Right lets back track!
Last Thursday I had a gathering at The Bell, Fetcham to say goodbye to all the lovely Fetcham people. So many people turned up and it left me really quite sad to be leaving all you good people. Thank you all for turning up, many of you I have known for many years and your friendship means the world to me. If I haven't personally texted you or facebooked you, Thank you guys so much! I am really lucky to have you.
Anyway you want to hear what I have been up to don't you?!
We left Fetcham at 04:00 on Saturday, drove for around 230 miles North West and arrived in Ulverston, Cumbria. We then went and found my host family, The Ensoll's (Rich, Becs, Rachel, Jess and Ben), who warmly welcomed me into their house. Letting a stranger into your house is a big deal, let alone a noisy heavy metal loving stranger! I will be living with these guys until Christmas, so do pray for them! I spent the rest of the day settling in and unpacking, making a list of the things I forgot. Then it was an early night before the first day of work the next day!
I had it nice and easy on Sunday morning as I didn't have to be at Ulverston Parish Church until 10:15. A much easier get up than back home in Fetcham. Matt the Curate took the service and gave me a welcome interview into the church. I then went into the Sunday morning youth group at UPC called H2O, it was great to meet the kids more or less first thing! H2O is mainly for 11-14 (i think).
We then went back into the service for communion and the end of the service. Afterwards lots of people came to say hi, all of which I have forgotten your names, sorry! Again it was fantastic to speak to so many people and I can't wait to start working properly with you all.
I came home and had a lovely lunch and then went out canoeing with Rich and Ben. I wanted to go canoeing at some point in the year, but I didn't expect it to be the second day! It was so much fun, and I can't wait to do it again some time!
Then we had cafe church on Sunday evening. What a great service it is! I wish we had this back home. Basically coffee and cake with worship and an engaging sermon. It was really good and I can't to go to more!
Monday I went of on my induction retreat with the other interns in the diocese. I went over the Barrow three we have now called ourselves The Furness Four. We met up with all the other interns from at St Johns In The Vale which is near Keswick. We are spread out across Carlisle diocese and there is:
4 Brazilians
2 Norwegians
2 Taiwanese
2 American (North American - the Brazilians dont like it when we call them Americans)
1 Posh Englishman
Because of my accent I was often referred to as posh, so I introduced them to posh English resulting in being called 'darling' by Arve which was 'smashing'. It was really great to spend time with everyone learning about what we are about to do and also to hear everyone's stories.
There was a great sense that the Holy Spirit was with us this morning as we were sent out into our individual "battlefields" as Mark called them. He is right, sometimes it is going to be tough but we know we have God behind us! So tomorrow I start properly! And my iPhone tells me "tomorrow looks busy" so I should probably finish this blog up!
I hope to keep this at least fortnightly. Enjoy these pictures from the retreat courtesy of the man with the amazing beard, Kristian Tjemsland.
God bless you all,
Charlie!
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