Greetings from Across the Pond! :-)

     Well here we are...Welcome! Thanks for taking the time to come hop across the pond and visit me for a few minutes! (Well at least cyberspace visit me...haha) Well, I have been living here in the UK for about nine and a half weeks now, and wow, what an adventure it has been!! There is just so much that I would love to share with y'all, I just don't even know where to begin! I guess I am going to have to pace myself...Ok, first let me try and explain what it is that I am doing over here and then I'll give you a brief summary of what has been happening for the past two months before I begin to delve deep into anything.

Us in Northern Ireland

     I am here participating in the Greenhouse program, which is an intensive 11 month discipleship/leadership training/youthwork program that is run by International Christian Youthworks (ICY), which is a part of Reign Youth Ministries. There is a team of 8 of us who are at 2 different sites, one in Bicester (about 30 mins from Oxford), and one in Sutton (about 30 mins from London). Of these 8 people, we have me (the only native English speaker), 2 Austrians, 4 Germans, and 1 Spaniard. We are definitely quite the multicultural bunch, that is for sure. :-) 
Our time is divided 3 ways. We work 1/3 time in a local church placement, 1/3 time in the schools with Sutton Schoolswork, and 1/3 time meeting together and being discipled as a team, as well as individual mentoring. We also have a 5 day long conference every 6-8 weeks where we are able to all meet up together along with all the other ICY people. It's great fun! We stay at this cool conference center called The Mill up in the Cotswolds.

So, now that you have a general idea of what I am doing, let me tell you a little more about I specifically have been up to over the past few weeks since I got here. :-)
September:
  Week One (2nd-9th)- Flew into Heathrow on Friday, proceeded to meet LOTS of new people over the next 4 days, tried to get over jet lag, felt very overwhelmed, went to the first ICY conference, made an 8 minute $16 phone call home, got horribly ill, and got to go experience the wonderful world of NHS (the national healthcare service)  in hopes that they could tell me why the world would not stop spinning around me. :-(
Week 2 (10th-16th)- Armed with the medicine from the doctor, I rested up and after staying a few days with a fantastic American family (who is also here with ICY), I was somewhat able to move around without feeling like I was living on a tilt-a-whirl, although I did look like I was a bit tipsy when I walked. haha. I also moved into that house that I would stay in for the next month. :-) We also started our Greenhouse meetings together as well. And I learned how to take the train to London and back, as well as touring Tower Bridge. :-)
Week 3 (17th-23rd)- More meetings, visited the Tower of London (and the Crown Jewels), got a UK bank account, worked on getting more settled in, church, etc.
Week 4 (24th-30th)- Greenhouse meetings, went to Buckingham Palace and got to see the dress from the Royal Wedding back in April!
October:
  Week 5 (1st-7th)- my first British wedding! Also, on October 1st, it was 81 degrees (F) out, which was the hottest that it had been on that day since 1904!!
Week 6 (8th-14th)- Meetings, schoolswork, getting into a routine, moved to the house where I will be living for the rest of the time that I am here. :-)
Week 7 (15th-21st)- Meetings, leave for Challenge 72 in Ireland (more on that in another post)
Week 8 (22nd-28th)- Challenge 72 and 2nd ICY Conference
November:
Week 9 (29th-4th)- Came back from Conference, got caught up on stuff here, met with Lesley (lead youth person at St Mary's) to discuss ideas and the future for the Lounge (our youth meetings),etc
Week 10 (5th-11th)- Meetings, visited the National Gallery, started this blog. :-)