one more before outreach?

so, another event that i forgot to mention was our costume party in which we had to dress like each other. i thought at first that it would be difficult & briar & i didn’t know what to do until the last minute. we just decided to be each other. she wore my flowered blouse, grey cardigan, denim jacket, brown pants, & oxfords. & we did her makeup like mine. & braided her hair to the side. she looked awesome, if i do say so myself… we all met in the conference hall & just played games. it was so funny to see people & know exactly who they were dressed as. i think we managed at least one picture.

that next thursday, i was walking back to my room late & i managed to trip or something & i jammed my toe hardcore. i thought i had broken it. {this was the same day i slipped on the ice} it was so bad. the next day, briar, diane, amanda, rachel, victoria, & i we went to lancaster where I limped around all day. we all wanted to see the vow. have you seen the trailers for that movie? heart-breaking. well, we arrived at the cinema to find that it wasn’t even showing there yet. even more heart-breaking. we saw warhorse instead. it was great & we all cried. we got out of the movie around seven to find the streets of lancaster completely silent. they close up early around here. the taxi that picked us up didn’t even know where capernwray is so we basically had to direct him back.

that night, there was a dodgeball game. again, i did not participate. but afterwards, there was a dance-off in the ping-pong room. now this was no ordinary dance-off. these men were competing for a girl’s hand in marriage. obviously it was a joke, but they took it very seriously. dances were choreographed. outfits were coordinated. there was a dj. there was a strobe light. she chose the winner in the end. he turned her down. it was dramatic. we all danced. we danced until lockup. this is a bad idea when you have a foot injury. basically, my entire foot was swollen. & i could hardly walk. i was sitting on briar’s bed & she accidentally sat on it. i screamed bloody murder & proceeded to cry & laugh hysterically all at once. i knew it wasn’t broken, so i just iced it a few times & it’s all better now. i don’t know how i injure myself so much here.

on tuesday last week {valentine’s day}, my friend jason asked if he could borrow my bowtie. i was confused. i do have a bowtie. it’s a clip-on that i use as a headband. but i had no idea how he knew i had one. apparently i had told him at one point. i do not remember this. so, i gave him a bowtie not knowing why he needed it. well, he showed up to tea in a white shirt, black pants, & the bowtie. as people walked in, he escorted them to tables, set their places, & pulled out chairs. i know this sounds like a nice, gentlemanly thing to do, & it was, but it was mostly just funny. he’s just one of those people.

that night, all the {two} capernwray couples were doing romantic things, taking walks around the loop… that’s pretty much the only thing to do around here. well, we were fascinated. & bored. so, briar, courtney, eliana, & i went for a walk. the only other people we really saw were people like us, trying to creep on the couples. one couple, however, let off paper lanterns & it was beautiful. kudos to that boy for being romantic. we got to the pond & we jumped in. there was ice. i thought my head was going to fall off. we were in & out in less than a minute. just makin’ memories.

also, briar bought me flowers. she went to town & jokingly told her to buy me something pretty. she did. it was nice.

our lecturer last week was a man called jim wright. he is a business man from north carolina who has a passion for greek grammar. it sounds boring, but the fact that he was downright giddy about it got us excited. i’m a big grammar person, so i was fascinated. he was teaching on the church. he has gone through most of the new testament & colour coded every verb to specify which tense it is. i think that makes sense. if not, i’ll show you the booklet when i get back. it was amazing. he sees the bible in a different light because he knows the original greek. i was blown away. he has spent years of his life studying the bible & has basically made his business a ministry. he will be coming back in spring school to teach about solomon & he will teach an optional course on greek. i’m so there it’s insane.

thursday was prayer day. we were  all together for part of the morning & the rest of the day was for quiet time with God & prayer. it was a relaxing & peaceful day.

last saturday, we competed in little competition called the capern race. if you’ve ever watched the show called the amazing race you’ll get the general idea. our teams were our interactive groups. all over the grounds were challenges that we had to complete in less than ten minutes. as i’m sure you can guess, this entailed A LOT of running. yeah. i’m not a runner. but i did it. i was proud. the events were mental & physical. i had a good team. we finished first but we didn’t have enough points to win. the top three teams had to compete in one last challenge in the pool & after that was over, everyone started jumping in the pool. briar & eliana jumped in fully clothed. i thought there was no way i was going in. more girls started jumping in. the boys started chanting “RE-SPECT! RE-SPECT!” what did i care if i had their respect or not? but they kept chanting & it looked so fun… i took off my boots & made my way to the deep end of the pool. we all held hands & jumped in together. it was the best. the pool closed after ten minutes of swimming but it was fun while it lasted. spontaneity is key, friends.

