Home in Cornwall

Hey Guys, well we got back to the UK on Wednesday at 11:30, the flights were OK, but the jet lag is definatly killing me!...over night flights are hard to sleep on but it was fine. We then spent the afternoon with Jute and Rich, Johns friends and bought some nice new trainers in guilford, we then trekked it back to cornwall at six, surprising Beth and Lara which was funny, and cool to spend an hour with them, then I got home, we checked out some photos and went to bed, then yesterday we went to see Jake and Beth J in St Austell which was really nice to spend some time with them. Then we gave Pete his plush guitar and went to Jesse and Tracey it was great to see them but I was so tired I fell asleep during SNL, and then woke up and threw up which is not nice at all, Ive been up most of the night but im feeling alot better now.....tonight Im spending New Year with loads of great people so hopefully Ill be OK for that, anyway as Ive promised there'll be loads of new photos up once I get back to Aberdeen......Have a great new year guys!!....Thanks for comments, also cool to read

Ada, Ohio.....my Christmas residence!

Here I am Ada, Ohio....the meat and potatoes of America, as named by the gilespies and Reeds, speaking of Jeff and Elijah, were really missing you guys but hope you saking up the sun in San Diego right now, The US is great we went to a place called the Golden Corral, basically the most classic all you can eat American resturayunt ever, it was so funny, I had a bunch of steak in rebellion to my vegetarianism in earlier life and John and I made a pact to only get comfortably full as Mike and Cindys cooking in Wilmington, Ohio was too tempting for our own good. Im in the library in Ada right now and outside is literally a blizzard! By the weekend it will be -15c!!! Last night John, John and me went to a local college basketball game which was a classic American experience for me, was really cool. Tonight were watching an American football game but this time on TV, Bowling Green Vs Memphis so that will be another classic experience, also guitar legend Glen Christianson is coming over tonight, Ive never met him but John and him played together in College and hes meant to be awesome so that will cool. Ive been taking loads of pictures byut unfortunatly havent got any way to post them so for those of you ill see in the next month Ill show you them for the rest of you, let your imagination run riot. Oh also went shopping yesterday at a mall and bought loads of clothes from American Eagle, GAP, Old Navy and Aeropostale which are such cool stores. Anyway this post will look huge sorry, anyway mail me or txt me if you like guys, have a great christmas...were going to michigan for Christmas to some of the gillespies relatives so I dont know what the Internet access is like. Man Ive got to go do some revision for the january exams.....that sucks. Oh Pete Kessell if you read this your guitar is sweeeet, nice taylor mate....lower the action a little and itll be the best guitar in the church almost. Ive also been loving playing Johns 50th Annioversary Strat, sweeet. Anyway back home in the snow with a stop off at taco bell on the way, thatll be the 6th this trip!

DMB at the cinema

What a concert!...I picked this DVD up pretty cheap just recently on and we've been loving watch it in a cinema, yep thats right we've been checking out on a massive cinema screen with an awesome sound system, what a dream! We also went for a walk in -12c today! When I was in the hot tub my hair was freezing, actually freezing! Well its a hard life but we've had loads of fun, like we were at Ohio Northern Uni campus and Jeff offered to buy me taco bell for breaking the ice on a lake and sticking my head under, well i didnt really want the taco bell but the challenge had been set! so I went ahead and did it.

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Land of the Free

Well, here I am in a the beautiful house of the gillespie's relatives, its snowing outside and we just came home from a southern baptist church service who gave us free insulated mugs! what a catch!....sporting a very cool bible baptist logo. Anyway being here in the states has been a great experience, We've taken hundreds of photos which you'll see popping up when I get back as we havent got the software right now to uploads them onto the blog, but Ive basically had a great few flights and then got to Ada Ohio a small classicly American town as said by the gillespies and the Reeds. Speaking of the reeds we had a really great few days with Jeff and Elijah thats really why I havent been blogging coz we've been having a great time. SO anyway its been great we've eating loads watchin movies, playing guitar, having snow ball fights and sitting in hot tubs! The next few weeks Im all over the place so not sure as ever the frequency og blogging that will go. But anyway Having a great time, but looking forward to new year with the family.

