The days are hastening on . . .

Huge, huge praises: one of Alice's friends who she has been sharing God's love with this last semester told her that he prayed to accept Christ last week at a dinner that she arranged for him to have with her head of department. God has been so faithful to change his heart and show him the depth of God's unconditional love!! Please pray for him and for Alice, as he leaves to return to Belgium this week and they have both become very close friends.

Second praise: Pedro arrived home in São Paulo safely. He missed his original flight and thought for a while that they wouldn't be able to get him home that day and that he'd have to pay more money (his visa expired that day and he didn't have more money). God fought his battles for him though, and it was amazing how quickly everything worked out - and we got to spend an extra six hours with him at the airport. Please pray that his time with friends and family is blessed, and that God helps him prepare to teach jr. high kids at church camp next month.

Note about the season: The end of term is on Saturday, which means over 3/4 of the residents are leaving for the holidays or for good. Please pray for the transit guests that will be staying with us over the holidays, that they will experience Christ's love as we celebrate his birth together. And also lift up the new residents who will be joining us next term (Jan 6).

Third and final praise: My family is coming next week! Give them hugs to pass on to me, pray that God sends angels along with them (because they definitely need it!) and enjoy your Christmas holiday!!!

. . . And the sun will always rise.

I went with two other girls to see Les Miserables on Tuesday and I have no way to express in type what an amazing experience it was! Because we went on a Tuesday and the theater wasn't full, they upgraded our very good seats to amazing seats (upper circle to stalls) - we could see the cast's faces! I sat there for three hours with my jaw dropped - and would have paid another £30 to sit it all over again if they had offered to repeat the performance. The cast was phenomenal - incredible voices, great acting. The sets were so lifelike that I felt like we were watching a movie filmed in France. Twice they had a night set with stars that looked more real than the usual overcast London skies. I don't often say this, but it was better than the book. I cried twice - both times when Jean Valjean sings a prayer.

So if you have the opportunity to see it, its worth every pence.

Last night was our Advent Celebration service - our opportunity to share with the residents what Christmas is really about before they leave for the holidays. We ended up making it a service about Light in darkness. I was involved by telling the Christmas story using candles and also joined the Brazilians in singing a Brazilian Christmas song. It was a crazy day trying to prepare, but God helped us pull it off and over 20 residents showed up and heard the simple gospel! Praise Him for His faithfulness to bless our meager efforts.

The picture on the right was taken a couple weeks ago at Brighton.

On a sadder note, 5 community members are leaving this month: Pedro, Alan, Beni, Ji-Hye and Kyeong Ah. I'm going to miss them all a lot, but especially Pedro. He has become one of my closest friends here, and its hard to imagine life here without his presence. The bright side is that we are starting to say hello to new people from new countries - Sara arrived last week from Germany, and we are expecting two people from Nepal and one girl from Croatia soon. And much to my delight, we'll be joined by two Brasileros! Thiago (pronounced Chee-ago) comes tomorrow, and Leandro arrives 2 Jan.

Please continue to lift Alice's two friends up in prayer. They both attended the Advent celebration, and are coming with us to a Christmas Choir concert at church on Saturday. It is so good to see God's Word at work in their lives!

Being blessed . . .

Although it is very strange to be in a place where people don't celebrate Thanksgiving, its very much on my heart today. So, here's my contribution to your celebration of the myriad of blessings that God has so generously bestowed on us:

-A warm place to sleep, good food to eat, and clothes that fit me.

-A family of believers who loves and cares about me, even when I'm crabby.

-A God who gave up what was most precious to Him so that I could be His friend.

Not a long list, but it covers just about everything that means anything.

I'm very tempted to wallow in self pity today, but last night I was challenged to think about what Thanksgiving really is for me. Is it really about getting to have all the traditions I'm used to? Or playing games all day with my family?

I have a choice today - I can feel sorry for myself, moping and complaining all day. Or I can be deeply thankful that I have a warm, safe place to live, a Christian community to support and challenge me, a place to serve others, and an opportunity to see God's incredible way of changing hearts.

I think I'll go with the latter.

Have a wonderfully blessed Thanksgiving.

Edinburgh or Bust

Scotland was amazing!!!

I'm not sure what expectations I had for the trip - its November, cold, rainy, and we were taking a 10 hour bus ride to go somewhere for just three days. Normally that kind of trip makes me grumpy.

Quite the opposite, I think it was one of the best trips I've ever taken. I'm sure most of that fact had to do with the company I kept - wandering around with 4 Brazilians is never boring. However, some part of my enjoyment came from the fact that I fell in love with Edinburgh. Its absolutely worth visiting if you ever get the opportunity (skip Glasgow, not nearly as charming).

We left last Friday night at 11pm and arrived in Edinburgh at 8am. The Brazilians were discouraged because it was cold and drizzling and we wouldn't be able to check into our hostel until 2. But we managed to walk around downtown a bit, grab a shuttle to the hostel, and keep warm there for a couple hours until check-in. Which didn't go so well as Pedro had accidentally made the reservations for a day earlier and they had cancelled it when we didn't show up the previous day. However, they were extremely nice and not only gave us free shuttle tickets back downtown, but called several hostels and let us know who had space. The weather cleared up and was beautiful for the rest of our trip; we ended up at a hostel directly in downtown which was nice because we could walk everywhere and didn't have to pay to take the bus. Love the way God works things out . . .

Our hostel was . . . interesting. Alice was terrified of the place, but I thought it was kind of charming. The people were really nice, the place was clean, but what freaked her out most was all the strange murals covering every single amount of wallspace. Our directions to our room were "Go up the stairs, walk down the corridor until you see Spiderman and turn left."

We spent two full days sightseeing in Edinburgh - beautiful old buildings, cute shops, Edinburgh Castle, Scotland National Gallery, and the big hill that overlooks the city. The people we met in the shops and on the streets were extremely warm and friendly - much more so than in London.

We took over 250 pictures, but I selected just a few to post up for your viewing pleasure here.

Overall, a wonderful and relaxing holiday. Especially when you have a Korean (even a Brazilian-Korean, they can't deny their blood) with you to get you everywhere and take the best pictures!

Request

I have a pretty urgent prayer request. One of the residents here found out that one of his best friends was murdered. He already struggles with depression and alcoholism, and he is not a Christian (professes atheism). As far as I can tell he also does not have many really close friends here.

Please pray for protection for him for these first few days, as I am very concerned that he may harm himself with drugs and alcohol. Pray also that the community would have wisdom in being able to reach out and help him.

Yay-Boo

Yay - for Rest Week and getting to sleep in an extra half hour because prayers are in the afternoon.

Boo - for trying to stay awake during the afternoon prayer service RIGHT after lunch . . .

Yay - for cold, crisp, Autumny days and wearing scarves.

Boo - for a third of the community to be gone on retreat.

Yay - for random people from California to walk into Lee Abbey and decide to apply to be a community member.

Boo - for having to work Rec 1 three times this week and eating lunch after everyone else (especially when all the good dessert is gone)

Yay - for having a two hour conversation with a resident about every aspect of the Christian faith imagineable!

Boo - for the lack of good apple cider in this country!

Yay - for beautiful and talented Hungarian women who teach aerobics every week (just for girls!); i'm definitely feeling the goodness today.

Boo - for hearing more often about all the people who are leaving in December and January (I think there are about 10).

Yay - for the incredible way God works when you wait and pray.

Not my will

The newsy posts are much more fun to write. But this one really needs to be written too, because I really want to be as genuine and open with my family and friends who are far away as I am with my friends here.

