Cultural differences

I often think the small difference between here and home are quite interesting. Like yes, they do use the posh. Regularly. And I now remember (usually) to go to the other side of the car. Looking the correct way when I cross the road, however, is taking longer than I planned...

This all came to mind when a song came on my iTunes, actually. A&E by Goldfrapp makes so so much more sense living in the UK. A&E over here means the ER! It's accident and emergency. Suddenly the ong actually makes sense...

Just a short jotting down of thoughts before going to school today to make a yellow brick road. yes, quite seriously...a yellow brick road. Oh, youth work.

I wonder why the wonderfalls on me

The title is from the show I'm currently hooked on-- Wonderfalls. It's so fun, but was cancelled after one season. It seems all the good ones are!

So, going back a few weeks. Rome was awesome. I really liked all the kids...and the touristy sights! Rome is gorgeous. I highly recommend getting there in your life. I have a few of the kids in some of my GCSE classes, so its nice to see them every week.

London was alright. I enjoyed everything I did--meeting up with some friends, going to a random charity dance, seeing Les Mis, going to the Tate Modern. It was nice to see everything.

Now that I've been back, things have actually gotten a good bit busier! I have volunteered myself to help out with the school production of Grease. I'm excited, but also slightly worried for the production itself. We'll see how it all turns out. They have a 6th former- meaning junior or senior in high school--in charge of all the choreography. Even she didn't expect to be in charge of everything! Apparently, I may be enlisted to help her out. Haha. I'm also definitely going to be working with the Sandy and Danny to help them sound legit American. But it gives me something to do that's a lot of fun!

This weekend was also a ton of fun-- I went to a Ceilidh, or an Irish barn dance. It's like square dancing, but it was so so much fun! One of the 6th formers, Becci, invited me and I also went to church with her this morning. She's really sweet and we had a good time. We might do a joint birthday party in March, cause her birthday is only 2 days before mine--another ceilidh!

Also--VERY exciting news! I have a new roommate lined up! Ben. The church had to vote on if it was alright for a boy to live with me, but they voted yes. I'm really excited to not be living alone for much longer. Pray that it all works out quickly.

Another thing to pray for--a couple in the church run a shoebox drive for children in Romania which is in full swing right now. These kids have severe disabilities in most cases and Santa coming with shoeboxes gives them hope and happiness.

Travels

Tomorrow morning at 5, I'm off to Rome for 4 days. Hopefully I'll have time next monday to tell you all about it, before I head down to London for the week. The irony of my life is the fact that I despise packing, yet I travel enough that I pack ridiculously often. As in, I leave in just over 12 hours yet only have one shirt pulled out to pack. Ugh.

But this past week went well! We had a Friday night youth group again and a youth service at Stokesley Christian Fellowship. We only had about 5 youth come, but it was a good night. One of the girls is a Year 10, Becky. She came Friday and complained about being older than all of the other kids. I tried to convince her that she should come Sunday, but she simply complained about how boring SCF is. But-- she came! I went and talked her for a bit after. Then, yesterday, she saw me at school and asked if I would sit with her on the bus to the airport tomorrow morning. So I'm excited about that! I have a bus buddy :)

I'll try to update on Monday, but no promises since I'll have to completely repack for a week in London!

Kids, Travels, and a Dog?

So this time I'm under two weeks apart! I'm going to try to make Monday my official update day from now on. We'll see.

The Wednesday night 6th form group I was hoping to start something with failed. Miserably. No one came at all. But hey, the cookies were yummy. Cookie Club is also failing. On an average Thursday there are only 4 kids coming, where there used to be numbers regularly in the 20s. Sheila isn't sure about continuing on with it if they can't get numbers up. I have become much closer with a family from cookie club-- a Year 2 and a Year 6 girl-- Mia and Amber. I went home with them for a bit on Thursday, then had dinner with them on Friday. I'm also going along to Mia's birthday party on Saturday, to help Their mom, Debbie, deal with 13 7 year old girls.

But--all of the kids who were in Cookie Club and no longer come are now in the older kids' group that meets every other Friday! Soon we will have a name and it'll be a lot easier to talk about. We had 19 kids (4 boys!) show up for the American Diner last Friday. Sheila tried to make Philly Cheesesteaks, to no avail. It tasted good-- but it was NOT a cheesesteak. But her Apple Blueberry Pie was awesome. They will ALL (even plus some!) be in my cottage this Friday for a movie night...let's hope everyone fits.

