Vain Rabbits and Scones in Scone

We're doing laundry for the first time today, so we're a bit tethered down today and I've got a little time to write, so I figured I'd give everyone a little update of everything we've been up to this past week. This will be a bit lengthy, but I'll cover a lot of ground.

First, we've been doing quite a bit of hillwalking, which is like hiking but less intense. Our cottage is basically in a valley between two massive hills, and we've been walking up around both sides twice now. On one side is a nice grassy hill with some beautiful views out over the Firth of Tay. The people who own our cottage actually own the land, and have two beautiful horses who roam the hill grazing. They've also somehow managed to drag a full sized picnic table up to the top of the hill, where we've enjoyed a wonderful lunch. Past that is Beal Hill, with majestically steep slopes and massive trees wrinkled and scarred by the constant wind. A little further on past that is an eerie wooded area looking down into another valley, which reminds me of the “Wood between the Worlds” in C.S. Lewis' Magician's Nephew.

On the other side of our cottage is a series of steep, rocky craigs, which are a bit more intimidating. We managed to walk down the road a bit though and find a way up to the top of them from the side, rather than going straight up. It is here that we discovered quite by accident what now makes up one of Chelsea's favorite past times. All across the steep face of the hill facing our cottage, there are literally hundreds of rabbit holes, barely visible from a distance as little brown pocks in the grass. And whenever we come tromping within 50 yards or so (for even when we try to be sneaky and quiet, surely we must sound like clumsy oafs to the rabbits,) all the rabbits that had been going about all their little rabbit business (more on that later) dart out from unnoticed hiding spots-behind briars or round a bend in the cliff or camouflaged in stillness-and into their little holes. Every time we go up that hill now, we can be sure we'll see at least 50 or 60 rabbits, hopping about. As I said, this has developed into a hobby for Chelsea: bunny watching. It's like bird watching, but exponentially cuter. We'll climb up to the top of one craig, find a nice rock to sit on, and from it look down onto the face of another, where inevitably there will be three or four bunnies going about their business.

And what is the business of bunnies, exactly? I for one am convinced that it a large part of a typical Scottish bunny's day is occupied by matters of lawn care. Seriously, there are all these briar bushes (briar patch!) sprawled out across the hill. Many of the rabbit holes are hidden cleverly underneath the bushes. But the strangest part is the unavoidable sense that the rabbits are purposely trimming these little hedges into designs and shapes, like lawn decorations. There are a great many of them with odd, eerily geometrical shapes like cylinders and cones and rectangular prisms. Up to about a foot off the ground, the bushes have smooth, flat edges, and even sharp, angular corners. But wherever a bush grows any higher than that, they go wild again, chaotic and disorderly. To spend so much time with such meticulous care on these bushes--surely these must be the most shallow rabbits in the entire world.

Aside from hillwalking and bunny watching, we've also done a bit of cycling. First, we biked down to Scone, which is a little over 5 miles away and took about an hour (biking the hills in Athens got nothing on this). For a good two mile stretch of it, we nervously found ourselves on a small highway with no bike lanes, and basically almost died every time a transfer truck blazed past us. Luckily, on the way back, we found some back roads we could take and avoid all but about a tenth of a mile on the main road. Scone is a pretty small town, with really only one street with any business going on. We did manage to find a nice restaurant where we had dinner (our first date as a married couple!) We also picked up a few groceries, which were great fun cycling back up the 5 miles of hill to the cottage. Sadly though, we couldn't find a single scone to be had in Scone. It was truly disappointing.

We've also cycled to Rait, which is a tiny little village about two miles away from our cottage. “Village” is a tricky Scottish word I think, that's never properly been translated into the American dialect. Because really, I think the most meaningful translation we might understand is “neighborhood,” because that's all it really amounts to. Really there's quite a few neighborhoods in metro-Atlanta that are five or six times bigger than Rait.

However, to Rait's credit, they do have the Rait Antique Center, which is a group of eight or so antique dealers located just outside the”neighborhood.” Which was nice for us, though we couldn't exactly afford a late Victorian dining room set, and even if we could, getting back up to the cottage by bike might have been a problem. But, they did have a coffee shop in one of stores, with some outdoor seating with a nice view, so we had some mochas and a good time. There was also a little vegetable stand set up from a local farmer, and we were able to get a bag of potatoes and a bulb of garlic for 2 pounds, which was quite nice (we neglected to buy any sort of spices at the grocery store, so that garlic has been fantastic).

