The Campfire of Coffee

Hi Friends!

Most of my updates predictably begin with a comment on how quickly time is passing. It's an unfortunate reality, though, that this beautiful chapter of my life, doing this stuff that I care so much about with this wonderful community, is so limited. Last week's eight-month anniversary of me living in Scotland reminded me of that.

A mocha with rosetta latte art. It's taken me months
to pour a rosetta.

For one big fat reason, though, I'm sooo happy the past three months have flown by. Scotland is on the same latitudinal parallel as Alaska, meaning that in the dead of winter, it gets around seven hours of daylight. Not sunlight though. Rainy, freezing, blustery, overcast light. There's a word from the Scots language for it that people still use today - dreich.  It affects you in ways you cannot predict and probably don't fully understand in the moment. All you know is that you just want to be cocooned in a duvet, eating endless soups and bars of Lindt dark chocolate with hazelnuts, drinking coffee by the pot and watching Mama Mia on repeat. At least, that's all I wanted... Maybe I'm being a bit dramatic. Regardless, most everyone slips into survival mode and sleepwalks through winter.

On top of this, homesickness has almost imperceptibly crept up on me. I'll suddenly miss a Rudy's BBQ brisket baked potato on a Sunday or the freedom of my car or tornado season or the intense July heat/vitamin D. And my accent has morphed into something super weird too. But it's all a part of the package deal that you learn to embrace when trying to be in a new culture.

I think the thing about Scottish winter is that its extreme oppressiveness makes you realise even more how much you desperately need and crave resurrection and the light and love of community. A lot of folks here find community on a football team or at a pub or a Mums & Toddlers group or among work colleagues. BLEND Coffee Lounge and all that it encompasses has become that key community for a lot of people in Perth. In the middle of the darkness, it becomes our saving grace, a place to find winter's antidote "around the campfire of coffee".

One of the Blend staff recently mastered bear latte art!
I'm jealous/in admiration.

Just a few weeks ago, we were reminded all over again of how essential this quirky, little Blend family is and how essential it is for us to always be loving, gracious and spiritually attentive to all. Early in my regular Thursday shift, a police officer came in to ask if we'd seen a missing woman. None of us recognised her from his description and didn't think too much of it. Later after lunch, one of our regulars, a woman who has become a part of our patchwork family, came in looking very upset. Ignoring our hellos, she went directly to our manager, handed him a letter and left. It was strange but assumed we'd check up on her the next time she was in. Around 2pm, a worker from the deli across the street came in to say that the upset woman had been in that morning, deeply disturbed, frantically writing letters, and had threatened the deli staff not to call the police. The letter she'd given our manager turned out to be her final will. We were so completely shocked. She was eventually found and is getting help now. However, for those few hours between realising her intentions and hearing that she was safe, we were all just sick to our stomachs. She makes Blend what it is just as much as any of us do.

Blend isn't just a coffee shop. It's a refuge, a place where we find grace, meaning, belonging, roots, etc. It's a place where all the tiny details add up to one lovely experience that has the power to transform a whole day. Or a whole life. The Holy Spirit inhabits that little coffee shop. People come to escape the darkness or to cry out for help when the darkness threatens to swallow them whole. It can be easy to forget that when we're stuck in the ruts of routine. But that shift shook me and reminded me of how much the world needs unusual yet sacred little sanctuaries like Blend. It doesn't even matter if it's coffee we're gathering around. We just need genuine communities to lean into while we wait for the divine to seep into our raggedness.

The fellas with Pastors Derrick & Alan pre-dunking

Can you remember your baptism? I bet it wasn't in the
freezing cold water of Loch Lomond!

Lately, everything here has been waking up. Metaphors of new life are everywhere. Easter sort of unexpectedly happened, and all of Scotland was covered in daffodils. Our church had a baptism and picnic at Loch Lomond that unusually sunny day, and three men publicly committed themselves to Christ. It's exciting to watch their journeys of faith being weaved into everyone else's in the congregation.

I love, too, that the congregation is waking up to God. People are looking for Him, and in return, He's giving them huge dreams.

And people are actually fearlessly trying to make those dreams happen!

Dreams like reaching out to difficult teenagers on a Friday night, beginning risky new ministries in new towns, a Monday night kids club that engages kids from the community with almost no church experience, an informal cooking club where foodies can marvel over flavours and share their stories, and several other exciting yet currently unmentionable dreams.

I think I gain so much more from people in Scotland than all that I have to offer them. I'm constantly inspired by people here who, risking so much and facing the seemingly impossible, dare to try new things with the hope that others might find light and love and a place of belonging in them.

At times, Jubilee House is one of those things that seems overwhelmingly impossible - just this big, complicated mess that requires so much effort to get moving. I continually have to be reminded that it is actually moving a lot! We've applied for charity status. We're working on an awesome promo video. We're working on getting licensed by the government. And stuff keeps coming together as we need it to - a broader community of skill sets and support for the project and actual money in the bank! So much goes into creating this new community, but God is totally in all the details. And the more the team moves into it, the more God affirms that this project absolutely must happen!

On a more practical note, I'm planning to apply for a second year-long visa this summer. I want to continue working to make Jubilee House and the second Blend shop happen, and the Erskine bunch have decided to keep me around if the government gives me the go-ahead. So I'll be coming home for a while this autumn some time to support raise, soak up some sun and rediscover my Oklahoma accent. I'd love to share more about what God's doing in Scotland with you and your church! Just giving you all a heads up before I begin contacting your pastor or missions president.

I'm so grateful for you all. Thanks for sharing in this journey with me!

Love,
Catie