sunday was the most beautiful day. it wasn’t warm, but it was sunny. we were all dressed up for church so brittany, courtney, briar, & i went outside & had a photoshoot. some of them are posted , so go ahead & take a gander. after lunch, my family group went to the zoo. the petting zoo, that is. there was delightful array of common farm animals. the climax of the day occurred when we were in the play area. there was a big slide & a swing made out of tires in the general shape of a horse. my sister hailey wanted a ride on this swing & brother orion was kindly pushing her. said swing was attached to the rafters with a dangerously small amount of rope, so when orion tried to jump on with little hailey, they found themselves still on the swing but decidedly closer to the ground. meaning, on the ground. i’m pretty sure we were all in tears from laughing so hard. now, my brother daniel is always filming everything we do in family group on his ipad. but it just so happened that this incident occurred during the thirty seconds in which he had stopped filming. what are the odds? when we had finished petting the animals, we ate at the café & went back home. i have the greatest capernwray family ever.

i passed another paper & i think we’re just waiting on our last one now. i did end up failing that test though. 31 out of 44 points were required to pass… i got 30. so. close. i retook it today & i’m pretty confident that i passed this time around.

i called home last night to talk to my sister… mom answered & said that she thought i arranged to call on monday night. sister wasn’t even home. we definitely did agree on monday. i just forgot. i really need to write things down.  i was glad i got to talk to my momma though. J & my daddy has been mailing me letters.  it makes me so happy when i get mail.

i feel it is my duty to tell you, there is a popular british boy band over here with whom i have fallen in love. i don’t know if they’ve made it to the states, but they are called one direction & they are the most played in our room. it’s like five british justin biebers in one group. look up ‘what makes you beautiful’. it is grand.

i think that is it this time around. i’m not sure i’ll manage another post before outreach, so just remember us in your prayers. we will be leaving on friday for ten days. it’ll be an experience!

i do believe this post is even longer than the last. you are welcome.

this post took me two hours

i was reading briar’s blog & she does a way better job at actually blogging & not just listing events that happen in our life here at the capes. i can’t be outdone, so i’m putting more effort into blogging, since i don’t do it very often. i don’t know how long i’ll keep this up. right now, i have an afternoon free & briar’s napping… this’ll take a while. you might want snacks.

so, let me tell you more about outreach. starting on february 24^th, nine of us are going to the town of morley which is near leeds. we’ll be working with morley community church doing things such as assemblies at schools {because that’s allowed here}, youth events, kids’ clubs, handing out pamphlets, & interacting with the elderly. everyone in the school has been put on different outreach groups & are going to different places around the uk. & there’s a group that’s going to kenya. this week’s lectures & seminars have all been about outreach & how to prepare ourselves. we have begun to plan our events & lessons. we would very much appreciate your prayers. the devil doesn’t really like what we’re doing & he’ll be doing all he can to hinder us.  please pray for unity within our teams & for the people to whom we will be ministering. God is good & faithful, but it’s hard not to be a little anxious.

on a lighter note, i left a few things out of the last post. namely, cutthroat mafia. yes. the night before we left for our weekend in morley, most of the people had already gone & the castle was more quiet than usual. there were about fifteen of us up late & we played the scariest game of my life. a few people are chosen as the ‘mafia’ & we shut all the lights off & we walk around the creepy, dark castle & try not to get killed. the mafia just walks up & ‘cuts’ your throat & you have to fall down dead until someone finds you. when you’re found, everyone has to accuse & vote for who they think is guilty. briar lured me & arianna into a room & killed us both. you can’t trust anyone these days.

