A grand day out

In yesterday's news, I had my UCCF staff interview. What joy, what boundless happiness was in my heart as I rose from my slumbers at 5:00. At 5:30 I began my intrepid journey, I knew I had to catch a 6:27 train, so decided to wait for a bus until 5:50, and after that I would take a taxi to make sure I didn't miss the train. I think it was the beginning of an exercise in trusting God, as the bus duely appeared at 5:49, just as I was making my other plans. This pic shows the beautiful Lime Street Station at 6:13am.

Ah, the many wonders of travelling by train, not least the opportunity for reading. I combined a potent combination of the Bible, The Purpose Driven Life, and East of Eden. Intoxicating stuff, especially at that hour. Behold the wonderfully blurry british countryside in the early morning:

Feel the power, feel the roar. I ended up deposited at a grey and rainy Leicester at 8:50, with 40 minutes before I needed to appear at UCCF HQ. I stepped from the station with not a clue as to how I would spend that time, looked around, and saw a familiar face. The face belonged to one Tim Dennis, a guy I have literally known since I was knee high to a grasshopper, as we grew up in the same church. Ha, wonderful surpise! It turns out he's also in Leicester for an interview with UCCF, so we're able to spend the 40 minutes catching up on life. Then it was onwards towards our target, being menly men we were determined not to ask directions or use a map, and so we nearly missed our destination, the understated UCCF HQ:

The next 6 and a half hours were spent in presentations and interviews of various kinds. It was actually a very positive experience, being able to joke and talk with the other candidates, feeling that the whole day was about God leading the right people to the right positions, rather than a great big rat race. Also, only UCCF would thank candidates for attending a mandatory interview by giving them a book. I love those people :-)

Then, it was the homeward journey. I got to spend a fair bit of it with an American guy called Dan, who was also there for an interview. He was travelling back to Glasgow, and we discovered a shared interest in apologetics and literature. It was a great time. And then back to Liverpool, which looked suspiciously similar to the way it had been 12 hours before: