Directions to my church (sorta)

If you are coming to hear me preach tomorrow, we are meeting at Delta Secondary School. The address is 4615 51st Avenue, Ladner.

The easiest way to get there is...

1. Drive to Ladner
2. Continue driving down Ladner Trunk Rd.
3. You will pass Blockbuster and Shell on your right.
4. Continue to drive through the lights (Arthur Dr.)
5. Turn at the first left (51 St.)
6. Drive down this road till you see DSS on your right.

Hope that works!

Cathedral and Castle - Day Eight

I slept in a bit, but managed to muster some energy for the day. Roblyn and I went into Lincoln to check out the cathedral and the castle there. I was excited!



Lincoln Cathedral was used in the Da Vinci Code film. The movie was okay, I liked the book better of course. The whole place was quite impressive. I am speechless...here are some photos:









Probably the biggest highlight for Roblyn and me was the "Lincoln Imp". Legend has it Satan sent two imps to reek havoc on earth. At some point they reached the Lincoln Cathedral and caused a stir by turning over tables and knocking over the bishop and whatnot. An Angel came out of a hymnbook and started attacking them. One cowered away while the other threw rocks. The Angel managed to turn the rock thrower into stone! The other imp fled. It took us awhile, but we managed to find the Lincoln Imp. By this one pillar we saw this box that said "20p to light up the Imp". What amazing light would shine down on the Imp, we thought! I hope you're as dazzled as we were from this photograph of the historic event.


20p well spent!

Right beside the cathedral is the castle. We walked over and here is proof!


Lincoln Cathedral from the castle tower


Every house is the same colour with the same chimneys in England


Inside the castle


The tower with the cathedral in the background


The old prison inside the castle


Atop the castle wall

Both places were really cool! I'm glad I woke up so we could see them. When we got home the "kids" and I got to play Roblyn's favourite game, "Hide and Go Seek". Haha! I laugh just thinking of Robyn rolling her eyes as she reads this. We played a few rounds and I had a brilliant time, but Robyn could barely put up with it. That evening she told me, "You should be their nanny...they like to do geeky things like you do!" Amen to that...if I had known about such fun I would have signed up for it after high school instead of working at Walmart. That evening we had a wonderful supper where two of the "kids" nearly killed each other in a fight. That was lovely. One more day in Lincolnshire and I would be out of that madness...

My Sleep is Completely Messed Up - Day Six & Seven

The plan for Tuesday is to go into Lincoln to buy shoes for the "kids". Robyn had to stay home to clean up the huge mess we had created in the whole house. Oh yeah, Robyn has a nickname. It's Roblyn, pretty crazy huh? Better than the nickname they gave me: "Tom". They called me Tom a lot. But they also called me Cooper, although it sounded more like Cue-per. As you're driving into Lincoln you notice right away the Cathedral. It's amazing! Perched on top of the hill you can see it from quite a ways away. I looked around the shops while everyone else did their own thing. Here are some pics:






Nothing really stood out for me to buy, I'm not much of a shopper really. I stumbled across this book though:


Everytime I read this book I would actually laugh out loud. I had a hard time controlling myself. The book is basically transcripts from a podcast called The Ricky Gervais Show. Ricky Gervais is the boss on the British version of "The Office". He created the show with another guy named Steve Merchant. On the podcasts the two of them talk to Karl Pilkington, who is quite possibly more mental than me. When I got home I downloaded all the podcasts plus previous radio shows these three did together. I'm addicted to them now!

I don't remember what I did the rest of the day. Read the book mostly I think, maybe a little dutch blitz and skip-bo. Of course that night I couldn't sleep and ended up staying up late again with nothing on TV. Actually they had this interesting show on Jesus taped. The next day I slept in really late and ruined the plan to go back to Lincoln to see the cathedral with Roblyn. That would have to wait till the next day.

At some point someone named Ashley said hi to me through Roblyn on messenger, and now I am saying hi to her now, whoever she is.

I am preaching Feb 25th...

probably! definitely not feb 18th now. hopefully our church will be up and running by the 25th. come check it out if you want, but prepare to be blown away!

The Shortest Day In England - Day Five

Because of the late night I had and other various reasons, I slept in on New Year's Day. I slept until 3pm!!!!!! Do you know what time it is in Ladner when it's 3pm in London? 11am, which is the precise time I wake up at when I sleep in. All the hard work adjusting my body to the jet lag was instantly flushed downed the toilet!!!!!! I came downstairs and everyone thought it was funny I slept all day. I was so out of it, I'm not even sure what I did that night. I think I played Monopoly with the "Family". They have this new version that has "Electronic Banking". Instead of using paper money everyone has credit cards and you swipe them through this handheld device to transfer money and whatnot. Just not the same...