speaking of assaulting vending machines… a few weeks ago, we suddenly the urge to get some candy from the vending machine at the pool. {we’re like children sometimes} our favourite candy here is haribo tangfastics. it’s a bag of assorted sour gummy candies, & it’s the most delicious candy ever. we put our money in the machine & the bag got stuck. we shook the machine a little but we figured when we went to buy the next one, they would both fall. wrong. the first one fell & the next  one got stuck. we tried for the third bag {there were five of us in want of candy} & the machine just wouldn’t take our money. we tried over & over & over again. we shook it, we unplugged it & plugged it back in, we body-slammed it. nothing would work. i will say that seeing little jamie throw herself at the big vending machine was quite funny. it wouldn’t take our money or give us our candy. since we are young & nearly broke, we would not give up. finally our violent combination of shaking & body-slamming worked & we got our candy. the end. i think i didn’t tell this story before because it was a little shameful. but i realized it was too funny not to share. also, this all happened the one time we were skipping evening church on a sunday. lesson learned. & i’ll add that there is a security camera in the pool hall. i’d pay good money for that footage.

we turned in our final essay last week. such a relief. it was on apologetics & i think I did well. i passed my last two assignments with flying colours. literally, colours that fly. we had a memory verse test the other day that i think i might have bombed. there were ten verses that we had to know but we would only be asked to write five of them, without knowing which five beforehand.  i only really knew eight of them, but i figured i would do alright. what were the odds of the only two i didn’t know being the first two on the test? better than i thought. i got the others right but i don’t think missing two whole verses is acceptable. i’m bummed but i’m not too torn up about it. it’s the first thing i haven’t passed in five months of school. not bad.

last saturday, our day trip was to the nearby town of morecambe. it’s small town right on the water which sounds great unless it’s the coldest day of our life & every kind of precipitation is attacking your face the moment your step off the coach. briar & i didn’t even know what we planned to do there, we just wanted to get out of the house… er, castle. our faces were painfully cold after 3.5 seconds of being outside, so anything indoors was appealing to us. we went to see what was playing at the cinema. we decided on journey 2: the mysterious island. it’s pretty much a kids movie but the actor who  is playing our favourite boy in the hunger games movie was in it, so we thought we’d check it out. it was incredibly cheesy but we’re both so enamoured with josh hutcherson that it didn’t even matter. oh yeah, it was in 3D too. after the movie, we tried to find this alleged vintage shop we had heard about. it was nowhere to be found. it was so cold & windy that i actually had brain freeze, without the deliciousness of ice cream. we still had time to kill so we pulled a 500 days of summer {movie reference} & ran around the home furnishings floor at a home improvement store. we tried out couches, climbed into wardrobes, & chose paint chips. & we bought a cactus. it was only 99p & it’s just so darn cute. it was a day well spent.

near reception in the castle, there is this pole that runs up the wall that must have hot water running through it or something because it’s always so warm. & we are not in this beautiful, drafty home of ours. we call it dave & we like to give him a snuggle whenever we walk by. briar & i warm up with him, then bolt up the stairs & dive into her bed when we’re cold. last sunday, we were especially cold & her bed just wouldn’t cut it. our friend diane {who just so happens to be briar’s roommate}, however, has a heating pad in hers that she had left on. suffice it to say, we spent half the day watching movies in diane’s bed until she kicked us out.

our evening service on sunday this week we did something called ‘paper testimonies’. we all got a piece of paper & on one side we wrote one word that described us before we met Jesus. on the other, we wrote one for after we met Jesus. there was music playing & people just walked up front & showed one side, then the other. it was really powerful. God is so unfathomably good.

since i’m just filling you in on random things that i have previously overlooked, i will tell you about ‘dump & dash’. we get the dishes of food from the front of the dining hall & bring them back to our tables. sometimes at meals, we get something particularly delicious, like fries. this is when we dump the contents of the dish onto one plate & dash to the kitchen to get a refill. the staff has requested that we don’t do this because it’s a little rude… we’ve developed what we like to call the ‘scoop & scurry’. we all serve ourselves quickly & walk to the front at a moderate pace for a refill. it seems the staff has no qualms with this method.

we did a survey for the yearbook with ‘best…’ or ‘most likely to…’ sort of things. the best ones were all the koreans being voted most likely to eat noodles & the two students who had been together for years & got engaged over break being voted most likely to get married. I can tell this will be a quality yearbook.

