im pretty sure this is my favorite Bible story
The Lord Speaks to Elijah ( 1 Kings 19 10-13)

But the Lord said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
10 Elijah replied, “I have zealously served the Lord God Almighty. But the people of Israel have broken their covenant with you, torn down your altars, and killed every one of your prophets. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me, too.”

11 “Go out and stand before me on the mountain,” the Lord told him. And as Elijah stood there, the Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 12 And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper. 13 When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.

And a voice said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

i was reminded of it while reading "Searching For God Knows What" by Donald Miller (the same guy who wrote Blue Like Jazz) Amanda has been reading it and i stole it from her and am really enjoying it. Its making me think out some things and prove to myself why i believe them, but there isnt anything wrong with that.
but really, i love how God shows just how powerful he is and how he can control everything. and then show up in a whisper? i mean who does that. People, humans i should say desire power. and once we have that power, we show it off. We buy fancy clothes and cars and have gi-normous paintings of ourselves hung at various galleries. But God showed his power and then backed off. He didnt really have to continue to prove that His power existed. And he didnt push it.

Our God is an Awesome God!

Post # 80

Wow, i cant believe im already at post # 80! i hope everyone enjoys reading AND COMMENTING on my blog!

Just a little recap over the past week......

Sunday- we had just gotten back from Amsterdam and were exhausted and gross. we got home and took showers. on sunday we did not go to Wembley, we went to Hillsong. I dont know if youve ever heard of them, but they are a very charismatic church which was just the lift many of us needed. The general consensus of this worship period was that we wanted a balance of Hillsong and Wembley, however more toward the Hillsong service. and we had class.....

Monday - class again! we recieved our English Exams back and i did indeed make 103/100! woot! Later that day, i took my Theatre History exam....that was fun because it was a theatre test, where teachers make the answers ridiculous ie Disney was the cause for the decline of the Roman Theatre or that the elements of Greek theatre were "earth, wind, fire, water, heart...with our powers combined!" monday nights are girls bible study nights. the week before, we had the "write encouraging things on papers" devo and last weeks was short and turned into "sing songs from kids praise/VBS" it was sooooo much fun. i can only imagin where kids get the energy to do all those songs all the time. but that was so much fun and well worth the exhaustion

Tuesday- we went to Cambridge and Ely Cathedral. Ely was a beautiful cathedral, there was a really cool lady chapel that we sang in. it had a seven second echo and we sang "it is well with my soul" and WOW it was beautiful! Cambridge was the cutest collge town ever! everything was close together and we got to see the building where DNA was discovered! it is no longer a lab so we didnt go in. We also ate a a really cool Pub that was used by the RAF and the US Air Force. you can still see where they wrote their names and drew some ahem pictures with lipstick and candle wax on the ceiling. i thought that was a really cool bit of history.

Wednesday- we had our HUMONGUS exam in which we had to know 24 monarchs of england (William the Conqueror-Elizabeth 1) and three facts about each. i was so happy to finish, i was shaking with happiness! we also went to Westminster Abbey, it is a very beautiful church and we had a great time. after we were craving something homey so we went to the Spaghetti House for dinner.

Thursday- I took a nap and ate Indian food. later that night, we went to see "The Woman in Black". It is one of the best ghost stories ever, I really did enjoy it thought Hardings production was much better

Friday- we went to the British Museum and i watched two movies.....we were LAZY! but it was a good lazy lol

Saturday- Our water got shut off before i could take a shower.....so we didnt really do anything. we got Burger King and took naps, worked on our papers and projects

Sunday- water back on! but we didnt attend wembley...which was a little dissappointing b/c there was a NFL game going on near us! but thats ok. we went for lunch and everything went downhill from there. it felt like someone was kicking me in the side with a knife. i couldnt walk and had to sit down. i did make it back to my flat but it took almost a half hour instead of five minutes! i passed out and felt really naseous and dizzy and yeah...... i still feel sick but at least i can walk around

so that was my quick update i hope you all have a wonderful day and remeber...God loves you!

i just realized i told you nothing of the amazing adventure that amsterdam was!

our journey started on tuesday. we went to stonehenge and bath and then came back, double checked we had paked everything (which i didnt) and then went to the airport. our flight left at 615 but the tubes stopped running around midnight and we had to catch a train to gatwick airport so we didnt sleep. we woke up at 745 tuesday morning and didnt sleep until wednesday night at the hostel. when we got to amsterdam, we walked around in the rain for 30 minutes before we found our hostel and michelle! that was nice, we kind of chiled out and ate and tried to get warm. we went to a very interesting worship service that night and after got some chips (fries) at one of the many places that are vendors for only fries! thursday we woke up early and went to the hiding place of Anne Frank. that was an amazing museum, they have all the rooms preserved to the same size, you get to climb the same staris they did etc....there are many stories around the house from her friends and her diary and it just makes it so real for you, the windows that arent covered are large pictures of things Anne described and thats even more powerful. its so sad that people deny this ever occured. after that we went shopping! things were in Euros instead of pounds and i think we got a ittle giddy. something i didnt know about were the secret churches in amsterdam when the protestants and catholics were figthing, churches had to be concealed and had special signs that said they were a church. it was such a sanctuary literally, you went in off the shoping street and all of the sudden you are in church. it was amazing the peace i felt in that place. Friday we took a canal tour and ate out (that was our mexican adventure) and saturday michelle took us on her "private" version of the city tour......this one involved more shopping! we got back safely and that was the end.