So, that's what we've been up to the past week, interspersed with a few lazy days around the cottage, playing ping pong out in the shed (I became quite a good ping pong player in my days at West Georgia, but Chelsea has managed to achieve glorious victory over me, winning 21 to15. So our record now stands at a lot of games to one. What? She won't let me let her win!) We're going to make another trip to Scone, hopefully tomorrow, to pick up some more groceries and visit the Scone Palace, where a whole bunch of cool and important stuff happened.

Short and Sweet

As promised in the title, I’ll keep this one short and sweet…with pictures!! We’re at our second cottage now, and it’s absolutely beautiful here. We’re basically in the middle of nowhere…with no car, but it’s a nice escape! The people who own the cottage live next door, and they gave us some bikes so we could ride into town and such. They are Christians, and helped direct us to a church that we could get to on the bikes. But here’s some pics of the cottage:





Besides all that, we have a ping pong table in the shed. Seth’s much better than me, but I think I’m rapidly improving…
Here's a look around the cottage...




Lastly, I’d just like to stop and remark on how God has provided for us and how much that has really blown my mind. Honestly, He didn’t have to make things run so smoothly for us, but he has and he continues to do so. He continues to bless us with this wonderful break where we can just enjoy each other as well as His presence. Every little obstacle that seems to come into our way – He sweeps it aside. It’s just that He doesn’t have to do this, but He chooses to, out of His love for us.
Oh yeah, one more thing. British television…very entertaining.

Germans Making Haggis - Part 2

For your viewing pleasure, a few pics:

The beach:


On a walk:


Creepiest whiskey distillery in the world:


More beach:


Inside of our cottage (a mess as we had just arrived!)


As for part 2, it's been quite a journey since the library this afternoon. For the night, we are actually doing something called Couchsurfing. Some find it suspicious, but as far as I have heard of others' experiences, it's a safe network of places to stay while you are traveling. You go onto the couchsurfing website and find someone in the area where you need a place to stay, look over their profile, you message back and forth to see if you can work something out. I think it might be safer than it sounds! The person has to be verified and you read reviews others have written about them (if it were me, I wouldn't stay anywhere without verification and reviews). So we've found a friend who will let us stay. He's a German living in Scotland, and he actually has his own touring business here in Scotland. There are two German ladies staying here as well who are paying to take his tours. For the paid tour, you stay in his house, he cooks for you, and takes you out on daytrips around Scotland as long as you stay.

So we arrived here this afternoon - he lives 6 miles outside of Elgin, which is a city in Scotland. He owns a little farmhouse, and he's fascinated with Native American culture, so he also has a tipi, which we are staying in for the night. It's very cozy with sheepskin blankets! When we arrived, he was very nice. He showed us around the tipi and the house, and then made us coffee as well. He asked if we wanted a traditional Scottish dinner and I said yes, while Seth seemed a little hesitant! He made us haggis, which if you don't know what that is, you ought to look it up. We also had tatties (boiled potatoes) with steamed broccoli. It was delicious. We ate with the two German ladies, so it was German on one side of the table, English on the other, with our host in the middle translating. It was a wonderful night. After that, he took us down to the beach for the wonderful sunset. He then showed us this weird New Age village that the town is now famous for, called the Findhorn Foundation.

Either way, it's been a great night and we are tucked into the tipi with WiFi and feeling pretty happy. We miss everyone - thank you for all your prayers!

To explain the title of part 1, we were just hanging out at the cottage two nights ago and on BBC radio there was a woman speaking German with a Scottish accent. What?? It was so weird.

Radio DJ's Speaking German with a Scottish Accent Part 1

So we've managed to make it back to another library in another town. Vivienne, who owns the cottage we were staying in (and is a wonderfully nice person), was going to town and offered to give us a ride. It turned out to be only 6 miles from where we're staying tonight, so it worked out perfectly, and cut our taxi fare considerably. So, we're limited on time again with the library computers, but we've got 15 minutes to spare this time instead of 5, so I'll try and give a quick recap of our trip so far.

The flight was uneventful, and therefore wonderful. We were able to sleep 5 out of 7 hours of the transatlantic flight (Benadryl-very good idea). Customs and immigration went surprisignly smoothly, after all the mess we'd been through getting our passports back. They were a little suspicious of me, but in the end did let me in with just my ferry ticket to Paris as my evidence of leaving the country. Now I just need to get another plane ticket back to America before we go to Paris, so that I can reenter the UK again from there. So praise the Lord for all of that-it went miraculously well.

So then we still had to make it to Buckie, a small Scottish fishing village. I was thinking the other night, our chain of non-stop transportation since the wedding has been pretty crazy. We took a limo, to a car, to a plane, to a bus, to a train, to a taxi. So that's a summary of a good portion of our day the 20th of July. The details of all that are largely boring, other than the fact that I think we made quite a few people angry on the train with all our baggage (a year's worth) splaying about all over the place. But we finally made it, and aside from those we annoyed on the train, everyone has been really nice.

