Thursday, December 18, 2008

Manchester

Nicole and I completed the first leg of our journey a couple of hours ago!

Our YFC director Andy Robinson dropped Nicole and I off at the bus station in Middlesbrough at around 10 am this morning and we then proceeded to wait around for a few hours for our bus for Manchester to arrive!

Not to much to report on the bus ride, I felt like I was going to camp or something. Nicole and I listened to our iPods for most of it, but we both perked up when we were coming into Manchester. We were mesmerized by the city, needless to say we are now huge Manchester fans. 

We're staying at a hotel at the airport called Bewley's and it's pretty snazzy. For dinner we had the best sandwich ever, it had pastrami, mayo, cheddar cheese, and jalapenos on it! :)

Now we're just sitting in our room trying not to fall asleep since the airport shuttle is picking us up at 4 am. Our flight to Amsterdam is at 6 am and we have an hour and a half layover there and then we catch our super long flight to DALLAS!!!!!!

Nicole and I will arrive into Dallas/Ft. Worth International Airport at 1:35 pm tomorrow! 

THAT'S IN LESS THAN 24 HOURS!!!!!!

Adios!

-Kelsey

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Christmas time makes me happy!

So, this week has been so much better than the last. 

I decided that this week I was just going to be positive and optimistic and just try to have a really good attitude.

I think for the most part I've succeeded!

Work was better this week, I was kind of used to Neil not being there so it was easier.

On Wednesday I ran everything on my own which was such an exhilarating experience I have to say. I ran our lunch club Mettle all on my own and I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Nicole and I went Christmas shopping on Thursday, and this was one of the best days I've had in awhile. I got most of my Christmas shopping done I just have a few more things I have to get back at home! 

I just realized a few minutes ago that when I wake up next Saturday I will be at home in my bed! How exciting is that?!?!? 

I hope everyone has a good weekend!

-Kelsey

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Encouragement? Yes please.

So, this has been a really stressful day.

I won't bore you all with details.

I would just appreciate prayers for me to get through the next couple of weeks with my sanity in tact.

Any words of encouragement would be greatly appreciated.

Love :)


Monday, December 1, 2008

2 blogs in one day?

Okay, so after my bible study tonight I had to blog and tell you all about the amazing kids that I'm privileged to work with. 

I absolutely love my Monday night group. They're such a joy to work with and they always start my week off on a good note.

So tonight things started off normally I had my younger group from 7-8:30 and there were alone four kids (Sam, Matthew, Graeme pronounced Graham, and Hannah) even though there isn't very many of them they are so much fun and so clever for being so young. In case you were wondering they're Year 8-10 ages about 13-15. The theme for tonight was more about reflecting I guess you could say. We sat in silence for a few minutes and located our favorite Bible verse or just a random verse that they had found. Catherine (my minister) went around the room asking the kids what their favorite verse was and why and it was very interesting to see what they said. Then they were asked to sit in silence for a second time and Catherine asked them if they were getting a picture in their had that could go with their verse. You might think that this was over their heads, but it wasn't at all. Some kids grasped the concept better than others but they all did brilliantly. At eight Matthew and Graeme left for Scouts and then it was just Sam, Hannah, Catherine, and myself. We just talked among ourselves and then Catherine asked them how we could get more people to attend youth group. They blew me away by coming up with serious answers and you could tell they really wanted the group to grow. So, needless the say by the end of their time I was immensely proud of them.

My second group is absolutely fabulous and I love them all to pieces. This group is much larger and their ages 15-18. I'm going to go through all of their names so I can refer to them later and yeah. We have Oli, Andrew C, Catherine T (Year 11 Catherine not the minister), David, James, Hannah, Andrew H, Lucy, Becci, Jonathan L, and Jonathan S. I work with all of them except for a few of them in school so I've formed pretty solid relationships with the majority of them. I love how close knit they are, it reminds me of my relationship with the my year group at church. This group is unique though because there is an age range but they don't seem to care at all, I love that. Anyways, we did something a little similar with my older group but it was quite more mature. We sat Lucy in what Catherine called our "Chair of Prayer" she chose Lucy because she always seems so stressed and she just wanted to make restore some peace to her. Words don't even begin to describe what an amazing experience this was for me. Catherine was asking the group for scripture that would apply to Lucy, or words, and pictures. I think my area of expertise is in scripture and words and I found Proverbs 3:5-6 and it applied to Lucy beautifully. Oli, Andrew H, and Catherine T also found scripture that really seemed to hit home with Lucy. We did that for awhile and then Catherine wanted them to focus on pictures for Lucy. Oh my gosh, my girls did amazing. Becci who is normally a wallflower and doesn't speak much did wonderful. Side note, I absolutely adore Becci Smith she is such a neat girl and we're already getting close but I know our relationship is going to keep growing this year. She actually reminds me a lot of my best friend Taylor Elledge, which is great....haha she's my British Taylor! Back to my story, Becci had not one but TWO pictures for Lucy and they were dead on and I was just amazed. The night ended on one of Becci's pictures.

Needless to say I have one of the coolest jobs ever with some of the greatest kids in England. I mean I get to work with them on a daily basis and build relationships and share the love of Jesus! I mean really what could be better than that?

-Kelsey

I'm a horrible blogger

I'm sorry that my blog posts keep getting scarcer and scarcer, I just never remember to do this or when I do remember I have little to say.

To be honest I don't have a lot to say now, but I decided to blog mostly due to my mother's recent nagging. 

Life has suddenly gotten very cold in England. On the plus side though it's Christmas time and this season should be cold so I'm thinking the glass is half full. 

I just typed that and I realized that for the past few days the I've viewed the glass as half empty and not half full. I've just been in a funk lately I think it has hit Nicole and I both. I'm almost certain it came on because I've been envious of everyone that got to go home for Thanksgiving break. I knew that I wouldn't get to, but it's just a hard holiday to miss. 

I expected Thanksgiving day to be really depressing, my boss even gave me the day off. However, it turned out to be a great day. I realized that this year Nicole is my family and I am so thankful for her, I really don't know what I would do without her. So, even though we were a little bummed we made the most out of it. We even started a Thanksgiving tradition! :)

Neil left for India yesterday for about two weeks. So, I've been left to hold down the fort in Stokesley on my own. I'm really excited though, I need to do this on my own for a bit. I think sometimes I hide behind Neil and become a wallflower which is so lame. I mean sure I'm shy when I first meet people sometimes but in reality being shy is not part of my personality at all. I consider myself to be an extrovert and a pretty bold person at that. So, I'm glad I'm going to get a chance to be really bold over these next couple of weeks. 

I think being in England for the past three or so months has started to make me a much more optimistic person, which I'm so happy about. I mean of course I have my cynical and pessimistic moments but they're becoming much more irregular. England gives me hope that I can do anything with God on my side, I just need to put all of my faith and trust in him. I sometimes have trouble relinquishing control, but it's something I'm constantly working on. 

Today Nicole came up with the idea that since there are 31 days in December and 31 Proverbs in the Bible we're going to read one each day. She was saying she learned at work crew for Younglife that Proverbs has all the wisdom you will ever need. So, why wouldn't you read all of them and familiarize yourself? From now on we're going to read a chapter from Proverbs every single day, starting with today December 1. I'm really excited about that.

That's all really :)

Love,
Kelsey