Dear Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
Thank you for your poems Kubla Khan and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I think they are lovely poems. However, why did you summarize your own poem? Did you think it was so boring that future students of literature would only read the summary? How silly. I think you maybe should have made that poem shorter....or even a short story. That would have been interesting. BUt no, you chose to torture, to frustrate and anger all students of literature as they are made to read your ridiculously long poem. Thanks for that, I hope you can see the sarcasm in this note. Lolli says hello.
Sincerly
Courtney Myer

i have a new email. hotmail is hard to get into on campus so i got a gmail account

courtney.myer@gmail.com

so use that one, i would have sent out an email....but i cant get into the hotmail account like i said before.

have a wonderful day, amsterdam update will come after the part where i have two miderms this week

im in amsterdam for a long weekend that started tuesday night and will end saturday. we dont have much internet so this is probably all you will get from me till saturday night/sunday.
love

if yall arent going to comment on the fact that i, courtney myer got a perfect on an ENGLISH test* im going to quit writing!

*ive never gotten a perfect on an english exam.....ever........so yeha, i was exctied.
**also, where are the comments? c'mon people, i know its expensive to send mail, but commenting on a blog is almost free!

so i got a perfect on my english test today

its picture time!!

i figured that those of you who DONT check your facebooks every five seconds desperately searching for my updated pictures would like to see some

the first picture is of me....before the London Eye.....can you see how big it is....i dont think so....it NEVER stops-you just hop on while its moving. and then freak out or enjoy yourself.....yeha

the second picture is of people. the girl is amanda....the guy winking is chris and the other guy is dave.....i dont know why chris is winking. this is my attempt at showing you the people i hang out with. eventually ill get a flat picture up here or something

anyway, its friday which is sleep in day...and i did.....until 9 lol! but thats ok, theres plenty to be done, we are going to the British Museum today....which could be fun eventually but its mandatory so well see.....

time is flying!

its sooo weird, in two months ill be home again!

anyway-heres an update!

Saturday, we went to see a very....interesting version of Much Ado About Nothing.....and by intersting i mean acid-trippy.....

Sunday-we went to church.....im trying to think of ways to get out of that sometimes.....and had fun at ASDA. we had class that night but it wasnt bad.

Monday-classes, im doing well on my 5 point quizzes lol after class, we went to the London Eye. this thing goes more that 400 feet in the air.....and you are in a pod......they call it a capsule....but thats beside the point. all you need to know is i got on. got scared cried and sat down and hardly even looked out the window....so i looked at the floor...after i got off i was fine. but im never doing anything like that ever ever ever ever again. but there is picture proof that i was there, dr. tullos was nice enough to take a picture.

tuesday- blenheim palace (where sir winston churchill was born) and oxford. i got a sweatshirt! it was pretty cheap! but it was cold and rainy....hopefully ill be able to go again, i havent updated any pictures yet but when i do check your facebooks!

The official Update

well, weve been here for a week.

how am i?
wonderful. i love the people on this trip, we are getting along quite nicely. Im enjoying staying in one place again. We are NOT the cooking flat....we try to make life easier PLUS the symbols on our oven are non-existent.....so making things becomes an adventure.

Sunday-
we went to church at Wembley Park. that was interesting.....naturally they do things a little differently than we do and it will take some adjusting. we'll have to see how this goes....
Monday-
Classes...then MARY POPPINS! it was better than i could have expected! soo magical! there are things we still havent figured out but we had a blast!
Tuesday-
classes and a trip to the Globe to see The Merchant of Venice. We were groundlings which means that we stood for the entrie show.....that was an experience. It was rainy and freezing by the time the show was over. I dont think anyone realizes how long Shakespeare is until you stand during the entire performance! Anyway, after that we ate at this great noodle place called Wagamama....we were needing some warm food! It was great
Wednesday-
Classes again and then we had a spaghetti adventure and cooked for some of the boys and yeah..... but then we had our first girls bible study. I am excited about this and hope that we dont stop just because we go home....
Thursday-
Classes (for the last time this week) and Avenue Q. the show is raunchy but funny-its done with puppets. of course there were some awkward moments but all in all a wonderful time was had. OOO and we got autographs!!! They were all very nice and one of the guys kept telling me peoples names so i could get their signatures too!
Friday-
our first day without classes! we lazied around for a bit then went to do some homework at the Museum. After that we went to Harrods and Covent Garden where we saw this Unicyclist who was amazing and funny...it was great. The Tullos' had a movie night so we went to that too. then we began Boondock Saints.....which is an amazing movie but we were sooo tired we fell asleep

and here we are, again at a Saturday. My class load isnt too bad, everything here is done so you can actually finish things. I miss all of you an wish i could share this experience with yall too!

so weve been here a few days now. the 74 steps to my room havent gotten any better yet but we are finding our way around. the weather is cool and rainy, my roomates are amazing and im in a TWO HOUR LONG class right now. its funny, we arent learning anything(yet) that will be on the tests in this class so......

anyway. im alive. more when im not in the worlds most uncomfortable desk/chair combo!