting by creating a whole pretense for our adventure. So we made up a mission and each of us had a special power and character name. We also saw horses in the field and stopped to pet them and try to feed them grass.

We had a great time using our creativity and going walking around in the fields and then we all went back to school, had hot chocolate, and wrapped ourselves in blankets and watched a movie! =)

Spring must be on its way (even in England) because over the past 2 weeks, we have signs of new life on campus! The “snowdrop” flowers are sprouting up in fields (delicate, little, white, bell-shaped flowers) and lambs are being born! Last week, I visited the barn where are dozens of expecting mothers (sheep) waiting to give birth. There were already a few, I even got to see one sheep with triplets that were born only 30 min. prior to my visit! (Sheep typically have 1-3 babies in each litter, 2 is most desirable) It was amazing to see baby sheep that were walking only minutes after they’d been born!

This is the farmer Ray (whose wife Rachel went to winter school with Steve in '92-93) who takes care of all the sheep on campus. It was wonderful to see God’s creativity and power displayed in His creation, even in something as small as a little lamb.

Two weeks ago we had a live game of “Clue”. It was like the children’s board game clue using real people that we had to question in different rooms all over campus. It was a very inventive evening. The staff staged a little skit to introduce the Manor’s lord and his family and staff. Then suddenly the lights went off and we heard a gun shot! The lights were turned by on and a man lay “dead” on the floor! We then split into teams and had to question staff members in various locations: there was the cook in the school cafeteria, the groundskeeper in the library, the maid in the lounge, the gardener in the tower, the doctor and the crazy old lady, the lord’s daughters, etc. My friends Kaylene and Faye and I dressed up as detectives to celebrate the evening. We each wore a trench coat, slacks, heals, and sunglasses. I even borrowed one of the guy’s fedora hats. =) Then we saw that 2 of the other girls had had the same idea and dressed up so the 5 of us took some detective pictures together! =) (below)
Well that's it for now! I hope you are all well and look forward to sharing the next part of my experience with you on here soon. =)
Love to all,
Sarah

I'm home honey!!!!

Well I'm not really home (as in California) but after 3 weeks of traveling, being back in familiar territory at school feels like home! It's so nice to be back and see friends again. The school changes our room assignments and roommates for the 2nd term so i'm now in a new room in the building next to the castle (called the Conference Hall) and have a new group of 6 roommates! But before I get too much into current activities, let me catch you up with the last MONTH!! SO much has happened!



So I left Capernwray on Thursday Dec. 18th and traveled with Karena (my Oregonian roommate from last term) and Anne-Sophie, the single French student here at school whose house we were staying the first night with. So the 3 of us flew to Paris together where Anne-Sophie's parents picked us up. The next day, we spent with Anne-Sophie as she showed us around her town which is 45 minutes outside of Paris. She is a very active girl and had us roller-blade everywhere! That was an experience since I hadn't roller-bladed since I was probably 10 and my short legs don't go nearly as fast as Karena's and Anne-Sophie's (they're both a lot taller than me).


Karena, me, a statue of our father Ben Franklin, and a baguette!

~oh! Steve, I remembered what you said about getting to see the girls' dorms at Christmas break when they were all gone, so I did the same thing! I was on the last bus out of school and everyone had emptied out of their dorm rooms so 2 of the guys gave some of us girls a tour of all the guys' dorms and then we gave them a tour of ours. (because girls are not allowed in guys' dorm areas and vice versa during school) It was fun to see their rooms and made me thankful even for the crummy girls rooms because the boys' rooms all have bunkbeds and feel really claustrophobic compared to the girls', only 2 of which have bunkbeds and all the girls' rooms have a lot more storage! I'm wondering what some of the guys did with all their stuff because at the beginning of school i saw many of them that had as much luggage or more than me!

So, back to my travels:
After 1 day with Anne-Sophie, we traveled to another town on the opposite side of Paris where Karena and I stayed for a week with old family friends, the Lippoldts, from when we lived in Paris. It was fun to see friends from when I was 9. I remembered there house and immediately recognized the spot we used to have sleep-overs in when we were little! During our time in Paris, Karena and I tried to make the most of our time by balancing wanting to see everything and not killing ourselves in the process!

I know there will always be items you miss and there were several things I wish we could have done in Paris, but all in all I'm really happy we managed to see the top "to see" tourist spots. We did tons!

