Drop in the Pond: St Andrews

Well, as I write this, I am currently in Edinburgh, however I feel as though I should share a little bit about my trip in St Andrews!

Right, so St Andrews reminds me a lot of Banff to be honest, in the sense that it is a pretty small town and is also a major tourist destination! Aside from there being over seven golf courses, there are also some really interesting spots to check out. That great big gate you see in the background of that picture above is actually part of the remains of a cathedral that was destroyed and left to the elements during the reformation! It is now a huge graveyard, and has many large parts of the original cathedral still standing, and is a very beautiful place to visit!

Another really exciting part about getting to be in St Andrews was fulfilling a boyhood dream and getting to run around the ruins of an old castle! It was really just an awesome feeling to picture what it looked like in all of its grandeur, of course a mine shaft that runs underneath of the castle ruins stoked the flames of imagination even more! I had an absolute blast running through the mines, imagining what all they could have been used for.

Another interesting, though perhaps more somber, aspect of St Andrews was that it played a huge role in the Scottish Reformation. The Reformation was Scotland's formal break from the Papacy in 1560, and St Andrews has a past filled with martyrs and even it's ruins in the cathedral and the castle are a part of that past. I visited the site of the very first protestant martyr in Scotland, his name was Patrick Hamilton. They have stones on the ground that mark where he was burned at the stake by Archbishop James Beaton. Those stones are right in front of the entry way to the University of St Andrews. There are a few other locations that mark such events for other people who would die as martyrs during the reformation. St Andrews has a large monument to those martyrs not to far away from the Old Golf Course. It can be seen just a little bit to the right of the clubhouse in the first picture bellow.

The family I got to stay with were the Stirlings, Jenny and Mark Stirling both started the Navigators ministry in Edinburgh before moving to St. Louis for a time, eventually returning to start the Navigators ministry in St Andrews in 2007 I do believe. They, and there four children, are an absolutely tremendous family, and I loved getting to be in there home. They even sat me down to watch the Sound of Music, which I must admit, being a little older to appreciate it more, I did enjoy. Mark is a really smart man and has a really rich understanding of the Word of God. He has been studying modern and classical Greek to help him better understand God's word and is currently doing a thesis on Ephesians 4:20. Mark and his family help also to run a church service called Trinity, hosted within the Holy Trinity Church, and encouraged by the minister who oversees the church. It is a wonderful service, aimed at equipping others and helping them to go deeper into God's word with a richer understanding. I will get to see both Jenny and Mark again at the Scottish Summer Conference in a few days, including, our guest speaker, who taught Mark and whom Mark has a great amount of respect for.