to live the life

"A student who lives an open lifestyle with Christian values, and who doesn't get overwhelmed by the temptations that surround them, can be lethal in spreading the gospel." Jono West from Fusion/ Bass from one Hundred Hours

The Weekend Adventure -> from Scotland to England

Hey guys, I made it down on the plane to Heathrow finally, after a lot of craziness before I left, met Joy from Fusion in the morning which was awesome, to see her heart for Aberdeen and just was great to connect with someone who had a great heart. Also saw Hartley and her motley Orcadian crew! So there was plenty of starbucks lovin! then I realized I hadn’t thought about how to do the whole get to the airport thing...mmmm not such a great idea 2 1/2 hours before the flight! Anyway I went to the First bus shop, they typically didn’t run buses to the airport at Dyce on Saturdays then I went to the other bus stop which apparently did but the queue took ages and I was feeling the Gravitas of the situation so I went and checked out trains, no luck there either so I decided expensive as it may be Taxis where the mode of travel for this short leg so I got home on a bus finalized packed up stuff said goodbye to the Germans upstairs who for some reason want a shout out on the blog, so cheesy shout out coming up, hey Alex, Daniele and Connie, Ich bin Zehr Muder (the only German phrase they've taught me! "I am very tired" that is spelt phonetically as well so good luck. Anyway back to the situation in hand I said Goodbye to the guys in the flat, then I realized Oh flip I haven’t handed in that last Sociology essay, and the taxi had turned up!!! Also hadn’t printed out my e-ticket for the flight to London, so basically what I thought was a plan turned out to be me in major stress because of all this, so it became a bit of a film moment, with me asking the taxi driver to take me to Uni, so I went to give it in and all the doors were locked, student reception closed (finding out all that took me a lot of sweaty betty running!) so I went to the computer rooms to print off my e-ticket, and only today did I realize the very heinous nature of the fact that Uni passwords a re like 14 characters long with capitals and numbers how annoying, well then back to the taxi and back to the flat to give Manuel my essay to hand in, the taxi driver was great by the way absolute props, he was like, its fine stay calm you’ve still got an hour till check in, then we talked about Aberdeen and stuff on the way to the airport but it was really good, coz it didn’t seem to be just boring taxi driver banter, we actually talked it was great, so I got to the airport and it turned out the whole escapade only cost me like £15, which was cool. From here on it was pretty sweet, I love flying BA, its so plush, I went tot eh self service check in which is a great Idea you just pop in your debit card it finds your booking number then gives you a plan of all the seats and you use its touch screen to select which seat you want, awesome! SO I picked emergency exit aisle window seat PERFECT, so then I went though to departures, as ever my belts setting off and getting the mandatory tap down, so I grabbed some coffee and sorted my hand luggage bag out coz Id crammed loads of papers in there for Uni revision, I had about an hour it turned out in departures where I slept, texted, thought and talked to John on the phone for a bit. I know this is irrelevant but we flew a A319 which is one of the only times I flown inter city on a jet with BA before. Anyway another thing of interest is that I got the whole way without any ID asked for at all, I mean at all just my boarding card! The flight was cool it was just past dusk in Aberdeen so when we got above to clouds it was dark but I could see the sunset in the distance and that’s the kind of stuff makes me wanna forget clothes shopping on this trip and buy a plush digital camera! The food was awesome as well, nothing like BA service that’s all I’ve got to say, Heathrow was a bit of a nightmare as they don’t actually have any exit signs! But finally found John and we had an awesome time, halving a pack of raspberry airwaves and eating like 4 each! No need! So here I am now safe and sound we've been watching Dave Matthews DVDs washing clothes watched an awesome movie last night with Jute the man, called Dancing with Wolves which I would defiantly recommend. We also went for a crazy run, I’ve never run so far in my life must have been about 2 miles but it killed me but felt good, I think were off again today when John gets back from work from Starbucksio!. But basically I’m flying to New York on Tuesday then to Ohio but stuff has changed and it looks like we will be jetting across New York instead of spending some time, but were trying to revise that as much as pos, anyway until the 29th I’m on the other side of the pond, so blogging will be nice and sporadic but sort out some RSS and you don’t have to check all the time....see ya later Blog reader, to his glory...the Adventure continues-