Our first day with the Lippoldts, we went into the city to have a lunch of crepes and after a long wait to eat in a very cute, crowded old crepery, we went to the Petit Palais, a beautiful old Parisian building that had an interesting photography exhibit. Afterwards, Karena and I enjoyed walking down the infamous Champs Elysees. At Christmas, they light up all the trees along the street(one of the main reasons I wanted to come to the city during Christmas time). It's beautiful.

The next day, Karena and I attended church at the American Church in Paris (the church that my family attended when we lived in Paris). Although I didn't recognize anyone there (since almost everyone we knew at that church has moved), I enjoyed even just seeing the building. It flooded my mind with memories. I realized it was exactly 10 years, to the DAY(!) since my family had lived there. We moved from Paris on Dec. 20, 1998, right before my 9th birthday. And here I was back in Paris, almost celebrating my 19th birthday! This Sunday was the last Sunday of advent. We watched a young family with children light the last candle and read the designated passage ---The same exact thing my family had done 10 years earlier before we moved. I could remember so many things as we sat in that church. It was almost overwhelming.

After church, we took a walking tour of the city. It was run by the same company that did the tour we took in Edinburgh. It was a really nice free(the best kind!) 3hr tour. Karena especially enjoyed the tour since she didn't know any Parisian history before the tour. We ended the day by walking to the eiffel tower and enjoying some warm nutella crepes for dinner.

The next day, Monday the 22nd, we went to see Notre Dame, and walked past the ice rink at the Hotel de Ville, a place I remembering ice skating when we lived in Paris! We also walked past the Pompidou Center building (a building famous for having all of its plumbing on the outside of the building!), and the Musee D'Orsay. We visited the Louvre, seeing the famous Mona Lisa, as well as the 2 other most famous attractions of the museum: the Venus di Milo, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace (apparently you have to be broken in order to be a famous statue).


Me & Mrs. Mona Lisa

The museum is so incredibly huge and it was closing soon, so Karena and I decided to walk through the statue galleries trying to imitate statue poses. It may sound a bit silly, but now we totally remember what we saw way better than if we had just passively walked through galleries!

Then, the next day, Tuesday the 23rd, we went to Sacre Coeur and caught it at a perfect time! The sun was setting as we came out of the beautiful cathedral and it was sooo pretty. and even prettier in person!



However, the low point of the day was when I dropped my camera! I dropped it on the side walk of Sacre Coueur and broke it on our 5th day of traveling! I couldn't believe that I dropped my camera, usually I'm "miss careful". I was so mad at myself! But life goes on, and Karena had her camera so we were at least fine for our travels.

~by the steps of Sacre Coeur with its tower in the background

The day after that, Christmas Eve(!), we had brunch with one of my friends, Anna, from school in Paris. It was really nice to see her and her family and it was funny to see the place we used to play, have sleep-overs, etc. After brunch, Anna walked around my old neighborhood with Karena and me. We saw my old house, the bakery down the street where we'd buy our bread daily and the bookstore we I'd buy my school supplies, comic books, etc. We walked down the street I used to ride my bike on, down through the park we played in, and all over the neighborhood.


Anna and me outside our old school!

We then had a couple of hours before the Christmas Eve service at the American Church in Paris, so we walked down to the Trocadero again (by the Eiffel Tower), bought a dinner of crepes, and enjoyed the blue lights of the tower. Then we went to the Christmas Eve service at the church and went home to the Lippoldts singing Christmas carols on the metro (the train was empty)! Then a lady and her young son got on the train and came and sat down by us and listened to us singing. =)

Christmas morning we treated ourselves to sleeping in and then went to the Eiffel Tower thinking not many people would be climbing it on Christmas day, right? haha wrong. There were tons of people just like any other day. However I discovered that there was a separate, much shorter line that we could go in if we just climbed up the tower. And it was cheaper! How's that for a deal, you remember the experience more by climbing all those hundreds of stairs, skip a huge line, save money, and get exercise all at the same time! =)

La Tour Eiffel!

We did tons more not only in Paris but also in Luxembourg, Brussels, the Netherlands, and Austria!! So this post will have to be the 1st installment.
I've posted pictures on facebook that you can check out.
Love to all!
I'm glad to be in touch again. =)

p.s. Last night we had a "caveman" party and all dressed up as... you guessed it, cavemen! i didn't have any leopard print or something conducive to cave-woman wear, so I dressed up as a cave! =) Everyone was so creative with their costumes. It was a lot of fun.
Here's two of my dorm mates (in the room next to us, we often hang out together): Laura, Hannah, and me!

