The Church of Scotland

My cousin, Julia, moved to Scotland last July to work for the Church of Scotland. She served six months at St. Anne's in Edinburgh as Assistant Minister. Now she is serving the Pardovan-Kingscavle and Winchburgh Parish which is linked with the Abercorn Parish. Today she was scheduled to preach at Kingscavle at 10 and Winchburgh at 11:30. The churches were built in the early 1900's which is pretty new for this country. The church in Abercorn dates back to the 1100's. I soon discovered just how similar the Church of Scotland is to the PC(USA) when I sat on the 7th row and nobody sat in front of me. They don't have bulletins so I was really counting on following those in front of me. Oh well! Julia did a fabulous job leading worship. The congregation was small (about 23) but there was a familiarity that made me feel right at home. I still have a little trouble understanding everything they say but I really enjoy the Scottish accent.

As soon as the first service ended, we headed over to the Winchburgh church. It's a little bigger with more children in worship. The Pastor lives in the mance behind the church. The service was basically identical with the exception of the Children's Sermon. Following worship, the pastor's wife invited me in to their home for a cup of coffee while Julia finished up. She did manage to find me and we enjoyed a visit in their sunroom before heading back to town. We made a stop at the Pets at Home store for food & treats (for the animals) and then made our way home for lunch. We had a lazy Sunday afternoon watching tv, napping, playing on the computer etc.

As dinner approached we decided to go pick up some fish & chips and hopefully find a fried Mars bar. I had heard they were a delicacy in Scotland but I had yet to find one. They are definitely not the most attractive things in the world but they sure are yummy! We brought our stash home and watched CSI Sunday - a run of CSI episodes on Sunday evening.