updates from the weekend...

Well, I haven't posted in a few days, but we've mostly had free time, a LOT of which we have just spent getting to know each other, talking lots, laughing lots, wandering the city a bit as well. We've spend lots of time enjoying all of the cultural differences - we have people here from England, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, South Africa, Canada, New Zealand... needless to say we've had tons to laugh about. From Kiwis calling hoodies "jumpers" to Stephanie (one of the girls on our trip) telling hilarious stories of growing up with "redneck" parents (her words) and once cutting her leg open as a child and her mom sealing it closed with super glue!

Yesterday, a few of us went to church at Urban Vineyard, the church that is hosting us for our school (all our classes and meals will be there from now on). It's a very small church, but everyone was SO excited for us to be there, and took a special time during the service to pray for our group which was very sweet. Some of my favorite things about the church - they have a row of sofas on the front row, and during the first two songs before the kids are released to children's church, they give them all little bells/drums/etc. to play and they all play along with the band. It's quite adorable.

Today we officially had our "first day of school". And true to form, we spent it mostly doing orientation-type things. We've been told that the amount of lectures that we'll hear during our 3 months here is equal to 30 years worth of sermons. For that reason, we aren't even required to go to church (we are encouraged to though), but they said sometimes it will be hard to pack in any more information at the end of the week!

They told us today that we'll hear next week what the outreach possibilities are (there will be 3 options), then we'll have a week to pray about it and we make our decisions during week 3. So, two weeks from now I will know where I'm going, which is so exciting. We are finding out even sooner than I expected, but I still wish we were finding out even sooner!

Good news - the weather's getting better! I'm still freezing most of the time (luckily we have tea every 10 minutes here, so I can keep warm that way) but there were a few hours today when it was comfortable actually. We are going out to eat tonight with our "small groups" - each is led by a staff member - so I'm pretty excited to eat somewhere in the city! Will post photos soon!

Tons of love!