More on Brett Dennen

I blogged recently about Brett Dennen, but Im just gonna labour the point for a minuite, IM listening to 2 minuite excerpts of his album on cd baby check it here, he's writing some really great simple songs which sound great and the play count of Desert Sunrise I got from iTunes has kept nice and high. The album sounds great so far so I woudl definatly check it out if you can, Im off to Ohio in a day or two from the UK and so im gonne look around for his CD a bit and invest! I reckon this will be a name to look out for in the alt. circles. Heres his home website as well if you wanna check it out. Heres some info on him and his new album "Brett Dennen's debut is easily one of the best releases of 2004. Rarely does music come along so unadorned, so pure in spirit, and so eloquently written." Chris Douridas, Host of "New Ground", KCRW Radio, Santa Monica CA Born in the small, gold rush town of Oakdale CA & home schooled into his teens, left Brett Dennen room to explore a wealth of artistic tendencies. Free of comparisons to peers or lesson plans designed for overflowing classrooms, he developed a compelling natural voice and an instinctive dexterity on multiple instruments. Fast becoming known for intricately groovin' guitar playing, a soul-stirring voice and a lyrical beauty rare in a young writer, this charming, unpretentious red-head, with an easy wit, enchants and captivates listeners whenever he performs. I also randomly got an email from Brett Dennens manager after finding the last post by searching on google, who says that there organising a UK tour in 2005 so how bout that for an exclusive... Also salute to you Leslie (Bretts manager) for a great quote as your signature on you email, I love it "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.-

We were robbed

Sorry bout the lack of blog but the craziness of my adventures has not stopped, we got burgled on wednesday night so after a night of sleep I went to bed at 2am and got up at 4am to call the police, I am blessed that none of my stuff was taken, but Manuel, my great german neighbour had his laptop breitling watch, and passport stolen, injustice! So Im shipping my stereo and computer over to the girls out in st combs tommorow before I get my flight.

He gives and take away

I lost my job!...well lets be honest a homemade cosmetics retailer was never my bag but I have known Gods favour in getting the job and the finance, also more importantly God placed me there for reasons realy clear to me now, the main one being to be in contact with someone who works there who is a firly new christian and is finding their feet still. Well Lush I salute you for impressive products and well kind fo silly prices. To read the rest of this post click "continue reading" below I know God has my finances and although this definatly means I am less secure in my financial position than I was, I think insecurity always breeds reliance on God so that can't be bad. Also I was thinking of finding a new job when I came back preferably in GAP or Starbucks! Also I think Ill give it a break until after my exams in january, because as long as I budget well I reckon thats is a good idea and will be good for my results. Im listening to Praise You by Fatboyslim right now, random I know but the starting line for these funky beats are "we've come a long, long way together through the hard times and the good, I have to celebrate you baby, I have to praise you like I should" although Im not referring to God as baby (Jane knows that after that convo about one hundred hours) its true God is good and as the title stolen from the new "here I am to worship", Blessed be your name says "you give and take away my heart will choose to say, Lord blessed be your name" Its not only that because bad stuff we must say God is still worthy even though that is true its the realisation that he deserves glory for the bad thing because he has it in his purposes and his purposes are for us to prosper not in a financial sense necessarily, but will in giving you fullness of heart, purpose, vision and oppurtunitys to serve him. Last nite in at house group at st combs someone spoke over me about strong love, which seems strange words to say but it really spoke to me that love is gentle and kind but its purposeful and strong and we can love with a strength and a stability that comes from god, this might be going over your head but I hope not, because to be honest wishy washy christianity is not the calling on our lives we were born into battle and even though the war has been won (massively plugging this from rick hayes last nite but hey theres no copyright in the kingdom) we are still fighting, another cool revelation I hear someone say once is the reason fo the battle and the reason we experience attack is that The devil hates God and we are made in the image of god, the devil cant hurt god so he ties to hurt us". Anyway know your in a battle and in battle time, its time to carry weapons and bullets (the word of God), tangent: I think now is the time to know God and Gods word. So there you are he gives and takes away and we've gotta keep blessing his name. Anyway in the non heart side of the losing job thing, the fact she just said, well bestr of luck in the futture kind of peeved me just coz she didnt come right out and say, Oh we dont need you in Jan etc, anyhoo I cant be bothered to be offended, but for the last day they worked my ass off, which felt even harder because of last nite see post before one...but anyway I trudged through and had a good time with the guys I worked with for my last shift, also a life saver was to see Stu and emelie for lunch at starbucks, great coffee with great company, I think I will miss spending time with them over Christmas, and more generally church and all the cool stuff like the ceilih (i know thats spelt wrong) but I am also getting more excited to go to the states and cornwall for new year, although I think actual excitement will hit when I see John down in London, I was also meant to see Mikaela and Amy (guys from SITC) tommorow as there in St Andrews but its not working ou, which in some way although it would have been good to see them means I have a free day to clean my room, wash clothes and pack. Also I think Ill drop off my essay on Friday and see if I can make it up to St Combs...so that looks like my last week of 2004 in Aberdeen!

