Just a few little bits for anyone that is checking this.
1) If you would like to recieve my monthly newsletter and currently aren't please leave a comment and I will send you my e-mail address!
2) I have just updated all my photos online so you can check out some of the things that I've been up to! The web address is as follows: www.lswan.myphotoalbum.com
3) Today we did a bit of filming of the adverts for the Christmas play next Sunday! It was really quite fun and the boys were hilarious! I can't believe that the play is only a week away! It's going to be a crazy week but by this time next week I think I'm going to be feeling a bit better. The week ahead looks like this:
Monday - Mums and Tots Christmas Party, Christian Union, Bible Study with Bruce, crafty planning for the Christmas play/parties
Tuesday - Nurcery, Christmas planning
Wednesday - Christmas Lunch with the Coton Centre crew and a bit of planning
Thursday - Mums and Tots Christmas Party, planning for the Christmas play/parties, Hurley Youth Club trip to the Snowdome!
Friday - Planning, Christian Union, Youth cinema trip
Saturday - Super Saturday Christmas Party, Dress rehersals with all the age groups
Sunday - The BIG Christmas Play, Youth Cell Christmas Party
So basically it is going to be MANIC but I just gotta remember, it's CHIRSTMAS! The most wonderful time of the year. (Please note that part was meant to be sung at you!)
I hope that everyone is doing well and enjoying the holiday season!
I'm off to work on the rest of my Christmas cards!
Love and Peace,
Lynz
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Christmas Fever
Hello everyone!
So it's clearly been FOREVER since my last entry. Just so you know I am making my New Years resolution early and it is to stay on top of my overseas communication. So this blog is actually going to be updated on a weekly basis for sure! :o) So let the updating begin.
The next big event for the month of November was my first holiday away from home. Thanksgiving! I went up to Edinburgh to celebrate Thanksgiving this year. There are a bunch of U.S. volunteers that are working up in Edinburgh so it was easy to just stay with them and have a proper kitchen to make our feast in! Having Thanksgiving on our own was truely an adventure from the very beginning. First of all, Kelly and I went to made the journey to Tesco to get all the ingrediants. Minus one emergancy phone call to my Dad to make sure ingrediants were the same thing, we did alright. The cooking of the meal was almost like a dance. With a tiny oven and lots of food it was a lot of shifting and planning but eventually everything got cooked! :o) It was quite amazing though because what was originnally what was going to be an American volunteer event, turned into an amazing international feast! There were five different countries represented at our table and about 16 people around the table. It was absolutly brilliant! We even took turns going around the table and saying what we were thankful for! Hurray for cheesy! The next day was spent wandering around Edinburgh. We were able to go on the Royal Mile and see Edinburgh Castle, a few beautiful churches, the coffee shop that J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter in, and even an amazing German Christmas market outside of Scots Monument! It was just an amazing time! I really hope that I can go back and see a bit more while I'm there!
On the 30th of Nov. I was able to participate in St.Basil's BIG Sleep Out. There were about 300 people who raised money and then spent a night living in a cardboard box in Birmingham. It was possibly one of the most horrible and wonderful experiences I've had thus far! It was an all around wet and windy night. Everything was going pretty well until around 1:30am when our hut started to leak. At about 2am the roof just caved in completely and was really too wet to repair. So I spent the next 3 hours sitting on a palat to try and stay mostly dry and warm. Needless to say that didn't really happen. Although I didn't get wet, I was freezing my butt off! Which I didn't really think was possible since I had on the following list of clothing: long johns, sweatpants, two pairs of socks, trainers, tank top, long sleeve t-shirt, sweatshirt, columbia jacket (with fleece linning), scarf, hat (plus hood of sweatshirt), and two pairs of mittens. It pretty much goes without saying that I didn't really get any sleep that night. Luckily I was able to come home and was asleep the moment feel into bed! It's amazing how my understanding of the importance and urgency of this issue is so much clear now after that event. There is no way that I could have even begun to understand what these teens are going through living on the streets. And the truth is that we had it easy. There were police officers that were making sure the area that we were in was safe and secure, we had hot drinks and soup near by, and toilet facilities. What an amazing chance to understand the greater community and find a great charity to support!
Hope everyone is doing well and I can't wait to hear all about the events of your lives back home!
Love you and miss you all!
Peace!
So it's clearly been FOREVER since my last entry. Just so you know I am making my New Years resolution early and it is to stay on top of my overseas communication. So this blog is actually going to be updated on a weekly basis for sure! :o) So let the updating begin.