So we had supper and it was good. And then I went to bed at around 8! Oh brother. Woke up in the middle of the night of course and went downstairs to watch TV. They have so many music video stations. I like those. They also had a lot of gambling channels. That was weird. Basically what it is is, they give you a puzzle or question and you call in to see if you get the answer right. For example, they had, Name a movie that starts with T. They have 8 movies already picked out, and you have to guess which ones they are. Costs money to phone in, and apparently, you might not get chosen to go on air, but you are still charged. It was actually slightly entertaining watching the announcer guy or girl fill time waiting for people to call in. Here's an example of what the shows are like:


A really big phenomenon over in England is Big Brother. It's a lot bigger than it is in North America. At night they have the show on live so you can watch the housemates, even though they're usually sleeping, but sometimes engaging in late-nite chit chat when they can't sleep. During my stay there, Celebrity Big Brother had just started. Face from A-Team was on it and so was Jermaine Jackson (Michael's bro). I thought that was interesting, seeing as how they're not British. I didn't really know the other contestants, except Jo from S Club 7. This version seemed really lame. Most of the celebrities didn't even seem to want to be there. In fact, I think during the course of it 4 of them walked off at different points.

So I eventually went back to sleep at like 4:30 or 5. What an eventful day...

We can't make up our minds...

OK...so, last I heard I am still preaching on Feb 18th, but it is at a mystery location. sorry teresa!

Attention! Attention!

If you are coming to hear me preach on Feb 18th, I wouldn't be so excited...looks like I will probably be bumped to the 25th. I'll keep you posted.

The "kids" were buzzed - Day Four

I woke up Sunday morning refreshed and ready to take on the world. I went downstairs to find the kids playing video games with Robyn. They were playing a game called "Buzz!"


"Hosted by the computer animated, ever-smiling Buzz and his assistant Rose, the game makes it seem like you are in an actual quiz show, complete with buzzers, theme songs and canned audience clapping/laughter." - Wikipedia.

Those are the buzzers that you use instead of regular controllers. I was amazed. I had never seen such devices! I got to join in on the action and slaughtered the competition. We were even playing the Music version which has a lot of English bands I had never heard of. Why couldn't they make something like this for Canada??!? How frustrating...

Tonight was New Year's so everyone was getting excited for the festivities. "Grandpa" gave Robyn money to buy some beer, so she, the "daughter", the "youngest son", and I went in search of some. We went to the nearest small village place, but the store was closed! We had to move on to some place else that was bigger. It was there that we found the beer! Boy, that was an exciting story!!!! I did enjoy driving around and seeing the neighborhood though.

The "youngest son" wanted to play Monopoly, but no one else did, so instead we watched a movie. Can you guess which one??? It was Mary Poppins!!! I really enjoyed it, it was much better than the play. As the day progressed the topic of magic tricks somehow surfaced and right away I was excited to show off some of my skills. It wasn't long before we were amusing each other with various card tricks and pulling balls of light out of our noses and magically making toothpicks form into stars. I should mention at this point that Robyn was not nearly as amused by this as me and the "children" (let's just say I was on top of the world and Robyn was rolling her eyes).


I've been doing magic since I was a kid and it was incredible to meet people who were actually amazed by it! There was only one other time in all my life when someone was impressed by my magic. I was doing a card trick for Dennis involving my "magic hoodie". You take a card from the deck, memorize it, put it back, I pass the deck through my magic hoodie and the card magically moves. This time I was still wearing the magic hoodie and I had the deck in my hand. So after I took the hoodie off Dennis says, "that would be fast if you did the trick already". I looked at him and flipped the top card showing his card had in fact already moved! I don't know how the magic hoodie works, but even passing the deck through the sleeve like that provides unpredictable results.

So anyways, the kids were having so much fun with the magic that they decided to put on a special "magic show" for our New Years Eve Bash. We had a lot of fun...I think everyone left with a sense of bewilderment and awe.


The food was amazing! They had prepared this huge spread of desserts and appetizers. Mouth-watering! Everyone was especially excited because this was the maiden voyage of their brand new chocolate fondue.


It was time for the countdown. We watched the London broadcast on the telly. The fireworks were amazing at the London Eye by the Parliament Buildings. We each had these exploding things that shot out stringy stuff. And, well, you know how things are in Europe...it wasn't long before the "kids" were downing the champagne. They're hyper enough as it is!


I have doctored these photos to protect the identity of the "Family".


Robyn wore her new outfit she got for Christmas. Love the pearls!


This dog barked at me a lot, but with my Dr. Doolittle charm I won her over in no time.

Thus ended 2006 and Day Four of my journey. Robyn and I stayed up kinda late chatting about life and such. Who could foresee what 2007 would bring us??

I'm preaching soon

If you're interested in hearing me preach I am scheduled for February 18, 2007. I'll try not to be boring.