This morning a couple from our church, Bill and Elizabeth, tied the knot. They both looked great (Bill in his sharp, new, taylor-made suit!) and even the weather was perfect! Here’s a couple of photos of their big day;
A Smiling Elizabeth
The Happy Couple
Congratulations guys!
A.
“A royal ship is this town too
Stand on it’s shores for a northern view”
On Sunday, Andy and I had the five members of YF round for the afternoon. We have been going through the junior Christianity Explored course with them, and this was our equivalent of a weekend away - an afternoon in glorious Inverkeithing!
After food and a couple of talks, we took advantage of the fact that we are currently a two car house hold, and embarked upon a car treasure hunt. This involved working out a series of clues which Andy had spent most of Saturday preparing, and then answering a question about the location we ended up in.
You might have already guessed, but the opening to this post was one of the clues. I think it is the one which kept both teams stuck the longest. Sophie, Ruth and I even had to phone Andy for help as the only royal ship we could think of was Britannia, and we were pretty sure he didn’t expect us to drive all the way to Edinburgh … Most of you have probably already worked out that the answer was South Queensferry, but even after working out the Queensferry part, both teams still opted to visit North Queensferry first!
After an hour and a half of driving around Inverkeithing, Rosyth, Dalgety Bay and both Queensferrys, visiting locations like the vets, the Cumming’s back garden, and even the dump, my team emerged victorious over Jack, Ceit and Philip. Losers!
I remember at camp once, I told a fellow junior leader that I wasn’t really ‘in to’ treasure hunts as we trudged our way around Blackford Hill, keeping an eye on the hyperactive young girls we were in charge of, as they frantically searched for feathers and snails. Well, I might have to eat my words because when they are as good as the one on Sunday I am definitely ‘in to’ them!
Catherine
Below is an appeal for donations to help pay for our church’s extension. It’s only a few minutes long and has the details of how to donate at the end, so please give it a watch.
Enjoy.
Andy
You fling the door open after church and what do you see? If you attend the Free North, you see the River Ness flowing by, if you open the front door of St C’s you find yourself amidst the wonderful buildings at the summit of the Royal Mile. What about KFC you might ask, what do we see when we open our door? A massive billboard, that’s what we see, with an ‘interesting’ poster on it this month…see if you can make it out:
Andy
Below is a link to Howard’s (pictured) mission trip photos. There are some crackers in there……
Andy
“It’s difficult to know how to describe Josh. All I can say is that he is unforgettable. He’s the kind of guy that will change your life!” John Tweedale, 2007
When the above words were spoken from the puplit a few weeks ago, all Andy and I could do was turn to look at Louise MacMillan in absolute horror. The night before this glowing reference came from his best friend, we had been informed that Josh Kines would be our house guest when the mission team came to stay. Let’s just say we spent the next week officially dreading his arrival.
If you’ve read the post below you will know that it all ended well. Josh was a great guy and we had a fantastic time. But were our lives actually changed? Well, I don’t know about that but I do know that I took a whole day off work on Friday so that I could bake. Yes … I said bake! This had more to do with the new community cafe that was opening at church on Saturday morning than it had to do with Josh - but it was a life turning point none the less.
In preparation for the baking I spent quite a lot of time leafing through the various unused recipe books in my collection, trying to figure out what I could reasonably expect to try my hand at. I finally settled on chocolate chip cookies, flapjacks, chocolate refrigerator cake and chocolate cake (can you spot the theme there?!)
Chocolate Chip Cookies
After an excellent curry evening at the Moirs on Thursday I headed to Tescos to purchase all the ingredients and baking essentials that I would need. This ranged from basic items like flour and a sieve to more exotic ingredients like dried cherries and buttermilk. Except, I couldn’t find buttermilk, not even in Walmart owned Asda so at 12.20am I had to admit defeat and purchase the ingredients to make a buttermilk substitute instead.
On Friday I got up pretty early (considering it was my day off) and set out on my baking adventure. First I made the chocolate cake as it required 1 hour 40 minutes in the oven. Then I made the cookie dough and flapjacks so that they would be ready when the oven was free, and finally the chocolate tray bake. It was all much easier and much more enjoyable than I had ever imagined!
Chocolate Cake
While it was in the oven, the cake rose into quite a large dome shape, so in order to keep it flat, I sliced the dome off the top. I decided to wait until after Youth Club that evening before icing the cake and at one in the morning I was still waiting for the icing to reach the right consistency! The dome had crumbled into 3 pieces but I decided it was still edible and so on Saturday night I was able to create the pièce de résistance:
Birthday and Bye Bye Cake
(Can I just say that once Andy and Josh had actually eaten some of this masterpiece they stopped laughing - for a little while at least!)
So yeah, we may never know if our lives have actually been changed or not (you tell us!) but I have added some more to my domestic abilities so that can only be a good thing. (And I do say ‘Hollaaaaaaaaa’ a bit more too).
