i remember....

“Do you smell that?”—these are the first words I remember Savannah saying to me the minute we stepped into the castle at Capernwray Hall on September 26th, 2009…the place I would be spending my next 6 months. “It just smells old and musty,” I remember saying.
“That’s the smell of Capernwray.” She said with a smile, thinking about her 6 months spent here 3 years ago. I didn’t understand then.

I remember the week leading up to my departure. I remember that “Shadow of the Day” by Linkin Park was playing over and over again in my head. “I close both locks below the window/I close both blinds and turn away/sometimes solutions aren’t so simple/sometimes goodbye’s the only way….pink cards and flowers on your window/your friends all plead for you to stay/sometimes beginnings aren’t so simple/sometimes goodbye’s the only way…”
I remember what I was thinking as I lay in bed the night before I embarked on this journey. I remember raw excitement for the unknown. I remember thinking that before this, the longest I’d been away from home was 2 weeks spent at camp in Colorado. I remember the striking realization that this WAS, in fact, the last time I would sleep in my bed for the next 6 ½ months…I wouldn’t be able to run home if things got hard or I got homesick. I remember the weight of responsibilities I’d never felt. I remember the paralyzing fear of, “I’m still just a kid…how am I going to survive in a country and continent where I didn’t know a single soul. I still haven’t figured out what cord I use to plug into wireless internet…who will be there to answer my questions?” I don’t think I’ll ever forget that night.

I remember my first week at Capernwray. I remember how strange it was being in a country where I didn’t know a single person. How strange it was going from my own bedroom to having 5 roommates. I remember feeling like that one week lasted a month. Everyone was rushing to try to meet everyone…the people we’d be sharing our next 6 months with.

I look back now and see how much I’ve experienced, how much I’ve grown, and how much God has shown me. I sat through 6 hours of intensive lectures a day. I read through the entire Bible. I learned so much about the Holy Spirit, evangelism, the end times, the Old Testament, and so much more. I’ve seen true passion for Christ in those around me. I’ve learned that distractions are everywhere, and spending time with God is something you have to make a conscious effort to do. I’ve seen God’s faithfulness, provision and protection starting with getting me over there. Looking back, I can honestly say that apart from accepting Christ as my Savior, going to Capernwray was the best decision I’ve ever made.

Sure, it’s great being back in our country…with food that has FLAVOR, scented deodorant, my own car, cinnamon toothpaste, ice cubes, etc…but I miss the simplicity. The sheep. The ruins. The raw beauty of creation. The complete dependence on God. I even find myself almost missing the things that annoyed me while there…the obsession with tea, the potatoes at what seemed like every meal, the burnt veggie burgers, the frosted hot dog buns for dessert, fish and chips, silent dinner, work day, the forbidden ornamental lawn, the million stairs to the tower, the announcement bell, the SLOW internet, LEFTOVER NIGHT! Okay…so I ALMOST miss those things…

Honestly, it is really hard to adjust to being back here. Life is just the same as when I left it…but I’m not the same as when I left. It’s so hard to go back to doing the same things I was doing before I left. I don’t want to shrink back into the same life. I was stretched over there. It’s hard to go from calling taxis when you want to go out…from analyzing every word of Ezra for a project…from buying phone cards for my once-a-week phone call with my family…from converting pounds and pence and euros to dollars…from taking weekend trips to Scotland…from booking flights and hostels and train tickets for foreign countries…from being forced to find our way on the metro to our hostel…to come back and have my biggest challenges be getting to work on time and having money to buy gas for the car. I’m not being stretched anymore…and now that I know what I’m capable of, I realize how easy I have it over here. Which is definitely a blessing, don’t get me wrong. But now that I know what else is out there…I long to have it back.

I recently came across something I wrote in Heathrow Airport the day I was going to fly home. I’d like to share it with you…
“26th March 2010 Heathrow, London
Here I am…I sit in a corner of the flurried airport with the past 6 months packed beside me. Is this journey really ending? I don’t know what to feel. I do feel alone. This is one of the first times in the past 6 months that I haven’t had to socialize…that I can look around and not recognize anyone. Where these past months a dream? A living sleepwalk? And how will I adjust to the real world now that I’m being forced to wake up? When will the memories start to fade? This feels like old age, wondering what will go first…the names? The faces? The inside jokes? I’m leaving this country behind. ‘Let’s go do this!’ has turned into, ‘Remember when…’ I cringe to think of the 160 of us on opposite corners of the world, living lives no longer involving the rest of us. Yes, life will continue for all of us. But a sliver of a castle wall is pricking each of our hearts and we will remember.”

I remember the day I received my travel backpack, which had been left at school and then lost while being shipped to my hotel in London. It arrived at my doorstep a few weeks after the end of school. I remember burying my face in each article of clothing I pulled out. I remember holding a sweatshirt under my younger sister’s nose and saying, “Do you smell that?” “It smells musty,” she said.
“That’s the smell of Capernwray,” I said with a smile. Now I understand.