God has been really dealing with my heart in the matter of my will, especially with the decisions I make about how to spend my time. Over the last few weeks, I have spent most of my free time with my friends who are community members. Not necessarily a bad thing, they are my family here.

But in doing so, I was consistently ignoring the Holy Spirit's prompting to reach out to a resident here - who happens to be a resident that I really dislike and would rather avoid at all costs. Other residents, no problem. This one person I couldn't even look in the eye.

Then, about a week ago something happened to that resident that forced me to stop ignoring God's voice. It was such a hard night, to have to really face how selfish I had been. What was worse was how indifferent I had become to my sin. Thankfully, God is so faithful to patiently wait for me to wake up - and he gave me a huge blessing in Alice, who has been dealing with almost exactly the same issue and prayed with me this week about our situations.

Please pray that God would continue to change my heart about this resident (He has already started!), and also for Alice and the residents that God has been giving her opportunities to share with. She is currently doing a bible study through John with an Asian student, and is developing a deep friendship with another resident.

Thank you, dear friends!

Impressionists, Weddings, and Sundays

This is going to be the "newsy" post (ugh, and can I say how frustrating it is to try to type quotes on a British keyboard? Their quotation marks are switched with the @ sign so you have to press shift + 2 to get quotes!). I promise that I'll also try to get a profound, thoughtful post up in the next day or so too.

I finally posted pictures from my Greenwich trip a few weeks back - I've decided that Kyeong-Ah needs to be my personal photographer on every trip, especially with all the cool special color effects she does.

On my day off this week, I went to the National Gallery of Art with Alice, Lahn (my roommate) and a cute little Hungarian community member named Reka. They had a special exhibit on Impressionists there and I got to see some of my favorite Renoirs and Monets - and discovered some new favorites by Pissaro. Very excellent way to spend a day

Yesterday was a day that we've been anticipating for the last two months - a wedding of two former community members. Szabi (a Hungarian) left before I arrived, but Rachel has been my co-worker and Portuguese tutor for the last two months. It was an absolutely gorgeous wedding, but we all breathed a huge sigh of relief when it was over. The service was chock full of community members singing, playing, praying, and speaking - in Hungarian, Portuguese, Polish, and English :) The sweetest thing was to see the parents of the bride and groom try to get to know each other with very rudimentary English. I think the only reason it worked was because they were all fluent in God's love :)

I finally figured out that life here doesn't ever fall into "normal". If we aren't experiencing a huge rush of new people for the beginning of term, then we have a third of the community gone on retreat, a wedding to arrange, worship night to organize, or new community members to induct. It definitely keeps life interesting :)

Sadly, I discovered last night that my Brazilian brothers just don't have the cultural background to truly appreciate the Princess Bride - but at least now Pedro can't go around saying "As You Wish" without knowing it's double meaning :)

This is the office where I work. Sundays are my favorite day. I spent some time in prayer in the chapel, enjoyed meals with my friends, cleaned my room (much needed, I got a call from my roommate while I was at work saying, "I couldn't believe how clean our room is!"), and planned the prayer service I am co-leading next week. After working three hours, I went to church and enjoyed a great service. Sundays always remind me how truly blessed I am.

Third Brazilian Brother . . .

This isn't so much an update on life as it is a story of one of my friends. Its a little lengthy, so only read it if you have time and want a good laugh at the end.

I'm not sure how much I've said about Leandro, but he did something last night that officially made him my third Brazilian brother (he's the one on the left in the picture).

Samuel and Pedro are of course the first two: Samuel is older than me, and usually acts like an older brother. Pedro is younger than me and usually heckles me like a younger brother. Leandro defies them both by being younger than me, but by acting more like an older brother than the other two put together.

To preface the story, you should know a couple things about Leandro. He is Brazilian, but looks Korean because his mother is Korean. He is fluent in Portuguese, Korean, and English - although it took me a couple weeks to realize that his English was so good because he speaks so rarely. Alice thought that he arrived a week after we did because she didn't notice him until then, but he had actually been here for two weeks before us. I think I heard him speak maybe a paragraph's worth of words in the first three weeks that I knew him.

Leandro spent a lot of time with us because, of course, he is Brazilian, and he is one of Pedro's roommates. But I really knew nothing about him, just enjoyed his silent company during breakfast or listened to his guitar playing during worship. When Samuel and Yeon Bin left for Italy, Leandro quickly took over their room saying it was the most peaceful place in Lee Abbey.

During that time, Alice decided that Leandro needed to open up a bit. So in that sweet and irresistable way of hers, she managed to worm a 10 minute conversation out of him - a complete miracle compared to our previous paltry attempts. I think something changed that day because I noticed a difference in Leandro. He talked to me (just one or two sentences) occasionally without me needing to take a pry-bar to his mouth. The kicker really came when Alice had to go to the hospital: both Pedro and Samuel were gone, and he more than stepped up to the plate to take care of her - getting her food from the kitchen, visiting her, and making sure that she had everything else she needed. Several days later when I was sick, he did the same for me, bringing me tea from the coffee bar and fetching some clothes from my room (since I was staying in Alice's room). Last week, he started calling me by Alice's pet name, Brittney Maria (pronounced "BrEE-chney Mar-EE-a.")

So, back to last night's story. The Brazilians were having a kind of goodbye party for Yeon Bin in his and Samuel's room. My roommate had come to me previously and asked me if it was okay for her to entertain another party of Koreans in our room. I told her it was no problem since I knew I'd be up late with the goodbye party anyway. But at about 12:30 I started to get really sleepy and pretty soon Leandro noticed. I didn't want to go back to my room because I knew that there would still be a lot of people there, so I was content to just stay in Yeon Bin's room for a while longer. I thought to myself that if there were still people in my room by 1:30 or 2, I'd just go sleep in Alice's room. But Leandro wasn't happy with the situation, and at 1:00 he looked at me and said, "Let's go kick the Koreans out of your room." I told him that it was really fine, I had told Lahn it was okay. "No, its 1:00. Time for them to leave." And with that he grabbed a gleeful Pedro (who really wanted to see Leandro yell at the Koreans in Korean) and left the room. Samuel and I followed about 20 seconds behind and by the time I got down to my room, the Koreans were filing out of my room with slightly disgruntled faces with Leandro overseeing their exodus like a bouncer.

Leandro earned a kiss on the cheek for that one - which he took with much more grace than he would have two weeks ago :)

Change of Scenery

Lee Abbey has a ground floor, five numbered floors, and a basement. I live on the 2nd floor, filled with 19 resident rooms and 3 community rooms. Its slightly isolating - most of the community live in the basement, there are only 6 community rooms scattered throughout 4 of the resident floors. The inevitable result is that I spend very, very little time in my room. I never see my roommate and we have a long-standing joke that we are strangers because we are never in our room at the same time.

This week, 10 community went on retreat to beautiful Lee Abbey Devon - vacating 10 beds, including the roommate of my dearest friend Alice (if you haven't heard me pronounce her name, its Ah-LEE-see in Portuguese). So . . . I moved down the basement for a week and had a wonderful time experiencing basement life. The only problem is that Samuel and Pedro live on the 4th and 2nd floors respectively, so it was sometimes more inconvenient than before to go wake them up for lunch (on their days off :) or grab them for a movie. But overall, I really enjoyed getting to see community members that I rarely talk to and of course LOVED to live with my dear sister . . .