Most of the caveman group =)

And so that you can see more pictures from Paris, check out my facebook album:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=84495&l=dfefb&id=720019947

on the eve of Christmas break...

Dear friends and family!
Well I am about to leave for Christmas break tomorrow morning and I don't know when the next time is that I'll be online. I will have tons to tell and TONS of pictures in 3 weeks when I come back to school here! I wish you all the best, have a fabulous Christmas! or as they say in Paris, Joyeux Noel! =)

Love to all!
~Sarah

Our last full week of school before Christmas!

Happy Saturday! Another week has come to an end. In fact, this was our last full week before Christmas break. It’s hard to believe this time next week I will be in Paris!! =D

This is our room's mini Christmas tree! The staff boys found it for us a few weeks ago and we decorated it with whatever we could find and topped it with my yellow hair ribbon! =)

I’m not sure if I ever shared my Christmas plans, so here’s a quick summary: I am traveling with my roommate Karena and we are going to Paris for 12 days and staying with family friends, then to the Netherlands to visit our roommate Angelique, and then finishing in Austria, outside of Vienna to visit another roommate, Tamara! =) It will be very exciting and I can’t wait to share everything with you all.

This week has been bittersweet as we all look forward to Christmas break but also cherish our last week with our current roommates and room (as we will change after break). Also, Christmas marks the halfway point of school and I don’t want to think that we’re already halfway through!

This weekend is the school’s Christmas program. The students write, produce, and perform a program for the community each year. People come from surrounding churches and neighborhoods and we’re told it’s a tradition for many people and they come every year (so no pressure, haha). I’m in the choir and we had 3 afternoons of practices this week, with the dress rehearsal last night so the rest of the student body that is not participating could see the program since our 2 performances on Sunday and Monday nights will be full.

Last Saturday, I went to a town called Preston with my roommate Karena and our friend Erin. We walked into Carnforth, which takes about an hour and a half or so (yes, we are very much in the middle of nowhere country!).

Here's Karena and Erin as we were walking along the trail to Carnforth. It was so cold, the stream was frozen. It didn't even break when we threw big stones at it!

And we took the train from Carnforth into Preston. Karena got a much needed haircut (our main purpose for going into town) and Erin and I enjoyed shopping a bit while Karena got her hair cut and then we had dinner together in the mall (which has a very different feeling from our malls). All the stores here close incredibly early, this mall closed at 6pm on a Saturday!!


I thought the train station in Preston had great coloring, it was red and green and white, perfect for Christmas! =) It was probably the prettiest train station I've seen.

I have found England is not one for word economy. For instance, instead of having signs say "exit", they say "way out". Or instead of writing "caution" at a train stop, they write...

Mind the gap! We thought this was notable enough for us to act out. (Karena is doing "mind" and i'm doing "the gap"). =)


Here are the 3 of us: me, Erin, and Karena. Erin bought holiday crackers while in town and let Karena and me each have one. They had a paper crown and a little plastic whistle inside.

I also enjoyed going into Carnforth twice this week on the school’s free minibuses. I bought some supplies at the local grocery store, Tesco, and enjoyed perusing in the old bookshop. It is so much fun to be in, the store is full of random nooks and crannies full of books and perfect for exploring. I even discovered it had a cabinet of old sheet music that was really neat to look through.


This statue is in downtown Carnforth and is dedicated to all the soldiers lost in WW1. It is amazing that from even a very small town like Carnforth, there was a long list of names of young men lost in that war.

Last Sunday, I continued my weekly ballroom classes and taught the waltz, which people enjoyed learning. I am continually pleased with how many people show up each week, adding new recruits too. =)

I don’t remember if I’ve mentioned this either, but one of my friends here plays the piano and we enjoy singing and playing together, esp. The Phantom of the Opera. We’ve sung that most of the way through twice. =)

Each week we have a missionary hour where some mission organization comes and talks to us about their ministry. This week, we got to hear my friend Bethany’s parents speak about their mission work in Africa. They are here in England for one year, studying. It was neat to meet Bethany’s parents and hear more about what their family has been doing in Djibouti for the past 15 years.

