Deluge: BLEND IS OPEN!!!!

People!

I have so much to tell you. Crazy good stuff has happened here over the last three months.

BLEND COFFEE LOUNGE, PAISLEY HAS FINALLY OPENED!!!!

Seriously! Let’s all take a moment to celebrate this!

The second Blend shop is no longer just a nice wee dream that I write to you all about every few months. It’s happening right now as I write this. When one of the major reasons you’ve moved across the world suddenly becomes a reality, it’s actually the craziest feeling. God’s like, “See! It was all worth it, right??”

Everything’s been so beautifully brought together. Lemme show you around!

'We created this place for you. Our place is your place. Enjoy!'

 

'Smile: it's the second best thing you can do with your lips...'
The first best thing is probably either drinking coffee or eating Tex-Mex.

How can we make your day?

'We are a diverse band of friends united in our passion for people
to experience some of the best coffee and tea the world over.'

Blend is about details and discovery.
Five of our stools are a puzzle that forms a quote.
'I had the blues because I had no shoes, until upon the street I met a man
who had no feet.'

A customer hand made this fabulous pillow for us.
Together, we're creating Blend every day.

The Evolution of Coffee: Wake up, look like a monster, start drinking...

And if you drink enough coffee, you'll eventually look like this.

Reminders are everywhere.

We even have a children's corner! Colouring, books, board games!

And we have a scratch off map of the world.
Customers can scratch off their home country.
I've scratched off Oklahoma for us all!

Isn’t it cool?! Before we’d even opened, we had over 500 likes on Facebook. Customers have said the following about the shop:

Staff Training

“This place is so peaceful. It’s become my sanctuary from out there.”

“This is a happy zone! You’re all so smiley!”

“The people are really what make this place.”

I don’t think I’ve told y’all much about Paisley yet, but it’s important that you understand our context. Paisley was a happening place once upon a time. It was a major industrial town (paisley pattern textiles, etc.). It has a university, gorgeous cathedrals and an abbey, tons and tons of history. People still remember back to how they always used to choose to shop or go for a night out in Paisley instead of Glasgow decades ago.

For many reasons though, it’s become a rough, forgotten city. Businesses have left, and few have moved in. Some of Scotland’s most deprived areas are in Paisley now. In the evenings after businesses shut, it’s not uncommon to see street fights or drunks and addicts roaming about. I don’t want to be too dramatic in describing it. There are good parts and nice folks as well. But as a friend said, “On the whole, it’s like a city but without any of the good stuff.” Maybe you can see how Blend would stick out in a place li

ke that.

Really, both Blend and Jubilee House as well as the networks of people behind them have become a part of a larger deluge of God into Paisley. There’s lots of folks working to bring light and hope to the place. Years ago, God put a passion in people’s hearts from Erskine Church of the Nazarene (ECN) to create a fresh, unique expression of Jesus in a dark place. Though those people have skilfully led these exciting new projects, both are quickly expanding beyond any one person.  

They’re like the river of healing described in Ezekiel 47 & Revelation 22, flowing from God’s temple, unstoppable, beginning as a trickle but growing deeper and wider the farther it flows. New life flourishes wherever the river flows. Salty water is made pure and fresh, and the surrounding landscape itself is healed.

Jubilee and Blend are both like that. Blend is sometimes more obvious though. One of my favourite moments so far has been watching a customer discover one of the many hidden details in the shop’s design and then sharing it with the two customers next to him. Over the next 30 minutes, the three got to know each other and left as friends. It was a real life expression of our Blend Story – to “look for the rewards of curiosity” and to “learn the unforced rhythms of grace.”

At our pre-opening night, we packed the shop with our
closest family and friends and showed off our skills.
Those who stuck around after cleaning got to enjoy
the after party. Such a fun night!

God’s movement into Paisley is bigger than any of us. It’s working in ways that we don’t see, didn’t plan, couldn’t have imagined. We’re clinging to the Spirit and opening ourselves up to the unknown. Obviously, it’s not always this beautiful, perfect picture. Things don’t always work. Shifts can be stressful. Jubilee House can get caught in the red tape. The balance of our lives is totally uprooted as we pour our passion and energy into making this thing move. God is sovereign though. When we find the end of the rope, He refuels us, renews us, re-impassions us, and lifts us up.

The other day on the bus to my first shift in Blend, Paisley, I was thinking over how Jubilee House seems to sometimes just drag on, and was this really needed? Am I putting energy into something that I think is a part of God’s plans when in reality it’s something we’ve just forced into being? At that point, almost as if it were staged, a woman and her husband got on the bus. Most everyone looked up at the couple but then quickly averted their eyes. Her entire right eye was bashed in, black and blue, to the point where she could barely see. She had five stitches along her cheekbone. There was only one seat left, and as she went to sit, her husband started calling her names and said that that was his seat. So she stood for the remainder of the bus journey.

This river of life, this river of healing is so absolutely necessary. The daily mundane threatens to blind me from that. But then suddenly, God brings an experience like that one on the bus to lift up my eyes and remind me that the world is desperate for hope, and He is responding with overwhelming, generally absurd love.

I love love love telling the story of Jubilee House to non-Christians. It makes absolutely NO sense for a woman from the Isle of Mull who has never attended ECN to just give a house away to be used for good. That just sounds dumb, right? It isn’t dumb, though, when you’ve discovered God’s river of life and have been so radically healed, changed, satisfied, and have become a part of that river yourself. 

Friends, can you join me in drowning Blend, Jubilee House, Paisley and Scotland in some serious prayer?? Over the past several weeks, God has been breaking my heart and opening my eyes even wider to the brokenness around me. There’s just so much. But like a wave, He’s steadily washing over life here, pouring His spirit into all. I’m praying for even more of that salty to fresh water kind of restoration. 

I hope you’ve witnessed or rediscovered God’s river of life for yourself this summer. I’m still planning to come home this autumn to support raise for another year in Scotland. So I will be contacting pastors and missions leaders over the next several weeks about the possibility of sharing with your church community. As an added bonus, I might be bringing one of my favourite Scottish lasses and Blend baristas with me!

Thanks for sharing in this journey with me!

Love,

Catie

PS Thank you so so much to my church family in Tishomingo for all the cards, snacks and Oklahoma gear you sent with my mum. Half her suitcase was just gifts for me. I really don’t know what words to use to say thank you enough. Love and miss you all! 

PSS I can't break tradition. I just can't. Unless it's a tradition that I don't like, but this isn't one of those. Here are pictures of Scotland being beautiful.

Some friends took me to Portpatrick which is
exactly what you'd imagine a quaint Scottish fishing village to be like.
We explored Dunsky Castle, built sometime in the 1100's
and ate fish and chips on the beach. You can see Northern Ireland just across the sea.
The sun shone all day. It was glorious.

Portpatrick Cliffs

Mum came to visit! This is our bus selfie to prove it.
People always talk about how they have the best mum in the world.
Gurl please! It's a very solid fact that my mum is actually the best.
I'm blessed beyond what I deserve.

We saw a lot of amazing places around Scotland.
My favourite, though, was Dunkeld. 

Though Scotland is amazing, sometimes you just need to go somewhere that's so overwhelming in every way. So my friend Dayna and I went to Rome! Now, all I want is to learn Italian and just be a Roman woman.

Something ancient

Trastavere

Top of the Spanish Steps
That sun!!!

A ceiling & my head

1 of .....6 gelatos.
All pizza, pasta or ice cream I've had since
my Roman holiday has just been a place holder until
I can get back to Rome for the real stuff.