Our cottage was wonderful, small and cozy but plenty of space for just the two of us. We managed to pick up some groceries before we got our taxi, so we were pretty much set for the next few days. We had to explore though, of course, so, despite the rain, we walked the three miles into town (when we were able to make the last post) and saw all the splendours of tiny Buckie. It certainly wasn't a tourist town, but we quite enjoyed getting a taste of every day life up here. The ocean crashing over the rocks, misting us with spray and terrifying winds even a few hundred yards back on the street we were standing on, was awful and beautiful. We enjoyed a nice pie and chip dinner from a local restaurant which we ate on the go. It certainly wasn't what we expected, but we really did enjoy it.


Alright, my computer time's almost up. I'll have to finish this with Part 2 soon, which hopefully I can also explain the title.

The Breaking Point

We're safe and happy in Scotland for our honeymoon! We love and miss you all so much! We had to walk 3 miles in the rain to get to some internet access at the library, and we had a time limit of an hour. So we've only got 5 minutes left now and don't have time to write anything new. But here's a post I wrote a few days before the wedding but never got around to publishing. Hopefully we'll get easier internet access soon and can update on more current events.

Since Chelsea's already written on this, and I promised to try and keep things shorter, I'm gonna go through this quick.

I had quite a different experience than Chelsea with her visa shipment, even if we came to similar conclusions in the end. This past Wednesdays was one of the most difficult days of my life. The pressure and stress of the wedding, of traveling, had all been building and weighing on both of us for so long already. And then, like all the days before, another disappointing trip to the mailbox with no passport inside. On top of all that, I'd come down with a painful sinus infection, my head throbbing all day long, and on the day before I was supposed to go camping in the woods for my bachelor's party.

Then Chelsea told me the news about her visa being shipped overnight. That was supposed to be good news, right? It was an answer to prayer. But somehow I couldn't bring myself to be joyful about it. All I could think were things like, why isn't mine coming? What good is hers if mine's not here and I can't go with her? Over and over in my head ran the thought, "We're supposed to be together. We're supposed to be together." I thought, mine was supposed to have been mailed 5 business days ago, why isn't it here yet? Why is all this happening? And then I felt guilty for thinking all those things, for not being happy about Chelsea's good news.

I called Chelsea and broke down. I told her I couldn't take anymore. That I couldn't withstand any more trials, any more tests from God, that it was too hard, that I was exhausted emotionally and spiritually, and now being sick, even physically. I was at my breaking point.

But God knew that, and pushed me just a little bit further. Chelsea calmed me down, reminded me to take things one day at a time. I had to keep on going, just a little bit further, further than I thought possible.

Finally, Thursday, God brought relief. I called the visa center, and they said that my passport had been overnighted the day before as well, just like Chelsea's. I looked up the tracking number-and it was headed to Chelsea's house. They shipped our materials together. We were together all along. On top of all that, my prescriptions began working and I felt good enough to enjoy our camping trip.

The point: God know's how much we can handle, knows what we're ready for, knows our breaking point, better than we do.

Really I'm Just a Speck

I realize we've been writing on here well before we'll ever be in London, but I think that all started when we wondered if we'd ever get to London at all! Well, I finally received some news yesterday. I got an email from the visa center telling me that my visa had been approved and was on its way!! Yes, it was incredibly exciting to find out that my visa had been approved (a miracle within itself) but more than that, I realized that it was going to take three days for them to mail it here, meaning it might not make it. So, at first, I was completely elated and a little sad all at once, since we'd have to change the plane tickets.

I tried not to have those feelings - I've been trying to follow God's word where it reads "Rejoice in the Lord always" (Philippians 4:4), meaning that I was going to be rejoicing in God's plan for us no matter if the visa was approved or showed up on time or not. Yet as I continued to read the email, I saw that my visa was being overnighted to my house! How is this possible, when the visa center said that it would always take at least 3 days mailing time to receive documents and that they never make special circumstances for anyone?? God! That is the only way.

At that moment, my mind was a little blown. I realize that the God of the universe, who is so big and mighty and great, had decided to let things go completely smoothly in my little, ridiculous life. Why would He, who has the entire world to care for, and who surely could have made a plan for me if the visa had not shown up on time, care to make this miracle (and yes, I say miracle, folks) happen? Honestly, I started to cry, because I realized that He didn't have to do that for me, but He did anyway. Because He loves me, because He wants to make me happy.

And what do I do in return? I am selfish, I care about only myself and my own troubles. God is so amazing and good! And I'm not one to use the word amazing unless something REALLY is amazing...

This all made me think about this video I've seen online before. It's from the website Symphony of Science, in which they make autotune montage videos of scientists. It's kinda weird, but mostly awesome. Anyway, my favorite is posted here:




Carl Sagan, one of the main scientists featured in the video, could never believe in a sovereign God who could create the universe. Yet I believe this video holds immense proof of God's presence in our world. Think about the lyrics "The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms fit together" - isn't that just true? For we are "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139), handcrafted by the Creator? And He took the time to make each and every one of us. Yet at the same time, as Bill Nye comments, "I'm just a guy standing on a planet, really I'm just a speck." This is true as well. We're just a speck in the great cosmos that God has created, and yet at the same time, He doesn't just rule over us, He wants to have a completely close relationship with each of us. He wants to be our friend, to speak with us everyday. I guess that's why I enjoy this video so much, is because it makes me think about all those things.

I'll be leaving in a few days for the United Kingdom - keep Seth and I in your thoughts and prayers during this time - we'll be sure to keep you updated on all our adventures, as I'm sure they will occur, since weird things just seem to happen to me...

Risks and Rejection

Here's an excerpt of something I wrote in my journal last week.

6/30/10.-
...We can't get on that plane without our passports. I'm terrified they won't make it back in time. We could change our plane tickets-move them back a day or two -for safety. But that's not trusting God. Thtat's trying to make a Plan B. We need no Plan B because our Plan A is the God of the universe. I feel quite sure that if we start meddling, trying to interfere, we'll just get in the way. The Holy Spirit has told me and shown me how if we leave it up to God, He will take care of it and everything will work out, but if we try to take it upon ourselves, as I'm so tempted to do, we'll still make it over there-but we'll lose those first few days of our honeymoon, needlessly pushing our flight back. We'll lose the joy God has set aside for us if we trust Him completely. I'm tempted to play it safe, but I'm deciding right here and now that we won't, that we will take advantage of every blessing God has for us in this situation. He doesn't teach us to play it safe. He teaches us to be risk takers- like the better fate of the servant who invested and multiplied the master's money, compared to the servant who played it safe by burying the money in the ground and doing nothing with it. I'm deciding right now to trust God. That I won't make a Plan B because He is Plan A and there is blessing and joy and fulfillment in Plan A. I'm going to aim for blessing, not safety. I'm trusting Him not to make me eat these words.

I wrote that just a few hours after I got an email from the visa people in Chicago telling me that they needed our marriage certificate...but we're not married yet, so of course we didn't have one to send them. I sent our marriage license instead, along with a letter explaining our circumstances, hoping that might be sufficient.

I found out today that it wasn't. I got a call today from Chicago letting me know that it was in my best interest to withdraw my application, because otherwise they would reject it, which is somehow worse. So, the first point I'd like to make is, that I was right. God's Plan A was far better than our Plan B. He hasn't let me down. If I had tried to intervene, I would have pushed our plane tickets back a few days. Now, I know that would have been for nothing. Now that my visa has been rejected, they'll go ahead and send my passport back to me now. It will be here well in time for our flight. Chelsea's should go without a hitch as well, and should be here soon. He knew my application would be rejected-He knew I didn't need to change those plane tickets. Now, because I trusted Him completely, (even in the face of the terrifying fact that we might not have our passports in time for our flight, that it might screw up really expensive plane tickets), instead of wasting even more money on changing fees with the airlines, and wasting the first few days of our honeymoon, and wasting the first few days of the cottage that I'd already paid for, we'll get to enjoy all of those things. I will enter the UK as a visitor, with my passport in hand, and we'll get to experience all the joy of those 3 or 4 days, that could have been lost if we hadn't trusted God, if we hadn't took that risk. There was a trial before us. We knew it was a trial, we knew that we could choose to either trust God or try to take care of things ourselves. Praise the Lord, for, this time at least, we have made it through this trial victoriously.


But of course, that's not all there is. Now we're right smack in the middle of a new trial. Yes, part of that trial is figuring out what to do, pratically, with me. I'll go over as a visitor, but then at some point, I'll have to come back to America and reapply for my visa once we have our marriage certificate. So we have to figure out the logistics of that. But that just comes down to money, really. Repaying the insanely expensive visa application fee, buying an extra round trip plane ticket so that I can come back to the States for a month to reapply for my visa. It's just money, and figuring out what we're supposed to do with it. God has blessed us so incredibly and beyond my own comprehension with our financial situation though, that at this point, that sort of trial isn't even that difficult. I'm hyper-aware of the fact that it's all God's money anyway; that if His plan involves us dropping an unexpected thousand bucks along the way, then so be it. I know without a doubt that He will provide that money, and that He will bless us tenfold for trusting all of our financial concerns to Him. For me, right now, that's the easy part.