Also, some of the missionary kids (children of missionaries) here who live in Muslim areas of the world have started a weekly informational and prayer meeting for Muslim peoples. Three of the MKs (missionary kids) told us about some of their experiences with Muslims and then we broke into small groups to pray.

Friday morning we were woken up bright and early! 4:45am to be exact! We had a fire alarm go off and then all had to line up outside the castle and stand in the freezing cold for 20 min. while they made sure everything was safe. Nothing serious happened, but we were all a lot groggier than usual at Friday breakfast!

Also on Friday morning, we had our bi-weekly seminar on evangelism. We split into groups and were given scenarios to act out of how we would talk and reach out to people in different situations. We did this partly in preparation for the 10 day outreach in the spring. I don’t have much informational at all about this event. All I know is that there is a period of 10 days during spring where groups of students are sent to all different places and work doing various sorts of ministry, and stay in local church members’ houses.

There was lot more that went on this week, but those were some of the highlights!
Lastly, today (Saturday) I chose to go on our optional Saturday event to go see a professional English football (soccer) match.

It was a good experience but I can’t say I’d rush to sign up again soon. It was very cold. I wore 4 layers on top, 2 on bottom, a hat, scarf, and gloves. Still, my toes almost went numb with cold! I was very thankful that we at least had an awning over our heads to protect us from the rain! We enjoyed trying to pick up the cheers for the local team and the home team won (no thanks to our cheering skills!). It was interesting to see how passionate people were for their teams, and it was very much a family outing too. There were lots of little boys that stood as close to the field as they were allowed so that they could throw back a ball anytime it popped over the (surprisingly very small!) barrier. It was interesting that there was no large net or anything behind the goals were the ball often flew off the field and into the stands. I almost had one hit me (we had good viewing places). =) Also, there were no seats! Only in the expensive “box” area were there seats. Everywhere else was standing room only.

Here is part of our school group demonstrating the lack of seats. =)



Another girl here named Laura taught me how to make these very cool paper stars! She said her family enjoys making a lot of them around Christmas time and use them to decorate their house. They are very simple to make, I felt like Buddy the Elf (from Will Ferrel's movie "Elf") decorating the house with snowflakes! Next, I'll just have to learn how to make a rocking horse from a TV cabinet! =)


And to top this week off, tonight we have our 2nd school Ceilidh! I am excited for that as I loved the first one.

I know our last few days here at school before break will fly by! Tomorrow and Monday evening we have the Christmas program, Tuesday we have the school formal Christmas dinner (our room is excited to dress up for that!), and Wednesday is our last full day here which I’m sure will be full of packing and cleaning. And then Thursday we are off to Paris! Whoo… what a week!

I hope everyone's lives are not too hectic as we enjoy this wonderful season of the year! Love to all,
~Sarah

P.S. I was just talking to my roommate Angelique, whom we will visit in the Netherlands. She just me that when we visit her we will hopefully get to visit Anne Frank's house and Corrie Ten Boom's house!!!! Their real houses!! I'm am so SO excited to see them! =D =D

Week 9 ...and SNOW!!

Greetings to my wonderful friends and family back home!
Another week has past and Saturday morning has rolled around again!

This week was marked by the first of winter weather. On Sunday morning, I had just woken up, roled out of bed, and walked down the hall to the bathroom when I looked at the window and was quickly woken up out of my grogginess! The world was white! Unfortunately I discovered it wasn’t snow, it was frost. But it really was very white and it looked just as beautiful and exciting to a California girl. =)

Sunday and Monday mornings, we had gorgeous, white frost, and then (one of the highlights of my week), it actually SNOWED!!! Sunday morning before church I took an hour long walk in the beautiful fresh frost. It was both refreshing and freezing. I had to go in when my hands were finally going numb. =)


Here's my friend Bethany and me enjoying the snow (in true English fashion it was just into rain so it doesn't look nearly as impressive as it did 2 minutes earlier!) Bethany is a missionary's kid and has grown up in Africa so this was her first time seeing snow fall! We were both extremely excited. There were about a dozen or so students standing out there with us (all from hot climates of course. all the Canadians were laughing and shaking their heads at our excitement) =)

Last Saturday was an event filled day. After brunch, I ran into 2 of the few kids who live here on campus. I just started talking to the girls (ages 5 and 9) and ended up playing with them for several hours! We climbed all 102 of the tower steps (yes, they counted) =) and played with dominoes. Then we even went to their house and played dress-up, danced, and all that fun stuff. It was also an extremely foggy day! We couldn't see the ground from the tower.

