General Update

Hey friends! I thought another update might be in order, since much has happened over the past couple of weeks, as we have continued to settle in and make St Andrews our home. So here goes!

- Well, we've been in our flat now for almost two weeks. Over this period of time, I have felt a noticeable daily increase in how "at home" I've felt here. When we first moved in, both Liana and I felt very unsettled - in some ways, as weird and out-of-place as at any other point since we've arrived. I think this was probably due in large part to the fact of our staying with the Watts-es for our first week. We arrived to someone's home - a place that was lived in, set up, and filled with all the things (physical and otherwise) that make a home a home. Their gracious and loving welcome allowed us to make the transition here in a very comforting and comfortable environment. When the day came for us to move into our own place, well... it was just a place. The walls were bare, the furniture was odd... it just felt - unknown. And it has taken some "wearing in", as it were. The good news is that this continues to happen; slowly, yes. But it is happening. This will be a good home.

- Speaking a little less metaphysically, the flat itself is, all in all, pretty great. It's small, yes, but it has pretty much everything we need. Liana has been working hard at cleaning the place (ask her about the bathroom sometime - she had to deep-clean it in stages over a period of two days), since standards of cleanliness just don't seem to be quite the same as they are at home. Thankfully, we got the place through a great leasing agency, who has already (1) sent a handyman to fix the fridge door; (2) sent a plumber to fix the toilet; (3) sent another handyman to re-caulk the bathtub; and (4) convinced the landlord to purchase a new vacuum cleaner (the one already here looked like it was an early 20th century prototype). We've got some odd furniture: two IKEA poangs, a white/brown rattan chair, and a retro [in the bad way] wingback. The under-the-counter fridge is actually totally do-able with the grocery store so close by, and I've taken on the role of dishwasher, which I've actually been finding to be something I enjoy doing in the evenings. The best part about the flat is probably the location (it's directly across the street from the library, and only a five-minute walk (or less) from almost everything you'd want to get to in town. But my favourite parts are: (1) the fact that it's so close to my office that I can walk home for lunch; and (2) the big windows, especially on the eastern side, resulting in (a) the morning sun (when it shows up) pouring into the apartment, and (b) in this view:

Yup. That's the view out our windows.

- We rented a car and drove down to Edinburgh to pick up our shipment from a warehouse near the airport. I drove. That was... a little crazy. Once you got used to it though, it was pretty cool! And now I can say I've driven a Vauxhall! Wahoo. My lasting impression of driving here is that I was all of a sudden much more conscious of the fact that I was actually sitting on a certain side of the car. I had all this real estate to my left that I had to be aware of! I probably drove more safely than I normally would at home, simply by virtue of the fact that my brain was entirely engaged in concentrating on what I was doing the whole time.

- We've been here three Sundays now, and over that time we've gone to two different churches. The first week we went to the Kingdom Vineyard church with Steve & Elissa. The past two weeks we've gone to Trinity Church, which is the more contemporary service affiliated with Holy Trinity, a very historical church (John Knox's church!) affiliated with the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian). A number of folks who we've met through St. Mary's go there. We've enjoyed all the services we've been to, but we're not sure yet where we'll stick. We're both excited about this opportunity to try out some different places and different worshipping traditions. Still on the list to potentially check out are the "regular" (read: more high-church) Holy Trinity service, All Saints Church (Episcopalian), the Baptist church, and the Free church.

- The community of St Mary's has lived up to its reputation, as we have been wonderfully welcomed here with dinner invitations from five different families over the course of the past two weeks! Wow. Elissa jokes that the first few months in St Andrews it feels like you're going on a whole bunch of first dates with other couples/families, testing out the water to see who you're going to be a good fit with. :-) I guess there are similarities, but truly I have just been grateful that people have been so openly willing and excited to invite us into their homes, share a meal with us, and get to know us. It's been exciting - and a bit tiring. But good tired, if you know what I mean. We've continued to see Steve, Elissa, and Isaac whenever we can (including Sunday night Downton Abbey viewing parties), and I'm so very glad to be getting to know these wonderful people better. Praise God for bringing them into our lives! Hopefully, as time goes by, there will be some other relationships with some of the folks we've met so far that will deepen and solidify. We will trust in God for that.

- I know that some of you are probably very much wanting to read about how Liana's job hunt is going, and how my school work is progressing, but I promised myself I wasn't going to write super-long blog posts. So I'll set aside the former for Liana to tell you about herself, and I'll save the latter to update you on another time.

We are thinking about you all back at home. May you all know God's blessing as you work for the building of his kingdom with the gifts that are yours by his Spirit!

On a run this morning: the West Sands at sunrise.
 It's not really in the frame, but the St Andrews skyline would be off to the right.