In the land of Academic Insomnia

Above is the face of a tired but content Liam Byrnes...its 5:58 am!...Can you believe I got up at 9am yesterday and still havent slept!!! I had a crazy day (check my earlier post) and now thought I would post about my hardcore night, well after the Christmas dinner with the germans (2am) I thought man this sucks that essay is going to take ages and is gonna weigh on me for the next couple of days til I get it sorted, so I thought right Im gonna mission it! So I did, I did all the reading, research, structuring, writing, and bibliographed it all, done and dusted!!! Awesome my last essay of my first semester, I think I may re-visit it before I hand ti in and tidy it up a little as Im sure I learnt how to sleep and type when writing this essay so I dont think it will be my best mark to date, but still Ive got it done and now I can get excited about going to the US, tho im actually too tired for it to sink in, anyway if your reading this on friday then pray for me, becauese its not 6 I have to get up at 7 to get into town for 8am to work until 6pm crazy, in his strength alone! Phew Im gonna get some precious minuites of light off, bless y'all oh yeah here I go, another mission of a day!!!

Essays, Presentations, Phone calls, Prophets, and Xmas Partys

Well Tuesdays where once again a day of craziness! Lots of lectures and essay hand-ins a presentation that went well for sociology. I went to cell tonight in st combs which was good where they taught about how paul said we were to operate in the prophetic, so then we had a time of that in small groups with each other, and I ended up spending some time with Cynthia Hayes who was awesome, the wife of Rick, a great couple in the church, was really great to speak and connect with her. then I came home and decided to do some work on my politics essay and went up stairs to the germans for their kettle (pictured above) as all of ours are broken and I had forgotten I had turned them down on an invite to there Christmas Dinner because I was going up to St Combs so there where loads of guys there and we played stupid but fun games like wink murder for a bit, but now Im back down stairs and Im going to do some hardcore essay work as tommorow Im working 8:30 to 6:30 which will kill me so I wont want to do it after that and Thursday hopefully, Amy and Mikaela from Soul in the City are coming up. Then Friday morning is the hand-in so its soo crazy. Oh also had a great half an hour or so chat with Kate and Marko Davy, seems Kate might be coming to the states with me John and Esther, would be real cool! Anyway rambling so hope your all well, drop me a comment you know I live for it! hehe

Oh the fustration

Man, how annoying, I didnt set my alarm properly and so I didnt get up on time so when I did I was 10 mins into my tutorial which I had to be at because I had to get back and give an essay then I got to the tutorial at 0945am and no one was there, then I tried to mail my tutor but I left her email address at home....argh, anyway Im relartivly chilled about because I AM going to have a productive day, see im even blogging about it, ever noticed the word fustration actually kind of looks like the thing it describe its like onomatopaeia for your eyes!

The Essays, my spanking new blog

The Essays, well I thought that I might as well share the love which is my academic burden well the products of anyway so Ive set up this other blog for my essays and longer posts like the one the other day, this is full of sociology, politics and Anthropology but soon it will be divinity so may be of more use and interest to you, right now unless your really interested in whether educational sucess is related to family circumstances or the contemporary role of the president and how it alignes with the constitutional ideals, no thought not, well if you've ever been to any academic institute the they will tell you in research and study that most of the stuyff on the internet is drivel and trash, I think its a safe bet to take to approach my new blog "the essays" with the same thoughts! Anyway enjoy, Im sure Ill be linking to it muchos in the future, so for now just humour me.