Office Team! My co-workers from Denmark, Brazil, Britain, Poland, Latvia, Taiwan, South Africa, and Pennsylvania :)

Quick resident update - have had two very interesting conversations this week. Alice and I have made friends with two guys who room together, David (from Belgium) and Scott (from US). They are a hilarious pair, talking with them is like watching a sitcom. Somehow the subject of how Americans use the word "love" came up, and it was such a great opportunity to talk about the worldly idea of love versus a Christian perspective on love, and both of the guys were really intrigued. It was one of the first really deep conversations we've had, and I'm sure it won't be the last as the four of us have planned to spend all of Saturday visiting Portabello Market to buy fruit and see some art galleries.

The other conversation was with another American named Adam who is an atheist Philosophy major. We had a somewhat puzzling, but I think good, conversation about the ways to discuss faith. He had mentioned how much he loved his Philosophy of Religion class the previous day, so I was a little surprised to find that he appeared uncomfortable and a little defensive when the subject of faith came up (and in a very broad sense). But I hope that our short conversation too will lead to others in the future.

Catching up

I am so richly blessed.

I've had a very full week - we've been a little short-staffed due to people being sick or on holiday. My best friend here had to go to the hospital at 2am on Wednesday (first time I got to ride in an ambulance!) and we spent over three hours there. Thank you everyone who prayed for her, she woke up this morning with no pain at all! After catching up on missed sleep from that adventure, Pedro's parents arrived yesterday and the Brazilians (the vote is that I'm 37% Brazilian now, you can ask me later for details) took them downtown to see Tower Bridge, Millennium Bridge and St. Paul's Cathedral at night.

Today I am working a morning shift and also the evening dinner hour, which makes for a long Saturday. The upside is that I have no supervisors working today, so the atmosphere in the office is very relaxed. After work, I will probably work on my "speech" for the first prayer service that I'll lead.

Every morning, Mon-Sat, we meet in the chapel at 7:30 for "morning prayers" which is really just a short worship service. Community members take it in turn to lead the service, balancing out to about one per month. New community members who are still working on their English are usually paired up with a more senior community member for the first few months. Apparently my English is more than adequate, though, because I'm the only new person to go by myself. I prefer it that way, I've always been better at individual projects than group projects :)

The morning prayer service is half an hour and usually consists of singing one or two praise songs, the "speech" (which is the term everyone here uses for the exposition), and intercessory prayers. These last two weeks we've been going through Mark, and my passage is when Jesus calms the storm out on the lake. I'm excited about preparing the service because its such a good passage to talk about, but I'm a little disappointed because I happen to be doing my prayers during Rest Week, which means that the service is at 2pm and is only 20 minutes long instead of 30. I'll just have to be succinct for once.

Next week is Rest Week because about 10 staff members are going to Lee Abbey Devon on retreat. If you work here for one year, you get an all-expense paid retreat at this beautiful conference ground in Devon. I'll probably get to go in March, they don't usually send new people right away because its meant to be something to refresh you after working for a while. I'm having a hard time imagining what it will be like to have 10 of my brothers and sisters gone - its been odd enough with only 3 gone these past eight days.

Pray requests for the week:
1. Second meeting of Alpha course on Monday evening (mid-morning for you Yanks)
Please pray that God would draw the residents who need to hear about Jesus's Resurrection to the meeting - especially for Kevin, a resident who came last week.

2. Rest Week - that all of the community would benefit from rest week and that the staffers leaving for Devon would have a safe and refreshing trip. ALSO - pray that the remaining staff stays healthy as we will be working on a skeleton crew as it is.

3. Opportunities with residents - please pray that I would use my breaks, meal times, and evenings at the coffee bar to further develop the friendships I've started with residents. Pray that God would give me opportunities (as he has already been doing this week) to discuss meaningful subjects rather than staying with the shallow "How was school?"

Thank you so much, my friends!!!

Two Events

The latest installment of Lee Abbey news . . .

Friday night was our big Welcome event - the Formal Dinner. It is the most "posh" event we put on. The entire staff worked all week (and ALL day on Friday) to prepare fully "laid-up" tables (candles and all), serve sherry and juice in the lounge, play waiter/waitress for each table, and finally clean up the whole thing at the end of the night. And we did it all in our nicest clothes! I think the residents really enjoyed the evening - especially the team presentations that we gave. The Kitchen team was by far the best and had the whole crowd in stitches. It was a lot of fun to see everyone all dressed up and get a chance to really mingle with the residents. But it was also a huge relief to get it over with.


From left: myself, Leandro, Alice, and Pedro - all Brazilians! :)

After getting some much needed sleep this weekend, we had our first Alpha course meeting last night. It was not really what I expected at all. There were about 12 staff members who came as leaders or assistant leaders, as the Warden's wife wanted to prepare for two groups. However, we only had three residents come and she still split us up into two groups, and even then she moved people around so that the staff members who had been talking to the residents ended up in a discussion group with a different person than they had been connecting with. So, I led discussion with 6 Christian staffers and a resident who ended up already being a Christian. It was a great discussion, but it tended to balance precariously on just being a Christian debate rather than a real Alpha discussion. But, I suppose that's just where we all were at the time, and I got to meet a resident that I've never talked to before (who coincidently has Aspberger's Syndrome). The other group had two non-Christians in it, and I think their discussion went really well, so I count that in God's book the evening was a success. Plus, I get the opportunity to buy all of Nicky Gumbel's books for £2 each! What a steal . . .

Thank you so much for praying for Alpha, and continue to pray that residents who wanted to come but forgot or were too shy would be drawn next week.

Now, I am going to go enjoy my day off! It will probably include guitar practice as I need to keep A, D, E, and C in my memory for more than one day . . .

Endurance running

Today at church, the guest speaker began with Phil 3:7-14, and Paul's picture of running a race really resonated with me. Especially since I'm currently exhausted.

My life is filled to the brim right now with people - and I wouldn't have it any other way. But I'm beginning to feel the wear of living out of balance. I spend almost 99% of my time around people and very little quiet time with just myself and God. And I'm also struggling to balance the amount of time I spend with community members versus the time I spend with residents.

Its good to be reminded that Paul didn't paint a picture of us sprinting and then dropping to the side of the track in exhaustion. I think I've been trying to sprint this week, letting my naturally social personality say yes to everything instead of scheduling in rest and renewal. Which has in turn affected who I want to spend time with: it is much harder to pour out into residents when I am getting low.

But . . .

Praise be to our God who is faithful! He always provides a fresh Word for me when I stop to listen, as he did today at church. This coming week is Welcomes Week, when Lee Abbey hosts several events intended to help the new residents get to know each other and the community members. It will be busy at work, and it will be busy "off work" during these evening mixers.

Please pray for me and with me in two areas:

1 - that I would seek God's face first of all this week.

2 - that God would give me the energy and the attitude to reach out to the residents this week.

I am so blessed by you!!!

Oh yes, this picture of one of my close Brazilian friends, Alice, and myself is hot off the presses today.

The best thing about friends . . .

. . . is exploiting their talents :) I unashamedly coerced Samuel into giving me a haircut last night (he worked in a salon for three years in Brazil) because I finally couldn't take all long hair anymore.

Pictures here for your amusement.

Weeping with those who weep . . .

Meu irmão, Pedro, found out today that his grandmother died and is struggling with not being with his family in Brazil right now. He has been a dear friend who I have laughed much with, and it was a blessing to have the opportunity to cry with him tonight. Please keep him in your prayers today.

Brazilians in Paris

If you want to meet "meus irmos" (my brothers) Pedro and Samuel, check out this video - its only a minute and a half, but it was their "proof" that they missed me while touring Paris (this video was taken in Luxembourg Gardens). Somehow, I still don't quite believe them . . .