i believe i mentioned the letters we sent to the guys in sweden. well, rob whittaker often goes there to lecture & he always offers to bring letters from us if we have friends there. we wrote letters to our new friends to send with him. when rob came back, he came bearing letters for us. we got the best responses in the entire world.  the guys thought it was funny & didn’t think we were insane, so they wrote us back equally cheesy letters. it’s the funniest thing ever.

this morning, i accidentally pulled out my nose ring. it’s easy to take out & not so easy to get it. i must have been holding my breath as i forced it back in because i was overcome by a sudden wave of nausea & ended up with my head in the toilet bowl ready to vomit my guts out. so classy. i stumbled back into bed until my friend eliana came & jumped on me & dragged me to breakfast. it was worth it. there was wheat bread. but the ground was unbelievably icy. it was ridiculous. i saw five people biff it on the way to the pool hall to do my duty. you laugh until it happens to you. on the way back to the castle, i wiped out ever so gracefully. the scrapes on my palm & foot can attest to that. you’re really living on the edge when running late to class becomes ice skating late to class.

i can’t believe winter school is almost over. we have about a month left & we’ll be on outreach for ten of those days. it’s unreal. i want to do it all over again. not so that i can change anything, just so that i can spend more time with these people in this place. i’m so excited for spring school & some of my favourite people are staying, but it won’t be the same. time has flown & it’s only now when i consider having to leave in four months that all this seems real. it’s such a good reminder of how constant God remains through all of the changes in our lives.

well, that was a lot of words. good on you if you made it all the way through. i forgot how much i enjoy talking about myself & my crazy life. i love you all more than you know & just because i love it here, it doesn’t mean i don’t have those moments when thoughts of you make my heart ache a little.

the end. 

julia vs. the blog

i'm more sorry than i've ever been about not blogging. i'm getting even worse. it's becoming the bane of my existence. but i like documenting my whole life. it's a sick cycle.

i’ve gotten more settled into my room. we’ve kind of worked about the space issue. i stored a small suitcase of stuff in my friends room. the first week back, my friend karsten switched places with his twin brother who goes to torchbearers in sweden. we asked his brother hans for the names of his friends in sweden & we wrote them love letters. karsten brought back a response letter from the guy that jamie wrote to. allegedly the other guys just didn’t get time to write back. likely story. but they did think it was funny. rob whittaker is going to the sweden school to lecture next week & he always asks if we have letters to send to people there. guess who we wrote letters to. hopefully we’ll get a response back. fingers crossed.

i’ve been reading the hunger games. have you heard of it? so. good. i read the first two books & i won’t let myself read the third one until i finish my assignments. i cannot wait for the movie in the SPRING.

i pretty much sleep through breakfast all the time. i don’t always mean to. it just happens. i don’t know why i’m so much more tired this term. i got up the other morning & i was so incredibly proud of myself.

we’ve been planning our travels for spring break. first is ireland, then spain for a week. there’s a huge group of us going to spain & we’re splitting the cost of a villa. i’m pretty pumped. i might go to italy after. maybe...

the guy who wrote soul surfer was our lecturer last week. soul surfer being about the girl, bethany hamilton the surfer who got her arm bitten off by a shark. he talked about the economy of God. like, what really matters in the kingdom of God. it was really good.

my room had our first roomie night. we ate popcorn & watched 300. it was a lovely girls night.

we've have way too many assignments. i don't like it.

my ten day outreach group is going to a church near leeds in the end of february. last weekend we went there to see the church & plan our outreach with the pastor. it was good to get away & my host family is so nice. it's a couple with a fifteen year old girl and thirteen year old boy. they're darling. we playing the game of life with them. it's always nice to be in a home. 

the weekend before we went to LIVERPOOL. my friend arianna & i went to the beatles museum & the museum of livepool. it was one of my favourite places i've been. it's a really nice town. i would like to go back sometime. i didn't get to see their houses or any of that. it's right on the sea so it was insanely windy. like, unbelievably so.

briar & arianna & i got to go to a nearby farm & meet baby sheep. they are the cutest thing in the world & when they 'bahhhh' they stick out their little tongues. life. changed.

since i'm staying the extra bit for school, i have to figure out my visa which ends in may. i think we've worked it out. i probably won't be kicked out of the country. 

so, that's this last month. maybe i'll do better this month? maybe not. i just turned in my last essay. holla.

the end.