New Year??

Hey Guys what are you up to for new year, mail me...Liam

Last Church day @ St Combs

(Sorry about the terrible stitch photo) -> It was my last night at church for the year, had a good day, this morning got a phone call from Andrew Jones to meet up and I was gutted I never got the chance in the end, I think that makes it 3 times its failed, anyway if your reading this and you still have my trousers Andrew then give them to Miriam and she can drop them off in Aberdeen when shes down from Orkney for a week. Anyway back to church this morning, I played guitar with Stu and I really enjoyed it as ever, we recorded it on some naf old tape recorder out the side of the sound desk, which didnt pick up the drums but its an interesting re-cap anyhow, also I snapped my D string what a bummer! Anyway a Cool guy I met at teen challenge called Jack was preaching in Forbes' absense in New York, and it was great stuff about letting God sow into your life into the rocky parts etc, then some great sausages and potatos at the girls house in their absense as well, then I attempted to do some of my sociology essay, that went ok, 400 words down!...In the evening Les Fyvie preached on immaturity in the church and brought up some really good points on democracy and how it has no or little place in the church...comment on that if you'd like I may well be blogging more on that in the future as its a cognitive majority at the moment. Anyhoo very busy week ahead so Im not gonna say theres likely to be little blogging coz that normally means theres loads, but my schedule is monday finish off my soc essay and get some exam requirements sorted out also lunching/coffee with Fred the Forestor, tuesday as ever a busy day at Uni hopefully some work on the Politics essay in the evening up to church for Bible study, wednesday is a massivly full day of Lush work 8:30 - 6pm then a kind of leaving meal from the Indian with the lads in the flat, Thursday Im hoping to get up to St Combs catch some people before I leave and meet with Forbes and Stu, Friday is just getting Uni finished off and in the evening going to the work Christmas party, saturday I wanna meet up with you if your free then 4pm off to London to see John hara! What a week I know you probably are none the wiser for reading that but I needed to plan that out myself so I might as well do it on the blog.

Inclusive Church, too controversial

Church is for sinners, and we need to embrace all inclusiveness, Famously over the summer Mike P said "The whole world knows what the church is against, now its time to show them what were for" Love, Mercy, Community, Family, and Grace. Well after that sermon US TV Networks are deeming a new TV ad for Church too controversial to air!! Check it out

A Mans Way

Psalm 37 :23-24 -> If the LORD delights in a man's way, he makes his steps firm; though he may stumble, he will not fall, for the LORD upholds him with his hand.