Catherine
Us with Josh
Anchorman, Old School and Talladega Nights. These films have a couple of things in common; they are all Will Ferrell classics and also, just a few of the DVD’s that we had hidden when we heard that we were having a member of the mission team from Mississippi to stay at our house for a week. It’s not that we thought that we shouldn’t be watching these sorts of films; it’s rather that we just wanted to make sure that we weren’t offending our new lodger with our apparent penchant for immature humour. We needn’t have worried.
The guy staying with us was Josh, a 28 year old bloke originally from Alabama, who’s now part of the pastoral team at Madison Heights Presbyterian Church in Mississippi, and a great laugh. As soon as Josh arrived on Saturday night we hit it off. We had the same (appalling) sense of humour and also shared the same fondness for staying up late with a cup of coffee and chatting.
The idea behind getting the mission team over here was to get them involved in running a kids’ club at the church during the October break. The club averaged around 30 kids a day and some came back for Sunday School once the club had finished. Success with these sorts of things is so difficult to gauge, but the enthusiasm of the kids was certainly a positive sign. It was hard work for all involved but worth every second.
There were a few real highlights during the week. On a couple of evenings I had the chance to jam with Brian - another of the mission team, who had a real gift when it came to tinkering on the ivories. Unsurprisingly, considering where the team were from, we ended up playing some Skynrd!
Brian
The trip we took to St. Andrews was also a highlight. Josh, Howard (also on the mission trip, and a man who owns two three-legged dogs!!?!) and I sauntered round the ancient town, checking out the Old Course, some shops and the ruined castle. What will stick in my mind the most though, is the sheer unadulterated joy and hysteria that engulfed both Howard and Josh when they saw the street sign at the mouth of a little lane just off the High Street. It read, ‘Butt Wynd’ (pronounced ‘wind’ if you’re from the deep south). This was immature humour that I’m sure would make even Will Ferrell proud!
Howard
Andy
Yesterday was the men’s day away in Aviemore, with eight of us heading north to the Highlands planning a walk in the hills. We set off around half nine and adhered to the ‘must stop at Ballinluig’ law, where we feasted on a full breakfast and coffee. Delicious.
The walk in Aviemore was a fairly leisurely affair, which took us a couple of hours. A mountain bike race was using the same path that we had decided upon, so every few minutes we had to make way for a knackered, mud-splattered cyclist. I felt sorry for them until I remembered that these crazy fools were doing this voluntarily.
Once we had enjoyed our fair share of the fresh northern air, we thought more food would be the order of the day and set about devouring some of the biggest and best burgers I have ever tasted. 24 hours later and I am still full.
Here are a few photos of our day.
Andy
What would our ministers be up to if they hadn’t been called to the ministry?
An impossible question to answer you may say, but no, I’ve dipped into a parallel universe and found out! Click the links and discover where the Free Church finest would be………
David Meredith discovered a hidden talent and became a Head Chorister:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.lammas.co.uk/images/lamm093d.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.lammas.co.uk/meredith.htm&h=170&w=170&sz=9&hl=en&start=2&um=1&tbnid=sZ2LCuQADaHQNM:&tbnh=99&tbnw=99&prev=/images%3Fq%3Ddavid%2Bmeredith%2Bgolden%2Btreble%2Bsolos%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26sa%3DN
David Robertson decided that keep-fit was the order of the day:
http://www.drptonline.com/
Iver Martin brought cheer to people’s hearts with his Cornish singing:
http://www.chrishambly.com/2005/02/autumn-leaves-cornish-singing-with.html
Derek Lamont moves to the Kingdom and buys a drill:
http://www.dereklamontjoiners.co.uk/index2.html
Neil MacMillan leaves for the States and decides that coaching hockey is a man’s game:
http://ohiobobcats.cstv.com/sports/w-fieldh/mtt/macmillan_neil00.html
The mind boggles!
Andy
We had friends staying with us over the weekend and on Friday night the conversation somehow turned (probably due to the boring Tevez transfer saga) to football agents. It was suggested that perhaps the Free Church should invest in some agents for ministers, as it would ensure that congregations don’t stay vacant for long. I am hoping that if the Community Worker role doesn’t work out that I will be asked by those in power at the Mound to be the first of such agents.
The role of the agents would be straightforward. If a minister gets bored or feels that he is fast becoming a big fish in a small pond, then I would ring up other churches and discreetly tell them that my minister is looking for a transfer to a bigger church. If one of these larger churches agrees that my minister would be a good acquisition, then I would act as a middleman in the negotiations - with the new church obviously supplying me with backhanders like a nice new Rolex, new car - that sort of thing. If I come to represent any up-and-coming ministers (perhaps even students) then it would be my responsibility to get a DVD of all their ‘best bits’ made up and sent out to vacant congregations in order to get the minister the most lucrative deal.
Part of my job would obviously be to deal with the substantial press that a Free Church transfer would bring. Fortunately, with my wife on The Monthly Record team, I am well positioned to supply the press with little snippets of stories to keep the public on the edge of their seat.
All I need now is an aging BMW, a top of the range mobile phone, a shiny grey suit and a lot of gold jewellery and I’ll be ready to be the Free Church equivalent of Atholl Still.
Andy
|