Then, Saturday evening, school had a costume night! Each person was assigned a category by their last night (aka, the last names beginning with P dressed up as geeks, ect.)Categories included: 80s, 60s, hippies, hobboes, futuristic, Disney, historical characters, super heroes, geeks, and I'm probably forgetting another one or two.

I was assigned the 80s theme. Here's all our 80s people:

We definitely all had fun dressing up! =)


My roommate Tamara and I. She was a pirate. =)People were very creative with their costumes and I'm planning to upload pictures on facebook so you can see people's costumes. I think the night's dress-up party was unique in that we all had to make costumes out of clothing we brought to school with us (in case you're wondering, I borrowed the neon pink tights I wore). =)

And in what's become a weekly event, I taught another ballroom class on Sunday afternoon after church. This week they learned the cha cha. =) Everyone really enjoys it and I enjoy teaching them and passing on the love of dancing to others. =)

This week we have continued practicing for our Christmas program at school. I am in the choir. We are singing 3 songs including the Hallelujah chorus. We had our first run through of the whole performance on Thursday night. The production is a mix of choir, solo songs, and a drama with 4 acts. The script was written by a girl here at school and the theme of the evening is "Great Expectations" (that was an assigned theme) and each act of the drama looks at what different people in Jesus' time were expecting of the Messiah.

On Wednesday, I went over to Dougie and Lisa's house (which is on campus but the equivalent of walking several blocks)and hung out with their family. I played with Hannah (age 5) and Ethan (age 3), heard stories from Hannah about her day at school, and had a nice talk with Lisa. As on Saturday, it was nice to be in a normal house and around family for a few hours.

On Thursday, our last assignment before Christmas was due. We had a paper on Ezra which was a lot easier after doing a paper on 1st and 2nd Samuel. Ezra only has 10 chapters versus Samuel's maybe 45 added up?
That evening, I watched the 1st half of "White Christmas" with a few girls since we all wanted a Christmas movie!

Speaking of Christmas...
Yesterday for work morning, I got to help decorate the castle for Christmas! Every Friday morning, half the study body sits in a seminar while the other half works cleaning the campus or doing whatever odd chores need to be done (and then we switch the next week, the students who worked sit in seminar and vice versa). We put up Christmas trees in the dining hall, garlands around the castle on the staircases, etc.

Here's us and our Christmas trees! Rosa is from the Netherlands and Joel is a missionary kid who now lives in Oklahoma but grew up in New Zealand. (you meet all kinds of people here at school! it's so neat to hear about people's different experiences. i love it!) =)

And speaking of the the Netherlands and holidays...
Yesterday, December 5th, is a big holiday in the Netherlands! (by the way, the country is called the Netherlands, "Holland" is actually an improper title because it is the name of 2 of the provinces in the country) December 5th is Santa Klaas day. The Dutch give each other gifts in memory of St. Nicolas and traditionally don't give each other gifts on Christmas. Christmas in the Netherlands is much more focused on Jesus' birth, but in recent years it is becoming more commercialized like the rest of the world.

Our room celebrated Santa Klaas day with Angelique, our Dutch roommate. We had the traditional Santa Klaas cookies and Angelique taught us some Dutch songs that they sing to celebrate. Our pronunciations were terrible! They have so many sounds that English doesn't make. Angelique's mom sent Angelique a present of marzipan and sent each of us a chocolate bar in the shape of the first letter of our names! (it's a Dutch tradition to have initial chocolate bars)

Last night for dinner, we had our first taste of good Mexican food here (it may not surprise you, but so far we have not experienced good Mexican food in England). Even though I'm not a Mexican food addict or huge fan, it was nice and reminded a lot of us Americans (mostly Californians and Texans) of home. =)

And then, we watched A Muppet Christmas Carol in the lounge! I had just been thinking that I would miss the tradition of watching that movie with family at home and was excited to hear that the school was going to show it. =)

Well it's almost brunch time here so I need to go. Today, I'm going to a town named Preston with 2 friends after brunch. So you'll get to hear about that trip next week! =)

I have been able thankfully to upload more pictures on facebook while I've been writing this, so if you want to see more pictures from this week you can check them out:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=74590&l=5a71e&id=720019947

Tons and tons of love to everyone!

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