Lee Abbey Times: Headline News

START OF TERM BEGINS WITH MISSING STUDENTS
The Office Team (of which I am one) expected some 40 arrivals on Saturday for the start of term, but only about half of those showed up. They still kept us busy, though, and we'll probably see the rest of the students trickle in over the next few days.

BRAZILIANS CREPES DRAW RESIDENTS FROM ALL FLOORS
After having eating crepes in Paris, Pedro wanted to learn how to make them, so last night we made enough crepes for the 12-15 people who wandered into the resident's kitchen. I think Pedro (an engineering major) missed his calling - he even learned how to crack eggs with one hand!

MAKING THE STATE DEPARTMENT PROUD
I should be preparing a CV for a Public Affairs officer position at the nearest US Embassy - I've chatted with at least 15 residents from almost as many different countries in the last week and almost all inevitably comment on how friendly Americans are. So many interesting people; I've even found a French girl who is majoring in American Politics!

LAST MINUTE APPOINTMENT TO KEY POSITION
Lee Abbey will launch its own student version of the Alpha Course in two weeks. They hope to have two small groups, led by community staffers. One of the leaders realized that she would be gone for the first two weeks and so I was asked to the lead the group while she is gone, and then co-lead with her when she returns. Much prayer needed!!

SUPERNATURAL POWER DISCOVERED: IS IT EXTRATERRRESTRIAL?
Despite the fact that I consistently got 5 hours of sleep or less all last week, plus worked in 5th gear at the office getting ready for all the arrivals, God blessed me with amazing opportunities to continue to cement the friendships I'm making with residents. He is always faithful to give me a fresh word every day and give me the strength and vision to be a living witness. Even more amazingly, I am already seeing the fruit of that witness in questions that some of the residents are asking me! Thank you so much for your prayers.

Latest Jaunt

Hopped a double-decker with my friend Ji-Hye this morning and trekked over the British Museum, which everyone here raves about. We made it through the Egypt, Greece & Rome, and Money rooms in two hours, quite a feat. My favorite exhibit: the prosthetic toe from an Egyptian burial tomb :)

Check out some pics of me enjoying some history . . .

Maybe I'm an extrovert after all . . .

This is my new roommate, Lahn (some confusion about her name earlier, Koreans don't have an "r" or "l" in their language).

So, I always thought that I was an introvert. A friend once told me that regardless of how outgoing you are, introverts are people who recharge by being alone and need solitude to survive. Extroverts are recharged by being around other people. At the time I had placed myself in the former category because I never feel more refreshed then when I can get away with a book or spend some quiet time praying or just listening to music.

I'm wondering about that now. I made a decision this weekend that for this first month of term, when I sat down to eat dinner I'd always pick a table with residents. Its so easy to just congregate automatically with my staff friends.

It is ALWAYS hard initially when I'm standing with my tray seeing all the tables with people that I am comfortable with, laughing together, and deliberately choosing to sit with someone I haven't met who is off in a corner, or at a table of residents who are obviously friends chatting away. But I've done this the last three days - not only for dinner, but breakfast too.

And I can't tell you how extraordinarily blessed I have been by it. I have met and had good conversations with at least 8 different people, from all sorts of countries. I've met Sara and Delphine from France, Ali from Iraq (well, currently Dubai), Scott from the States, Anne from South Africa, Sebastiano and Santosh from Italy, etc.

I just can't get over how much energy I have after my meals now. I leave feeling like I could go jog a mile or pound out a position paper. I am absolutely and totally loving the relationship-making aspect of this job. The key is that it takes intentionality. I could easily do my office job cheerfully and efficiently and still only know the residents names or never get past "Hi, how are you today?"

I'm already feeling them respond back - when I work, these students linger at the reception desk as they pass through and chat a bit if I'm not busy. They ask me just as many questions as I ask them. I found out today that Delphine is studying American Politics and she was thrilled to get to talk about foreign policy with me.

So thank you, thank you for your prayers. I am seeing miracles already in just the few days that I have taken just little baby steps out of my staff-world. Please continue to pray for these new relationships, that they would develop into numerous opportunities for me to show them true love and lead them to the Source.

Life Together

This won't be an epic, I'd just like to give you some things I'm learning about living in community (some particular to Christian community, but not all).

Its easier to be real. When you live AND work with the same people, its hard to fool them. Makes for greater accountability though.

Its harder to get perspective. Lee Abbey is a mini-world, even more so than my university was, and you can easily be sucked in to thinking that the whole world has the same problems and solutions and people as this little world does. Which is why the admin people here STRESS that you have to take your days off seriously and go out - see London, see England, spend time with a friend who doesn't live here, etc. If you don't take holiday within four months, they have a little chat with you :)

Its easier to bond with the staff than the students. The staff have a common passion (for Christ) a common purpose (to serve) and a common situation (dealing with the same responsibilities and benefits). To be honest, the diverse cultures only serves to bond us closer in what really matters. The students are not here most of the day and take much more effort to make friendships with.

Its harder to live a structured day. Being on Office team, my shift schedule changes weekly and its never predictable. I can't say that I will always have a quiet time at a certain time of day, or reserve a certain day for doing laundry. I find that several days may pass and I'll realize that I haven't taken personal time to get things done, clean my room, or spend time in personal enrichment. I have to schedule it in my life ahead of time, and stick to it when friends want to grab me to go hang out.

Its amazing to work and live in this place - to have a Christian community of support co-existing with a mission field. The balance is what is most challenging.

Oh, and I have a new roommate! Her name is Ok Ran Lee, but she goes by "Lan" (or "Ran", hard to tell with Korean accents :) She's adorable, several years older than me, but very friendly and independent. Just my kind of roommate . . .

Snapshot of Rec 3

I think this is a great time to give you a snapshot of my day, if you're interested. If not, then read something else :)

Today I had an evening shift, Rec 3 (Reception 3 - there are 2 morning shifts and 2 evening shifts which differentiate when you take your breaks). So I woke up in time to go to breakfast (they finish serving at 9, but there is no guarantee that they'll still have bacon left, so its better to go earlier) and ate with a couple residents - Ilse (who is interning at the Shakespeare Globe Theater), Niki (who is studying "make-up"), and I honestly can't remember the third girl's name. I got the community members down in three days, but the residents are killing me - so many of them look similar to me, and I don't get to interact with them as much since they are gone most of the day at school.

After breakfast, I went up to my room and cleared out all the stuff my old roommate left, taking it down to the community room for any and all to stake claim (although not after taking a few cute pieces of clothing and a nice portmanteau for myself). Then I put all my laundry away, which was hanging on racks from washing yesterday. After my room was all cleaned, I grabbed a new book (finished Sherlock Holmes' "Study in Scarlet" yesterday, today began "The Song of Troy" by Colleen McCullough) and grabbed a cup of tea to sip out in the garden while reading. Tea and coffee are served twice a day, at 10:30 and 4:00. If you're lucky, there are sometimes "biscuits" (crisp cookies) at afternoon tea.



The garden is one of my favorite places right now, since during the day it is usually quiet and COOL. London weather is a little on the warm side, ranging from 70-80 degrees depending on whether the clouds are covering the sun at the moment, but there is a nice cool breeze. Lee Abbey, however, is a good 5-10 degrees warmer with no breeze unless you're in a room with a big open window. We have been eating almost all our meals out on picnic tables in the garden because the weather is so nice.

I pretty much lazed around, chatting now and then with community members, until lunch. Lunch is exclusively for community on the weekdays - board for residents includes only dinner and breakfast on weekdays. Three of the four teams (House, Kitchen, and Maintenance) can stop working for our hour lunch, but the Office team has to leave at least one person behind to cover the reception desk, so we take turns . The team has between 8-10 people on it, so you don't have to miss community lunch often.