I've gotten to explore some more of the area in recent days. On Saturday one of the guys who works with CC took me to breakfast with his parents- at a small restaurant run in one of their friends' houses! It was wonderful. Andrea and I then rode the old fashioned steam train through the North Yorkshire Moors. It was so pretty--and the station that they use as the Hogwarts station is on the rail. Which was one of the more exciting facts of the day. We also went and looked at an old church with Medieval frescoes still preserved on the inside walls. They were amazing-- pictures of many of my favorites will be up on FB soon. Today I went and walked around Whitby for awhile-- another coastal town up here.

On a less happy note, I'm still struggling a lot with feeling alone and kind of trapped in Stokesley. With no busses after 6, its impossible to get around regularly. I do have a roommate, but she's decided to move to Germany at the end of the week to be an au pair. So who knows if we'll be able to find someone else to move in. Stokesley is really really out of the way for pretty much everything. But that means I am very seriously considering the possibility of adopting a dog. My only real concern with it is money. I only actually work 20 hours a week, so I most definitely have time to put in. But paying all of a dog's bills along with my own will be a challenge on my salary. But perhaps worth it to not be alone constantly.

Apologies and Cookies

I'm so sorry it has taken me so long to update once again. Now that I'm fully set up with internet, I just put off updates because I can do them whenever! So I just realized how long I've put them off. I'll try to be better in future.

Tonight I tried baking. Im not sure how well it went. I mixed up the recipe, attempting to make up my own--which is never a good plan in baking. The cookies are a little iffy looking, but fabulously yummy. Nutella Chocolate chip from a Hazelnut Chocolate chip recipe. The measuring here is entirely different--no cups! And I only have a pyrex liquid measuring cup in ounces...as well as a very ghetto oven, with no actual numbers on it anywhere...But I was inspired. Too many Jamie Oliver cookbooks floating around my life! I now totally have a mini-crush on him, and I'm watching Jamie Oliver's American Roadtrip as I type.

The cookies are indeed for a purpose, as well. Tomorrow night begins the hopes of a sixth form (11th and 12th grade) youth group event. We invited a bunch of sixth formers to my house for a night to hang out and eat cookies. Therefore, I am making the cookies.

Friday starts the younger group-- the year 7s (6th grade) plus some others. We're doing an American dinner night! Philly Cheesesteaks and Apple Blueberry pie (out of Jamie Oliver's American Roadtrip cookbook, in fact...). I've met some of the year 7s at school, so we'll see how friday goes!

In response to Kristen's question on the last post, the Rome trip doesn't mean I'll only be talking in terms of Catholicism, but faith in general. The kids here know very very little about Christianity at all. I got told on Friday that Jesus was most definitely a pimp--by kids who were not at all joking. The first week of GCSE (kind of like AP, but not at all) classes, we asked the kids to stand around the room depending on what they believed about God-- Believe, Not Sure, and Don't Believe. We run about 6 classes, ranging from 6- 15 kids. The total number of kids who claimed a belief in some god was less than 10 among all of the classes. Since they don't believe in God, they figure there's no point in learning anything about any religion. It poses a challenge to teaching them about everything.

Today Mr. Laffan told me that our goal in the community is simply to try to get the kids to not hate those with beliefs. Currently, there is a sense of hostility towards those who do believe, and we're hoping to foster a more open environment simply through knowledge and time spent together. Most of the time, people consider the purpose of a youth worker as conversion--we're here to convert the kids to Christianity. Not at all. We're simply here to make them not hate believers and show them the love that we have for everyone.

This is quote long, so I'll end here, but promise promise promise to update more often from now on!

Frustration and Rome

BT didn't hurry. At all. In fact, they're being so ridiculously slow that Sheila called and filed a complaint. As such, I should have internet by tomorrow. But who knows. I'll be excited to finally not have to have one half hour on the library computer each day. But it means I'm really frustrated with it all.

I got together a bank card, but now i don't know who actually pays me, so I still haven't been actually paid. Lame. Apparently the church pays YFC, who in turn pays me. But Fiona hasn't mentioned any of that to me. So we'll see.

But, working in Stokesley school has been quite fun. I like the job, although I am getting slightly overwhelmed with all Mr. Laffan hopes for me to do. I've become the "Social Justice Representive", or something along those lines. It's not an official title or anything, but I'm apparently starting a social justice lunch club. Keep in mind that I've only been there 4 days...