October
October overall was still me getting used to how everything runs and really figuring out ways that I can be really involved. By this time I was getting to know the different church members a bit better which really did help! I even got to go to my first birthday party! Poppy and Daisy are twin little girls and I was able to go to their 2nd birthday party! :o) It was absolutely brilliant! Probably the biggest thing that went on in October however, was a fabulous holiday to Spain. One of my good friends from university is living in Spain for a year as a nanny for a little boy. So I was able to go and spend a week with her. We did LOADS of stuff. There was the obvious time that was spent on the beach, some time wondering the streets and exploring Marbella, a trip to the zoo, and even a day trip to Gibraltar! It was a really great time! I took about a million pictures and have tons of wonderful memories. One of my favorite parts was at the zoo when we got to go inside the habitat with the lemurs! They were literally RIGHT by my head! CRAZY!November
This was a SUPER busy month for me with the Christmas plans looming. In the beginning of the month I went to the first ever ELCA - YAGM retreat! This was a chance for all the Young Adults in Global Missions Volunteers from the U.S. to get together in London and try to process what exactly was going on in our lives a couple months into it. It was really great to see everyone again because we've all become quite close considering we haven't really known each other very long! I am truely blessed by each and every one of the volunteers and Vanessa (our amazing leader). So although some the actual content was similar to what we've gone over a million times thus far, it somehow was put into a bit different light. I came away from that weekend feeling so full of the Spirit and generally was able to see what big strides I have already been able to make in my faith growth and my general personal growth. What a blessing! The next big event for the month of November was my first holiday away from home. Thanksgiving! I went up to Edinburgh to celebrate Thanksgiving this year. There are a bunch of U.S. volunteers that are working up in Edinburgh so it was easy to just stay with them and have a proper kitchen to make our feast in! Having Thanksgiving on our own was truely an adventure from the very beginning. First of all, Kelly and I went to made the journey to Tesco to get all the ingrediants. Minus one emergancy phone call to my Dad to make sure ingrediants were the same thing, we did alright. The cooking of the meal was almost like a dance. With a tiny oven and lots of food it was a lot of shifting and planning but eventually everything got cooked! :o) It was quite amazing though because what was originnally what was going to be an American volunteer event, turned into an amazing international feast! There were five different countries represented at our table and about 16 people around the table. It was absolutly brilliant! We even took turns going around the table and saying what we were thankful for! Hurray for cheesy! The next day was spent wandering around Edinburgh. We were able to go on the Royal Mile and see Edinburgh Castle, a few beautiful churches, the coffee shop that J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter in, and even an amazing German Christmas market outside of Scots Monument! It was just an amazing time! I really hope that I can go back and see a bit more while I'm there!
On the 30th of Nov. I was able to participate in St.Basil's BIG Sleep Out. There were about 300 people who raised money and then spent a night living in a cardboard box in Birmingham. It was possibly one of the most horrible and wonderful experiences I've had thus far! It was an all around wet and windy night. Everything was going pretty well until around 1:30am when our hut started to leak. At about 2am the roof just caved in completely and was really too wet to repair. So I spent the next 3 hours sitting on a palat to try and stay mostly dry and warm. Needless to say that didn't really happen. Although I didn't get wet, I was freezing my butt off! Which I didn't really think was possible since I had on the following list of clothing: long johns, sweatpants, two pairs of socks, trainers, tank top, long sleeve t-shirt, sweatshirt, columbia jacket (with fleece linning), scarf, hat (plus hood of sweatshirt), and two pairs of mittens. It pretty much goes without saying that I didn't really get any sleep that night. Luckily I was able to come home and was asleep the moment feel into bed! It's amazing how my understanding of the importance and urgency of this issue is so much clear now after that event. There is no way that I could have even begun to understand what these teens are going through living on the streets. And the truth is that we had it easy. There were police officers that were making sure the area that we were in was safe and secure, we had hot drinks and soup near by, and toilet facilities. What an amazing chance to understand the greater community and find a great charity to support!
December
Although we haven't gotten very far in this month, it's been absolutly CRAZY! All of the Christmas events (plays and parties) are only weeks away and it's pretty much crunch time! So if I don't keep my promise very well in the next couple weeks that's why...but I will catch up! It's a promise! Hope everyone is doing well and I can't wait to hear all about the events of your lives back home!
Love you and miss you all!
Peace!
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