Lunch is promptly at 1:00. We eat for half an hour, after which one of the Admin people -- David and Mary (Warden and his wife), Chris Barry (Head of Personnel), or Helen (Head of Accommodation Office where I work) -- give "notices" or announcements. They list off the people that are in charge of certain duties for the next day, including: leading morning prayers, leading music at prayers, DPR (duty person who is called in case of emergency), running coffee bar, House Team On-Call, and finally, night duty.

Side note - I had night duty two nights ago. Consists of carrying around a mobile phone and master key around with you from 10:30pm to 8:00am and handling any emergencies that come up, which tend to be people who have locked themselves out of there room. Sure enough, I had a lockout at 1:00am.

Back to lunch. After notices, lunch is pretty much over. Normally everyone would go back to work at 1:30 or 2:00 depending on their shift, but this week is "rest week," which means our morning prayers are at 2:00 instead of 7:30am, so we get "a bit of a lie-in."

"Prayers" are really just a short worship service. Community members (all of them - volunteers and administration) take it in turn to lead a service in which we usually sing a couple songs, read a bible passage, and hear a short homily on the passage, followed by intercessions. Sounds slightly daunting, but its very structured. They go through books exposition-style, so your passage is already chosen for you, and already in context. And Lee Abbey has both a thick song-book of almost all the worship songs you can think of (everything from old hymns to very contemporary choruses) as well as a compilation of liturgical services that have prayers and congregational reading. You have quite a bit of flexibility in how you put it all together. At the end, you pray for specific needs: one or two present community members, a past community member (from the last year), a specific population of the resident community (like 1st Floor residents or Language students), and finally, a prayer request from the large Lee Abbey Community. Prayers are in the little chapel (seats about 35) and attendance is mandatory for those who are working that day.

After prayers, I had a few minutes to change into my office uniform (I promise a picture of that will be forthcoming) and report to work. And evening shift is usually filled with residents coming through at meal time and stopping at the desk to check their mail, get meal passes, report maintenance problems, inform us the vending machine is out of Fanta, or check out table tennis bats. If we're lucky, we get one of our other reports or projects finished before we close 7 hours later (the morning shift tends to be quieter and so easier to complete office paperwork).

I'm picking up the office tasks very quickly, and I feel very confident dealing with residents. I my old Info Desk supervisor, Linda Yochum, much credit for this. Most of the skills I used for that job have transferred nicely to this one.

The absolute best part about working the reception desk is that you eventually get to meet ALL the residents. I see their name in print 10-12 times before they even show up as we book their stay in the computer, send them correspondence to iron out details, compile welcome packets with important information, create their files, collect their room deposits, make their meal cards, and collect their mail. Then they actually show up! It really helps me to remember their names if I've seen it a lot before I meet them.

I get an hour break for dinner, and then another 20 minute break at 9pm before finally closing the desk at 10:30. Then my evening depends on what I need to get done or who pursuades me to hang out with them - sometimes I watch movies with community members, sometimes call home, sometimes check my mail, and sometimes just collapse into bed. Tonight, I checked in with Rachel to see how her first marriage counseling class went (she has been here 11 months and is engaged to a past community member who is working an hour away from London), checked in on a member of the Office Team (Lizete) who has been sick, and then had to call night duty because I realized that I left my keys in the Reception Office :) I called my goombah back in the States, then decided to post this blog before my eyes crossed permanently and caused me to invert all the words.

So, there's a not-so-short, but hopefully vivid picture of a typical day at Lee Abbey. The morning shift days usually give me more time to mix with the residents, as I can go to the coffee bar and chat with people or go out on the town with the girls I've made friends with, but otherwise don't substantially change my day.

Goodbye to you . . .

So, I've said three goodbyes in the last two days.

Two were for Joanna and Karolina, from Hungary, who I did not get to know at all because they were on holiday all this last week.

The third was to my roommate, Galyna, from Ukraine. We spent hardly 2 hours put together this last week, but the time we did spent together told us that we would have been very close and our goodbye was as sad as if we had known each other a month.

San Kyun, a South Korean, fixed a goodbye dinner for Galyna on Friday, and then a goodbye dinner for the two Hungarians on Saturday. I got to crash both, although I didn't eat at the first one. Clockwise, starting at 6:00: Vicky, Samuel, Gill, Kyeung Ah, Alice, Me in my office uniform, Yeon Bin, and Andriy.

DOW = Day on the Town

I had the rather fortunate circumstance of getting my first DOW (Day off work) on a Saturday. This only happens every month or so because our day off rotates. Anyway, my day off was also my sponsor's (Vicky) day off, so we decided to go see London together. Vicky coerced two other CMs (community members) to go with us, Pedro and Yeon Bin (mentioned previously as Young Bean - I just recently saw his name in print :). Yeon Bin is a great tour guide, and we left Lee Abbey at about 10am to be tourists (You can also check out the pictures I took as you read - if you are really interested, check again in a couple days because I'm going to add some from Vicky's camera too).

Portabello
First, we took the tube to Notting Hill and spent two hours meandering through Portabello Road Market. On Saturdays, the street is closed and everyone moves their little cart shops out. I couldn't help but sing the song about Portabello Rd from "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" in my head the whole time, but no one here has seen the movie. I picked up some London postcards as well as some dried fruit while my friends bought some fresh produce. I snatched a crepe from one of the street vendors for lunch, much to the amusement of my campanions - they waited until later to grab a meal at Burger King, but I found my meal very satisfying. The highlights of Portabello Rd were: the living statue at the entrance that only moved to tip his head at anyone who put change in his bucket; Pedro's great deal for cherries, "One pound for one pound"; the little hidden vendors that sold antique books (first editions Dickens and early publications of my favorite Austens, Eliots, and lots of poetry); the produce-selling husband and wife that tried to outshout the other "6 peaches for a pound"; and the French-Caribbean artist that we chatted with for about 15 minutes on whether the two blue elephants in his picture were fighting or dancing.

Buckingham Palace and Picadilly Circus
Because we were so late in leaving Portabello, we didn't get to Buckingham Palace until quarter past 2, so we missed changing of the guard. But we did get several pictures and I'm sure I'll make it back there later. We walked down the "pink" road (according to Yeon Bin - Vicky still argues that it's red) to Picadilly Circus. I found that there are several places named "Circus" and I think they really mean Circle. Picadilly Circus is where 5 roads intersect with a fountain in the middle. But it is certainly like a circus in that everywhere you look is motion, people, and advertisements. On one of the street landings (London streets are very organized - there are little landings in the middle so that you can cross half the street when the flow of traffic has stopped on one side, then wait until the other direction clears) a man had strapped a speaker/microphone to his stomach and was sitting in a chair preaching to the intersection. We stopped here at Burger King to eat lunch. I know my friends only ate there because they had coupons for it, but I wouldn't recommend it - the place was hot and dirty, which has not been by experience in most other places in London.

Trafalgar Square
After eating, we walking 10 min to the National Gallery and Trafalgar Square. I figured that the National Gallery needed its own day, so I just took pictures of the building and the square. I unfortunately met the Square pigeons in a rather unpleasant way when one dropped a present on my shoulder. But I have wonderful friends who helped me clean up :) A street landing off of Trafalgar Square gave a beautiful distance view of Big Ben.