What's really difficult for me now is responding appropriately to this rejection. I've gotten a lot of rejection in the past year or so.
First, I was rejected by the Honors department at UGA for my applications for the Rhodes and Marshall scholarships.
Then again for the Fulbright Scholarship.
Then I was rejected by the University of Oxford completely-forget funding, I didn't even get into the school.
Then I started submitting my poems to a number of journals and magazines, which I knew going into it would lead to rejection-acceptance rates are incredibly low-but it was still rejection nonetheless, and quite a lot of it.
Then, I was rejected for quite a few jobs I applied for in June trying to earn some extra cash before the wedding.
And now my visa application has been rejected.

Dealing with rejection is incredibly difficult for me. It's something I've been struggling with my entire life; I've constantly been seeking the approval of man. From how I did in sports, to how I performed in school, to the girl I had a crush on, I wanted people's approval. I wanted people to tell me that I had done a good job. That what I did was worth something, that I made the right decision. Especially with this recent string of rejections, I have felt incredible amounts of embarrassment and shame. That horrible little voice inside my head that says "You're not good enough." That I'm not a good enough student to get scholarships or get into school. That my poems aren't good enough to be published. That my resume isn't good enough to get me a job. Even with this last one, with the visa, that voice still persists, as though it is somehow some character default of my own that we are getting married this month instead of last month. I'm embarrassed to tell people about it. I don't want people to know I've failed.

But those are not righteous thoughts. Those are not from the Lord. Those thoughts are from the enemy, and they can bring no good or edification in my life. So now, much as I saw on June 30th that a trial of faith and trust was before me, I see that there is a trial before me now. God teaches us to find our value, our worth, in Him. To seek His approval, not the approval of man. That I know is the trial before me now, as I deal with this rejection. It is the same trial that has been set before me after each of these rejections this past year. Most of those trials, I failed. I felt despair, depression, anger, resentment, and bitterness-towards those that rejected me, towards God for not preventing that rejection. I've been working on it, and I did better with some of those rejections than others. Now though, right now, just as I chose to trust God on the 30th, now I am choosing to seek only the approval of God. I am choosing to respond to this rejection only as God would have me do. I'm choosing to recognize and remember that we worship the God that chose meek, lowly David, not his older, stronger brothers.

For anyone out there actually trying to keep up with this blog, sorry for this long, heavy post. I don't intend to make this a pattern. Things are kind of crazy and intense right now though, as Chelsea demonstrated in the last post. There's a little pun Chelsea and I and some of our friends like to play around with--intentionally mixing up "intense" with "in tents," so you might say something like, "Whoa, that's intense. Like camping." Maybe it's not as clever as we think it is. All the cool kids do it though, really. Anyway, this long post was really unavoidable because, as Chelsea wrote to me in a text the other day, we're about to enter a three ring circus. I think perhaps we're already in it.

The First Post

Well, this blog has been created by Seth and I to hopefully document our adventures in the UK. It's less than two weeks until our wedding now and I'm feeling overwhelmed by it all. Why? Let me explain...

1. We're getting married.

2. I just tried to figure out how to pack for a year in a duffel bag and a backpack. That was interesting.

3. Visas

Oh, the visas. If you've been around either of us recently, you've heard all about it. We couldn't apply for the visas until the end of June, and now they are to arrive back the day we get on the plane. BUT we can't get on the plane without the visas and our passports, which are with the visas. Yes, I realize this is a problem. Yet I also realize something else - that God is complete in control of our lives. Of course I'm scared - we could lose all the money Seth put into the plane tickets, we could not make it to where we were supposed to stay, his visa could end up being refused and then what? All these are obvious realities, but it doesn't really matter. Those things may seem bad to us as humans, but if they happen, I know they are a part of God's perfect plan. I know that God has a plan for us, and it may be for everything to go smoothly and it may not. Whatever it is, I want that perfect plan. It's hard for me to say that and not get a stomachache because I am anxious, but I realize that if I'm not in His perfect will, then I'm out of it. And that's no good at all!

I leave you with the verse I've been living on:
"For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?" - Matthew 6:25

If you're reading this, I assume you're interested/care about Seth and I and what happens in our futures. I ask that you would pray for us in this time, that God would provide. And thanks for keeping up with us - hopefully these posts will become much more interesting than this one!