I've also been offered a trip to Rome. So I'm going. It's at this half term, so the end of October, for 4 days. There are 26 kids going, along with the RE teacher and his wife. The church here is paying my way, so it's amazing to not need to worry about any of the money side. I'll be there as a chaperone, but I've technically been invited because Mr. Laffan and his wife can't talk to the children about actual faith, only about the history of the places we're going. Since I'm a youth worker instead of a teacher, I can talk to them about questions about the actual Christian faith so present in these places. I'm very excited about it-- I've always wanted to go to Rome and the Vatican, and what better way than for free as a school trip chaperone?

I will try to update more later, but I'm out of time on the computer here. I also need to get home so that Claire (my roommate) and I can go shopping in Middlesborough. I really need warm boots and a hat with ear flaps. It is crazy cold here!

Much love to all,
Tabitha

Dependency

I'm learning that I truly am dependent on my technology.

I only have 5 minutes left on the library computer, so this needs to be short.

I still don't have internet or a phone. Hopefully, we'll have both sorted by the end of the week. Then I'll be able to communicate with British and American friends.

Oh, BT, please hurry.

Stokesley

I'm here. Currently, most of the furniture just arrived at my cottage, so I'm staying with John and Sheila until everything is delivered and set. We should be ready for me tomorrow. Then I move down the street into my very own cute little 'cottage'. I'll post pictures, but as of now, I still haven't even seen it! They wanted to surprise me with it furnished.

Travels went well. I met a girl on my flight from Philly to Boston who knows Nick Deere, a friend from Baylor-- totally odd! Then, I made friends with the girl next to me on the long flight from Boston to Dublin and is tudying abroad in Spain. So now I have someone to visit in Spain! I did struggle a bit with the whole getting all of my silly luggage down to the train. But I didn't go through customs! I went through immigration in Ireland, but not in the UK. Kind of made me wonder why I bothered worrying about and getting the visa...

Now we're off for sheila to show me around Stokesley--I'm pumped to see the library! Apparently it's very close to my house :)

It came!

I do officially have a visa now! It came today via UPS. So now I can actually leave the country in the 11 days I'm supposed to leave in.

It's pretty, too :)

The Border Agency is not my friend

Plane tickets are settled and what not, I'm just hoping I can still go on September 1. As of now, my flight consists of Philly to Boston, Boston to Dublin, Dublin to Manchester. Then I'll get a train from Manchester Airport to Middlesbrough station. Hopefully I won't have any delays, or I'll miss flights...

I finally got my sponsorship certification, so I was able to apply for a visa. Unfortunately, I have to wait until next Thursday, then go up to North Philly and get my "biometrics captured". Aka they take a picture and fingerprints. After I get my biometrics done, I have to THEN send in a copy of them, a print out of my online application, and my sponsorship proof to the New York Embassy. Meaning lots of red tape. Gah.

Please be in prayer that the whole process goes quickly, so that I can still fly out on my plane ticket and not need to wait for visa stuff to go through. That will probably require a miracle, so pray hard!

And it begins...

So I'm beginning this endeavor into a travel blog. I have had a ton of people ask me to keep them updated about what's going on with England, so I figured this would be the simplest method of keeping everyone in the loop.

And now I have actual news-- an official job offer!

Stokesley Christian Fellowship has offered me a position in their church. It sound like I'll be basically starting up a youth group for them. They are a young church, only 6 years old, that began as a house church and now meets in the Town Hall on Sunday nights. On Thursdays they run a children's group, but 11 of the girls that attend are moving up into comprehensive school (the equivalent of a combination junior/senior high school, ages 11-18). So I will be doing fellowship and bible study for those girls.

I will also be working with the local Youth For Christ team in that comprehensive school. I'm not sure of what exactly I'll be doing with them, but I know they do lunch clubs, Religious Education courses, and after school clubs.

I'll be living in a 3 bedroom house, with two other local youth workers. For those of you who knew I had been talking to another church, this is the house that the youth worker there, Ste Corner, and the person they hired will also be living. It should be fun! and -even better- its covered by the church, as is my food!

I'm now working on putting together my plane/train tickets and getting a volunteer visa for the year. I plane to leave September 1, so I get to finish out the summer at the country club snack bar. yay?

I will try to continue updating as we figure things out!