Embankment
From Trafalgar Square we journey down to the Thames and walked along the river. From the bank, we could see the London Eye (basically a gigantic, slow Ferris wheel from which you can see all London. Was built for the Millenium) and several of the bridges. As we walked along the bank, we stopped at Embankment Gardens and rested a bit, then saw a WW2 memorial. Finally we ended at Westminster and Big Ben, where I had visited two nights before. Since it was dinner time, we decided to head back to Lee Abbey and come back in the evening to see Tower Bridge at night.

Tower Bridge and St. Paul's
Tower Bridge is really quite spectacular at night, a fact that the souvenir shops have caught on to because almost every postcard with Tower Bridge on it shows it at night. Yeon Bin, Vicky, and I walked along the river and saw London Bridge (which is not the bridge in the song - Tower Bridge is. London Bridge is a very modern, simple bridge that only looks special at night because it is lit up with pink/red lights) as well as Shakespeare's Globe Theater from across the Thames. We then visited St. Paul's, which was really quite breathtaking with an almost full moon over it. Finally, we walked across Millenium Bridge, which is a pedestrian only bridge across the Thames, and saw the Globe Theater up close. I've already made a mental note to go see a performance before the season ends in October.

I slept very well last night :) It was really wonderful to get out and be a tourist for a day and start aquainting myself with London. And it paid off today - while waiting at a bus stop after church, a lady approached me and said in a very thick Latino accent, "Portabello?" and I just so happened to know exactly where I was and where to point to Portabello because I had been there yesterday! I felt like a true Londoner . . .

Word of the Day

So, some news and some reflection.

Last night, I went down to the river with two friends (they tell me here that all the great places down at the river are best seen when its dark, and I quite agree). Check out the pictures I took, but view them with grace as my camera isn't the best for night pictures and I didn't have a tripod.

I have now worked for 4 days at the reception desk, and I can actually help people when they come to the desk or call on the phone!! I hate feeling helpless, especially when they are so busy. I have found that the reception desk is also a wonderful job because it is in the center of the flow of people here; I see people coming and going for meals, check their mail for them, answers their questions, and greet them when they go in and out of the building. I see the name of new arrivals six-eight times before actually meeting them and it does wonders for helping me remember what to call them.

I have been making friends with some of the residents and enjoying the variety and flavor there. I will name three specifically that I have conversed with the most - Ilse from Holland, Pournima from the US, and Josue from Burmuda (pronounced Jus-way). I have already made friends with all three, and am so looking forward to deepening those friendships over the next six months (the first two are only here until March). As far as I can tell, none are Christians, but I have already had the opportunity to at least bring up the subject of faith with the two girls. Please pray for more opportunity on my part to share my joy with them.

I am officially settled in - I got my library card today :) I will have to adjust to the British system though, the only free materials to borrow are books; CDs, DVDs, VHS, books on tape, etc, all cost between 40p and £2. Reservations (holds) are also charged. And I recognized very few books while browsing through the fiction, so I'll have to make several trips just to get to know the place.

I'm one of those nerdy people who gets a word and definition emailed to them everyday. Today, the word was "miscible" which means "Capable of being mixed together." It's used most often in chemistry, but you know I was thinking about this concept in relation to the community I belong to.

Our world really doesn't seem to testify to the facts that people of different countries and cultures are "capable of being mixed together." We have only our long history of violence and war upon war to testify to the fact that we don't like to mix. We like to say with our "elements" - those most like we are, those who make us feel comfortable, normal, and included.

As much as I am feeling a member of a large family, I am already finding that there are some brothers and sisters that I am more drawn to than others. I could easily pick out the four or five that I feel most comfortable with, that I most enjoy spending time with, and develop deep friendships with them while maintaining a warm and polite, but somewhat shallow and closed relationship with the rest. I haven't yet found the people who will really get on my nerves, but I'm sure that day is quickly approaching.

This has been on my heart all day, and I keep coming back to something I read for school several years ago. Its from Bonhoeffer's LIFE TOGETHER. Bear with me, this is really great stuff:

". . . a Christian comes to others only through Jesus Christ. . . Human love is directed to the other person for his own sake, spiritual love loves him for Christ's sake. Therefore, human love seeks direct contact with the other person; it loves him not as a free person but as one whom it binds to itself. It wants to gain, to capture by every means; it uses force. It desires to be irresistible, to rule . . . Because spiritual love does not desire but rather serves, it loves an enemy as a brother. It originates neither in the brother nor in the enemy but in Christ and his Word. Human love can never understand spiritual love, for spiritual love is from above; it is something completely strange, new, and incomprehensible to all earthly love."

That is weighty enough to chew on, but Bonhoeffer gets even more direct:

"Because Christ stands between me and others, I dare not desire direct fellowship with them. As only Christ can speak to me in such a way that I may be saved, so others, too, can be saved only by Christ himself. This means that I must release the other person from every attempt of mine to regulate, coerce, and dominate him with my love . . . Human love constructs its own image of the other person, of what he is and what he should become. . . Spiritual love recognizes the true image of the other person which he has received from Jesus Christ."

I hate admitting it, but I am used to loving people in human love. I'm used to using subtle manipulation to "regulate, coerce, and dominate" those I love to love me back, to show me preference, to be what I need them to be for me, me, me. Its not the kind of love that saves, builds, restores, but the kind of love that tears and destroys and requires healing. I don't know if it is because I have moved to such a unique community and am looking so purposely and intently at how I am building the foundations of these friendships, but more than ever before in my life I want to love this dear people THROUGH the person of Christ rather than through my flesh.

My new friends!!!

Check out some of my new friends - Samuel, Rachel, and Pedro from Brazil (from left to right in the first picture) plus Kyeuong Ah in the second picture. We're hanging out after a long day in the "community room" - a kind of staff lounge with a kitchen, small library, collection of board games, and an internet access computer.

Be anxious about nothing . . .

This month is a peculiar time for Lee Abbey - the summer holidays are ending, and the "transit" residents will be leaving as students start arriving who will be staying for 1, 2, or 3 terms (similar to the quarter system). As our community gears up for the beginning of term on Sept 23, we have decided to get together every Monday night this month to pray especially for outreach this Autumn term. I'd like to pass along the events we are bringing to our Great Provider so that if you feel so led, you can join us in petition:

1. The Alpha Course for students (once a week for the term)

2. Worship Night (Nov 2 - last term many residents attended this event put on by community members and heard about Christ)

3. Taize Prayer Service (a French style of worship that involves meditation on passages of scripture, singing simple songs, periods of silence, etc.)

4. Social Outings (great opportunity to build relationships with residents)

5. Opportunities for relationship-building (at the Coffee Bar, meal times, lounge area, in our areas of work).

Thank you for joining us in presenting our requests to God with Thanksgiving - we are so privileged to be tools in the hand of a Mighty God!

Churched-up

Its so hard to try to keep this blog updated, my first few days here are so packed! So, I may have to take it in pieces and not get to everything at once. I think this post will just be about Sunday.

I worked my very first shift on Sunday morning in the kitchen. On Sundays, all community members work three hours because our residents (and us!) like to eat :). But that makes the kitchen team short, so members of other teams will work kitchen shifts. Which is what I did, breakfast shift. The day before, everyone told me that it was unfortunate that my first shift would be Sunday morning kitchen, but I really didn't mind it at all. I liked getting to see everyone come in for breakfast, but what I didn't like was how hot it was to work behind the food serving bar (heated underneath and overhead by lamps). I worked mostly with Samuel, a Brazilian who has been here several months.

Samuel had previously invited me to go to church with him, and he was going to two different services that day. I was really excited to see churches in London, so I decided to go to both as well. Maria Alice (another Brazilian who arrived the day after I did) and Leandro (who has been here two weeks) came with us. We left ten minutes after my shift ended (good thing I can change fast) and walked about 20 minutes away to Holy Trinity Brompton, or as everyone else calls it, HTB.