City Living

THIS POST IS PART OF AN OUTWORKING OF ME WANTING NOT JUST TO BE VISIONARY ABOUT CHURCH BUT TO BE PRACTICAL AND ANALYSE HOW WE CAN APPLY THE BIBLE TO THE SITUATIONS GOD HAS PLACED US IN TODAY...this post is not seeking to inspire you its more of a discussion on how to outwork the passion and vision God places in us through his word Seeing as Im definatly a country boy at heart living in the small town of Lostwithiel (Est. Pop. 2500) moving to the relativly large city of Aberdeen (Est. Pop. 215,000) I have been thinking as you guys probably have gathered about church and how God has called church to be more than sunday mornings, with pink wafers (not sure why I mentioned Pink Wafers there), Gods idea of church is for it to be a community of people who are accountable to and serve each other. Theres more, so click on the continue Reading link.. Now probably if you've not been in that model of church you can get a good idea of what it might look like from glimpses im sure you've had of spending time with people and loving them. Now I can understand how this works in a village or in a close environment (eg a church model in which everyone is in community) but in a city this posses loads of different questions (of which this post is not an answer to but more of a brain splurge vaguely in the relation to). For a start, Villages and small areas cultivate a culture of their own, you will know this if you've lived in one, basically a way to talk, and walk and behave. Cities do not have that they are all embracing, they have a massive range of people from a much wider background and this invites you to be yourself and create your own niche or genre. Great you might think, well yeah we live in a free country thats great but this encourages people to be individualistic and isolationist (self absorbed), in contrast a hard thing but possibly a good thing about a small village is that everyone knows you, from the time your born, people know your parents and your grandparents if you've lived there long enough, where as in cities you can dissapear and as opposed to where in a village your cirlcle of influence maybe a dot (you) in a circle (which is a symbol for your social cricle) in a city those social circle look like a dot (you) and a spirograph like pattern of different social circles... ...and before I came to Uni I thought that was quite unhealthy espeically in relation to church as far as having different groups of friends, this can really end up with you being different people to the different groups (something Im sure were all guilty of at some point), completly cutting down all concepts of being in church eg community, but Im slowly learning that I have to have different circles of friends, theres the guys in my flat, guys from my different lectures, the guys from CU, the guys from church and the guys from work (by the way by Guys I mean people not necessarily men, that would be an interestingly gender biassed life!).... ...and its a spirograph its crazy but I have realised that you can be yourself, you can be YOU as long as you are assured of your own identity and not too worried about being completly the perfect person for that group if you see what I mean, for example if I wanted to be more a part of the guys in the flat I would drink beer with them every night (which is not something incidently that Im condemning Im just saying that not what I do), If I wanted to be more a part of the CU guys I would go to church with them on Sundays but Ive realised God can call you to different social circles at the same time even though it often results in craziness, and the challenge is to be who You are in those social circles and try to reflect Gods Glory as much as possible... ...sorry I think was a random tangent but what im trying to talk about is church in city, because people in cities have all these different connections the question is, is there anyway of having good community within a city setting? A way in which its clear true community work is when people commit to each other in community eg. like Jesus and his disciples, im not saying that cities are bad because you cant emmerse yourself in Christian bubbles of friends but Im saying there needs to be community to effectivly out work the calling of following Jesus on your life. As without people to run the race with that out working is very difficult and cities I think encourage the lack of community to some extent... ...The lack of community, I think is why there is such a boom in new media eg internet communcation because we were made to belong to a group to fit in to some extent and so we long for this acceptance (which I would say does not alway come from an unhealthy place of insecurity) and so people dont get the community they crave in cities where everybody is doing there "own thing" running there own one man or woman ministries and people especially in a Uni environment are torn in loads of different ways socially as far as family and friends at hoime, friends at Uni, friends at work etc... well Im not sure if I communciated what I was trying to say there, I feel like I didnt to be honest but comment on your thoughts about church in the city and the practicalities of community in large urban areas......to be continued

Hopefully making it easier for you

Hey, well today Ive added some new tools for you out there reading the blog, its definatly been one of those things that I had to get right (especially coz I crashed the whole blog and had to re-write loads of HTML to get it going again) so here are the new exciting tools Continue Reading Links/Post a Comment Links These are at the bottom of all posts because I dont know how to make it post specific but basically now if I write an essay length post see "City Church" then it dosen't dominate the whole page....heres how it works for those of you like me that it takes a while to figure out, basically the title of the post and the first paragraph is posted then if you want to read the whole thing click Continue Reading... and the rest of the post comes up for you to read note: the continue reading links are on all posts even though there may not be more to read so Ill make it obvious in the post if theres more to read, also you can use the link to go and post a comment which I love getting, even if you are not registered with Blogger then you can leave a comment as anonymous, so theres no excuse get commenting people! Front Page Comment Viewing Now when you see "2 Comments" or such like and are wondering what they said instead of clicking on it and it taking you to another page it just appears below the post on the front page try it out Ive put a comment on this post for you to try it out on! (sad I know) Then when you want to hide the comments on the front page again just click on the link again and they dissapear! So Comment more coz I love the interactivity!! Home Links At the top of the posts there are home links, basically if you get to the bottom of the page and are too lazy to scroll back u p, or if you lost in archives of posts from a few months back then click on "home" and it'll take you back to the top of the frontpage eg. the most recent posts!

