After lots of thinking, plotting and planning about what was the best way to get from Miami to Lexington, from 36 hours on a bus, to an exciting road trip i plumped for a last minute flight via Detroit (now my favourite airport). The flight gave me a free car which i picked up at Lexington airport and i got to drive in a whole new area of the states, very different and with much more chilled drivers than i found around Florida. My new wonderful American family (The Hughes) met me at the airport and i was whisked away at 10pm to meet a group making last minute plans for a college (university) age prayer retreat weekend that was beginning the next day.
I got to go away with the group the next day and had a great weekend making lots of new friends. During the weekend the group focus was to simply pray, sounds like a long time i know, praying for a weekend when most of us i guess struggle with even 5 minutes of prayer. I guess some people really think prayer is a bit weird, at best its cute and quaint and at worst its crazy and talking to yourself. But how do we explain all the times it seems we pray and things seem to happen. I know for me i love it when all those "coincidences" happen. The big thing i know i and a lot of Christians don't do enough of is listening to what God is saying to us. We ask him a question and don't listen long enough to hear if there is an answer or not. Some people think God doesn't speak to people coz no body ever hears him, but if you can't tune your radio in and hear the radio, does that mean that Chris Moyles (man i miss whoever) or whatever radio station you listen to aren't there speaking? (They have cakes made of ice cream here)
Anyway enough on that thought, i had a lot of fun meeting new friends, they were a great bunch who really cared for each other, and even if they couldn't play football (soccer) i still kinda liked em:)
During the next week or so i spent time around the UK college campus. UK stands for University of Kentucky although when i first arrived i just thought they really liked the United Kingdom a lot as everyone had t-shirts and there were hundreds of signs with UK on them. Although it does seem they like the accent, i was stopped one day whilst out running by 2 girls in a car asking for directions and whilst i couldn't help them they did shout out that they loved my accent. It made me laugh a lot that people here think the Yorkshire accent is sophisticated.
Bill who i am staying with is the chaplain of the university wesley foundation, a block of halls for christians studying at the uni. They have a service together every week and i shared my story and some of my life experiences the monday night after i had arrived. I spent a lot of time around this campus meeting with other students and hanging around, generally drinking coffee and playin around - does this mean i can say i've been to uni now? I also visited Asbury which has a Christian college and a Bible college. In a lot of ways this is very much a more Christian country than the real UK.
But what else have i learned of Americans in Kentucky so far. Well they could not exist without cinnamon and peanut butter, they like guns, they have drive through everythings, they think 45p a litre for petrol is horrendously expensive, they have churches everywhere and they are fantastically generous and are looking after me so well.
I got to go away with the group the next day and had a great weekend making lots of new friends. During the weekend the group focus was to simply pray, sounds like a long time i know, praying for a weekend when most of us i guess struggle with even 5 minutes of prayer. I guess some people really think prayer is a bit weird, at best its cute and quaint and at worst its crazy and talking to yourself. But how do we explain all the times it seems we pray and things seem to happen. I know for me i love it when all those "coincidences" happen. The big thing i know i and a lot of Christians don't do enough of is listening to what God is saying to us. We ask him a question and don't listen long enough to hear if there is an answer or not. Some people think God doesn't speak to people coz no body ever hears him, but if you can't tune your radio in and hear the radio, does that mean that Chris Moyles (man i miss whoever) or whatever radio station you listen to aren't there speaking? (They have cakes made of ice cream here)
Anyway enough on that thought, i had a lot of fun meeting new friends, they were a great bunch who really cared for each other, and even if they couldn't play football (soccer) i still kinda liked em:)
During the next week or so i spent time around the UK college campus. UK stands for University of Kentucky although when i first arrived i just thought they really liked the United Kingdom a lot as everyone had t-shirts and there were hundreds of signs with UK on them. Although it does seem they like the accent, i was stopped one day whilst out running by 2 girls in a car asking for directions and whilst i couldn't help them they did shout out that they loved my accent. It made me laugh a lot that people here think the Yorkshire accent is sophisticated.
Bill who i am staying with is the chaplain of the university wesley foundation, a block of halls for christians studying at the uni. They have a service together every week and i shared my story and some of my life experiences the monday night after i had arrived. I spent a lot of time around this campus meeting with other students and hanging around, generally drinking coffee and playin around - does this mean i can say i've been to uni now? I also visited Asbury which has a Christian college and a Bible college. In a lot of ways this is very much a more Christian country than the real UK.
But what else have i learned of Americans in Kentucky so far. Well they could not exist without cinnamon and peanut butter, they like guns, they have drive through everythings, they think 45p a litre for petrol is horrendously expensive, they have churches everywhere and they are fantastically generous and are looking after me so well.
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