I absolutely LOVED the service there - it wasn't really large, about 200-250 people at the service I attended (I think there are 5 services though), and it was in a beautiful building (top picture). What I loved most was the heart of the place - the service was brimming with enthusiasm, reverence, and an atmosphere of comfortability that I can only explain as the feeling one gets when one is visiting a large family that all get along together. I was impressed with the service, which balanced traditional liturgy and historical legacy with contemporary music and fresh approaches to modern-day life. Their announcements placed a huge emphasis on prayer meetings throughout the week with focuses on their church community as well as their outreach to London. And the message that Sunday was on John 15:1-17, and was really excellent (you can download it here). All in all, I left so refreshed by that body!!

After lunch and a rest, the four of us hit the tube (after a confusing bout with Alice and I trying to use our Oyster cards correctly) and journeyed up the Picadilly Line to Tottenham Court Road and the Dominion Theater where we attended the evening service for Hillsong London. VERY different from HTB in style and method - the service was very heavy on media and audio/visual worship. The congregation was almost all 20s and 30s. But I do have to say that they had just as much passion and enthusiasm for Christ and His church there, and the guest speaker who gave the message was also very excellent. It was really a great place to crash a service, but I felt that I would prefer HTB as a local body to plug into. However, I still plan to go visit lots of other churches with other community members so that I can experience the diversity of ways that Christians in London worship together.

At the end of the day, I was so refreshed. The small taste I got of travelling around the city and seeing new people and places was like getting a sample at Costco of a really good dessert that you pull off the shelf with the anticipation of getting home to eat it after dinner. The best part of the day was deepening my relationships with my fellow community members who traveled around with me. I already feel like the people here are my brothers and sisters in heart and that this is my home.

First Impressions

First, I get to say that I'm finally posting from London!!! Whoo-hoo!!

This post might be shorter than I'd like, because my hands are sore from playing volleyball yesterday and are protesting loudly :)

Okay, down to business. This place is really nothing like my mind pictured, but its fabulous nonetheless. Let's see if I can paint a good picture for you:

First, on the outside Lee Abbey kind of looks like the rows of townhouses you see in San Francisco, except they all look the same. It takes up two addresses, 57 and 67 Lexham Gardens. All of the buildings around here are old and beautiful, lots of wrought iron curlicues, crown molding, and all the quaint architecture extras you'd
expect. No stucco in sight!!!

The inside is really a lot like an old dormitory. The ground floor has several large rooms for dining, lounging, and playing games. There is a beautiful "garden room" painted green, full of couches and tables with an exit to the backyard garden. The dining room is long and narrow, with about 20 light blond tables and chairs to seat 6 each. A set of skylights and the the large windows at the end looking out on the backyard make it a wonderfully light and beautiful place to eat and chat.

My room is on the second floor (yes! I'm going to get my super-calves back!) and my roommate, Galyna from Ukraine, is unfortunately leaving Sept 10th. Half the people I've met here are leaving within a month or two. Another quarter have been here for about half a year, and then a nice little bunch are fairly new themselves (plus, they are expecting more people in the next few weeks to replace the ones leaving).

I'm doing fairly well trying to remember (and pronounce) everyone's name, but I'll make a list so that you get a flavor for the incredible diversity of the community members (the term they use to describe the voluntary staff people like me):Lizete and Allan from South Africa; Samuel, Maria, and Pedro from Brazil; Martina and Martin from Slovakia; Astrid from Denmark (who immediately told me that she loved how loud I spoke since she wouldn't be the only one getting shushed by the Warden's wife Mary); Andre and Galyna from Ukraine; Beni, Gabol, Victor, Vili, and Anna from Hungary; Antra from Latvia; Vicky from Taiwain, Kyung Ha and San Kyoong from S. Korea; Pedro from Argentina; Fani from Greece; and Emmanuel from Sierra Leone. And I haven't even met everyone yet!

Here are some preliminary pictures - I haven't gotten any of the common rooms yet, but I will soon.

Yesterday, my roommate and my sponsor (a community member from your team that shows you how life here works) gave me a tour of the place, I ate lunch with them, and then unpacked. Samuel from Brazil (until I get them all memorized I keep calling them by
their name AND country in my mind) invited me to "play volleyball" with a couple people after that, so we walked down to Holland Park with Andre from Ukraine and Young Bean (I swear, that's how it's pronounced - I need to ask him to spell it for me sometime) from S. Korea. There was no net, so we just practiced hitting the volleyball around and I didn't disgrace our country TOO badly, although the bruises on my arm testify to my severely undeveloped skill in hitting the ball in the right place. That kept me awake long enough to make it through to dinner, after which I crashed into bed (at 7:15) and slept until the alarm went off at 7 this morning. I love sleep!!!

So, my hands say enough typing - more on my thoughts and impressions to come.

No wax here

I have so many thoughts swirling around in my head, its hard to pull out any that make a coherent paragraph. But I'll give it a valiant effort.

A couple days ago, a dear friend gave me a verse as encouragement for my trip. It's Psalm 37:23-24, which in NLT says, "The steps of the godly are directed by the LORD. He delights in every detail of their lives. Though they stumble, they will not fall, for the LORD holds them by the hand." In NIV, it says that "the LORD makes his steps firm."

Today in church, we sang a song that began "Everything You hold in Your hand, yet You make time for me; I can't understand."

Those two thoughts sum up what I've been mulling over the most - the amazing mystery that God is all-powerful, King of Kings, the Great "I Am" . . . and also the God Who Sees Me.

As I am preparing to leave, I've found that I have less to actually DO than I thought. I ran some errands last week, and I've been gathering things up from around the house that I want to take with me. They've made nice little piles on my dresser :) However, today the Holy Spirit impressed upon me that I need to pay attention to preparing my heart just as much as I am preparing my luggage.

When I thought about what I wanted most to be prepared for, I realized that my deepest prayer right now is that I would be genuine. I want to be transparent and real to the people that I meet in London. I don't want to miss amazing opportunities to see God's glory because I covered His light in me.

This reminded me of a sunday school lesson that I learned many, many years ago. In Philippians 1:10, Paul exhorts us to "be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ." The word sincere literally means "without wax" in greek. It came from the pottery trade; cheap or unethical potters would sell cracked pottery by plugging up the holes and cracks with wax. You could not tell the difference by just looking at the pottery - it looked as whole as a true piece. However, if you held the piece of pottery up to the sun and let the light shine through, you could see the wax glow and know that it was broken and would not actually hold up to much stress.

Many of you have asked how you can pray for me - and I ask most of all that you pray I will be genuine and sincere, without wax. I want to be the real thing, for my actions and attitudes to be so in sync with what I say I believe, that words are superfluous. One of my favorite quotes attributed to St. Francis of Assisi is, "Preach the gospel at all times; if necessary, use words."

Can I get a what! what!

Read it and weep (which I'm just about doing now) - my visa was accepted! The lady at the embassy must have gotten really sick of my voicemails and faxes :) Yay for knowing what you're going to do in two weeks . . .

. . . and a special, very heartfelt THANK YOU to all you wonderful people who put up with me during this ordeal. No box of chocolates would be big enough to pay you back (which is why I'm not sending you any :)).