Updates

Check the new title for December! I came down from the roof and saw this in the car park and got my camera and it took multiple attempts to get it because the battery was flat so the camera kept cutting out, anyway it looked cooler thanthe photo, anyhoo you know I need (code for want 3+ megapixels) Also New Albums on "what Im listening to", that dosent get updated unfortunatly just because its all HTML and gets complicated well not really but apathy sets in! Anyway hope your enjoying the chronicles, Liam PS Also added my sis' blog on the right hand side

Uni Changes

Just a quick update on Uni things, Well Im slogging away at Sociology and politics essays, they have been really good courses and without any pride I can say that Ive excelled at them pretty well and recognised Gods work in enabling me to really get to grips with the subjects and that in some ways has made the change difficult, because I decided it was right to change to Divinity in february (the start of the 2nd semester) Fortunatly the Aberdeen Uni system means I can transfer to doing my degree in Divinity and keep the credits I will have earned this semester in my other subjects. Why you might ask, well I was called up to Aberdeen fairly specificly in following what I believe to be answers to questions I asked and I know I would have never applied to do Divinity or Theology at a Uni just because I thought it would be a bit too wishy washy, but Ive met guys up here in the course and found its a really good course. And recognised the fact God has put a calling on my life and if thats not to ministry as far as full time Christian work than thats fine but hes called us all to acknowledge and worship him for who he is, and make him famous and so I know this course is co-ordinated in the direction of fulfilling that for me, theres a song on the Vineyard Album Holy (track 7) called Above all else, it says "Jesus, my passion in life is to know you, let all other Gods bow down to this journey of loving you more" and that pretty much what I want to with my life, go for it with passion and purposefulness. Anyway Im really looking forward to it, as this blog probably documents in some way is the fact Ive been thinking loads about church recently emergent church, biblical church, and St Combs Church (all of which I consider to be the same thing really) and so this hunger surrounding that to know God more and to know his word has really led me to choosing this. When I first thought about it I asked and trusted God would open and shut doors as need be and he really has. He's faithful beyond our expectations and faith.

Thanksgiving

Well this is the first for 2 years (I know thats not much but Im still going for the sympathy vote) I havent celebrated Thanksgiving with the Gillespies, I was gutted....Especially knowing all the cool stuff goin on in Cornwall. I was ultra gutted looks like you guys had lots of fun. But I did get some cold water action, in the North Sea in November wooohooo, needless to say I was the only one who went in for a swim apart from a girl in the church who got baptised. Yeah living the adventures up here in North East Scotland! Unfortunatly I didnt get any pics but there is a video with a guy saying "Eh, Craig hes ne wired reet" so you'll just have to believe me I did it. But I would have digged to do the gold diggins with the guys in cornwall check out Johns post about it here. Also if your feeling like using some of your bandwidth download the video its about 3mb and you'll need windows media player to play it, if your not sure u should be fine go on indulge and click here if that dosent work right click and save target as.

The last few days ive been working...here they are

Manual Labour, Oh yeah...well Stu and I finished off the insulation in the church roof on wednesday as I had the day off Uni, well he did the hard work, but here are a few pics for you, I dont know how it looks on the photos but believe me its feels really high when your up the top of those ladders! This made me realise although I can overcome them with a bit of willpower I still am some funny with heights! Even the manly Stu Fyvie admitted to some height related wimpish tendencies, but as he puts it hes not scared of heights he scared of falling from them! Anyway I think Ill probably look back on this with fonder memories than I the feelings I felt while there, although after an hour and the whole Facedown album going round once blasted out on the church PA it was finished and now for warm church services. Before this I went to Teen Challenge Centre with Stu for their chapel service which was cool, and I think when I come back from Crimbo I will be doing more of that with him and Forbes. The we went back and in the evening had roast chicken (culinarily prepared by Stu) with cous cous (with apricots and lemon juice) and it was real good! Then went to Roads a Youth club the church runs in the community centre for the kids in the village and they et around 50 kids, and we played football (Ive decided primary school football is my forte), anyway I had a really good time and havent done stuff like that for a while. We went back to Stu's and watched the wedding video, which was really cool. Anyway this is what Ive been up to in the last couple of days as I havent been posting being in a non internet environment. Oh also on the coach back to Aberdeen I saw a Highland Cow, you know the big hairy ones with horns, I was excited!

Christmas Spirit

For the festive cheer I purchased some white lights for a bargain price of just under £2 at Woolworths in Fraserborough this morning. Unfortunatly I had to use the flash but without it the light give a middle ground between just my monitor and the main light. Anyway I just realidsed in the reflection ooops. Be Christmassy you know you want to.