Going beyond Paul's highest hopes

I love the way my grandpa prays. I was visiting him a couple days ago, and when we sat down to the evening meal we held hands and my grandpa blessed our food. I've heard thousands of meal prayers, and have given a few myself, but there is something incredibly special about my grandpa when he prays. His prayers are never rushed, never thoughtless. And they always start with humility and awe. He usually mentions something like, "Lord we stand before you in complete wonder at your majesty and grace." There is something about his unforced worship in such a simple act as giving thanks for food. Sometimes I struggle with a wandering mind during meal prayers, but the sound of my grandpa humbling himself before an Almighty Creator arrests me so much that I usually have trouble tearing myself out of it to eat when he says "Amen."

It seems unnecessary to say that I want to pray like that. I want to be in a place where my communication with Christ is first of all clothed in brokenness and reverance. I so often fall victim to the great American-Christian attitude of presenting God with a shopping list as my primary conversation with Him. Not that I think there is anything wrong with asking for help or sharing my desires with God, but its immature. Its milk and baby food, and it doesn't satisy me. I want my prayer to be worship.

Today was a day of great celebration at my Sacramento church - they held their first Sunday service in their new building. This little group of believers has given and sacrificed and worked and believed and served for 4 long years and today they were almost giddy with adrenaline and gratitude for finally worshipping in a place that was set apart for them. The pastor gave a really simple message of how to respond to God when you are blessed, nothing that was rocket science. But as always, he based his message in Scripture and God ministered to my need and brokeness from three of those scriptures.

The first was Gal 6:7-9, which encourages believers to "live to please the Spirit" because those who sow a life of discipline in Christ will make an eternal difference. Paul specifically exhorts us "don't get tired of doing what is good! Don't get discouraged and give up, for we will reap a harvest of blessing at the appropriate time."

The second was a passage in 2 Corinthians. Paul is bragging about the amazing spirit of the Macedonian church that gave generously out of their "wonderful joy and deep poverty," to the extent that they were begging Paul to be of use to his ministry in Jerusalem. What really grabbed me is what he says immediately after - "Best of all, they went beyond our highest hopes, for their first action was to dedicate themselves to the LORD and to us for whatever directions God might give them."

The last (bear with me hear, I promise to link these all together :) is a very familiar passage, Romans 12:1-2, in which Paul instructs us to give our bodies to God that we would be "living sacrifices." When we let God transform our thinking to Kingdom logic rather than Earth logic, we have the tools we need to understand God's purpose and plan for our lives, or as the NLT so eloquently puts it, "you will know what God wants you to do."

I've been struggling this last week with not knowing what God wants me to do. I so desperately want to act in faith, to be a worshipper, to do what is good. And I've been losing the battle because I've been doing nothing. When someone asks me "Have you heard about your visa yet?" My reply has been borderline bitter, which does not glorify God in the slightest. I can't imagine how someone who was not a Christian would see me and what I believe in if they could really hear the thoughts in my head - would they wonder how I could claim with one breath to believe that Christ has written all my days in His book and guides each step I take and then in the next breath complain about not being privileged to details that I want right here, right now!

I realized in church today that I've been "acting" in faith - by continuing to plan for London - but not living in peace. And I'm not altogether convinced that you can act in faith without living in peace, the former is more likely a state of hypocrisy. Granted, its consequences are much better than acting in outright rebellion, but my witness (and overall frame of mind) are still questionable.

But . . . how awesome and gracious is our Lord. He holds the universe in the palm of His hand and yet condescends to KNOW me! He spoke over 2,000 years ago and breathed it out for me today - He encouraged me to continue acting in faith, because in due time I will reap a harvest. He reminded me that I want to be the kind of person that gives out of an overflow of joy, even in my deepest poverty, and that I get that spirit from dedicating myself to God for whatever direction He gives me. He gently prodded me to lay myself down again as a LIVING (as in active) sacrifice that I would allow Him to change my Earth logic (the reason I am panicking about London) into Kingdom logic (the way to live in peace) so that I know what God wants me to do.

Today, God wants me to just worship him. "Father, I stand before you in complete wonder at your majesty and grace . . ."

By faith . . . I pack.

You might notice that these first few posts were written at the beginning of August. Which means, I am still in Sacramento, not London.

Its completely in the realm of possibility that I will not go to London. Right now, I have a plane ticket to Heathrow with my name on it (on a very nice plane, I might add, courtesy of one of God's amazing children who just happens to also be a travel agent), my last day of work is set for Aug 18th, and my family has already arranged to drive me to San Francisco and see me off on Aug 31st.

There is one small snag.

I don't have a visa or a passport. I don't have a passport because the British Embassy in L.A. currently has possession of it with my visa application. I applied for this visa at the end of April. Yep, count it - 3 and a half months. As of two days ago, the status of my application was "deferred." And as the incredibly nice gentlement with a killer British/Scottish combo accent informed me, they were "not privy" to the details of why the embassy has yet to decide if I get my visa or not. He also told me in a most regretful tone that there was absolutely nothing I could do about my application except notify them in writing that I wanted it withdrawn.

As often as I feel like I'm stumbling around in the dark, stubbing my toes on the furniture trying to find the door, this was not one of those times. When the guy said "there is absolutely nothing you can do," I knew that for right now, "by faith" means wait.

This is one I get. I've had practice with waiting. I've already waited 3 months with no sweat, no worry. And I'm not really worried right now, either. But this little situation has led me to realize a couple things about myself and this London deal.

First, I haven't really gotten excited about it yet. In fact, I don't yet really believe and know that I'm going to live in London. The only part of me that thinks that is the part of me that makes friends with the characters in books and dreams about the multitude of possibilities for my life. For a while, I didn't get excited about it because it was too far away. Now, I realize that I haven't fully owned London because my visa hasn't come yet and I am really afraid of how disappointed I'll be if it falls through.

So, I admitted this to God a week ago while listening to a great message at church. His answer: Trust Me. By Faith.

I must have been just a little more surrendered, a little more sensitive to the Spirit than usual because normally, I will take that statement and make it match what I want. "Trust me that I will get your visa in time. Pack your clothes by faith. Trust that you will be in London." However, that wasn't what He was saying. Well, a little bit, but not the whole story. The real answer was "Trust Me with the whole deal. Trust me that I love you and that no matter what happens I have a purpose for your life and a plan for you to walk in. Trust me that I will make everything happen for you to go to London if that's what I want for you and trust me that I will help you deal with your disappointment if I have something else for you."

You know, even that much I can handle on a bad day. Its what came next that was hard to take. "By faith . . .fully invest yourself in getting ready for London."

I could psych myself out and pretend that God promised me London in order to give my heart permission to get excited and want to be there. Or I could keep myself guarded and not give London any place in my heart. But God wants me to live in reality and step out in faith. Make myself vulnerable. Venture into a desert before finding the land of promise. A desert gives no guarantees, no promises. You might find water the first day out, or you might be thirsty for a week. But just as God provided for Abraham through every desert, I know that He will provide for me too.

Which is good news, because I'm still having a hard time getting excited. Good thing I know that faith is action, "evidence of things unseen." You may not see me very excited, but I made a to-do list. I bought some things I need for the trip yesterday. I started this blog.

Prologue

This blog exists because friends heckle me (you know who you are). I'm not a true blogger by heart - but I do love to write and to talk to my friends. Sadly, I have this premonition that while living as an Englishwoman I will have precious little time to do either. Hence, the blog solution.

However, as I have started thinking about what to put on this page, I've been challenged to think of this as more than just an update forum on Brittney's life. As the title says, I'll be a stranger in a foreign land . . . like Abraham was a stranger in the land of promise, and like we as Christians are strangers even in our hometown. So, my prayer is that this is more a travelogue of what it means to live as a Christian in a place that is not our home rather than a mere photo album of a fun trip. My journey starts with the same two words that began Abraham's sojourn:

By faith . . .