Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve updated my blog, and I will go ahead and apologize of the length of this blog! Kudos to you if you read it all:)Loads of stuff has happened since my last update, but I will do my best to sum up the interesting parts HAHA:) I was able to visit Bath England which is where some of the old Roman baths are. It was an absolutely beautiful city and full of history. Some of us also went on a trip to Edinburgh Scotland for a couple of days. We had some truly Scottish weather with lots of rain and wind, but we still had a great time seeing the sights. We had one day of sunshine on which we were able to get out of the city and do some hiking. It was tons of fun, and the land was absolutely gorgeous.
The Lord has definitely taught me tons since my last blog as well. There have been days where I have been utterly exhausted, completely overwhelmed, and felt totally incapable of doing what is expected of me. However God has had to get me to those places in order for His glory to shine brighter through me. I have been reading in the book of Judges lately where God calls Gideon to save the Israelites. It really hit me when I was reading chapter 7 in Judges and God tells Gideon that he has too many Israelites fighting. God goes on to tell Gideon that if this many Israelites go into battle they will think they have won the battle on their own. So the Lord dwindles Gideon’s army of 32,000 men down to only 300 men. It would seem impossible for 300 men to defeat their enemies and in fact it would have been if the Lord hadn’t been on their side. The Lord has had to do the same thing with me. He has had to get me to a place of knowing I cannot do things on my own, but only with the Lord by my side can these things get done. It reminds me of the hymn that says “Child of weakness, watch and pray, find in Me, thine all in all”.
I have not had the opportunity to run into Lydia the girl I met as I was trying to escape from the park that one day again. However I know our one encounter was not for nothing, and she is on my daily prayer list that God would sow people in her life that lead her to the Lord. God has also allowed me several different great conversations with others during my time here. Most of them were in unexpected moments, but it seems that’s the way the Lord usually does it HAHA:) One of the unexpected interesting conversations I had was on a Wednesday afternoon as some of my teammates and I were doing our weekly surveys in neighborhoods. This task was not that daunting at first, but after the weather turning horribly cold and wet, people slamming doors in our faces, and overall not good responses, Wednesday afternoons were not exactly my favorite moments of my week. Well I had knocked on a door, and an older lady yelled at me through the window asking what I wanted. I told her about the survey and after no response I was just going to go to the next house. Of course as I knock on the next door, the lady comes out yelling something and I think to myself awesome I’m about to get chewed out by this older woman. So I put on a happy face real fast and once again ask if she would take my survey and surprisingly she said yes. So I ask her the first question which is “What do you enjoy about living in this community” and she responds that she doesn’t remember because 2 years ago she fell in the bath and now has a horrible memory. I was confused but thought maybe she could answer the next question so I asked her the next question and sure enough her answer was she fell in the bath 2 years ago and can’t remember anything. At this point I give up on getting a survey from this lady but think hey I am getting amazing opportunities to talk to people that open their door to me to take a survey that I wouldn’t normally have so I begin a normal conversation with her asking her how her day was going. A lot of the people that open their doors to us are elderly people that are really lonely and just want someone to talk and listen to them. Pretty soon after talking with her I discovered she was a Christian and the funniest part was she was trying to witness to me. I had the opportunity to tell her I was from the States and in fact was already a Christian and was over here doing a missions internship. I asked her if I could pray for her before I left and we had a great time praying together and praising the great God that we serve. This lady who I thought was about to rebuke me for knocking on her door turned out to be a lady that I praised God with!
I have had some hilarious stuff happen since my last blog as well…I know imagine that:) I must say I’m pretty sick of buses. I will be totally fine if I never had to ride on them again. But the aisles on the buses are not very big which is not a totally huge problem, but when the bus starts moving and you have bags in your hands, things can get interesting real fast. Well one day I was getting on the bus and as it started to go I was grabbing for a pole to hold onto only to accidentally hit a fellow on his forehead and to top it all off as I turned around to tell him sorry I completely sideswiped another guy’s face with my backpack!! I didn’t say sorry to that guy; I just scurried to my seat before I could do anyone else any harm. To say that least as I got off that bus everyone gave me plenty of room HAHA:)
The house that I am living in with 4 of my other girl teammates is pretty much in a ghetto area of town. It’s great because we can interact with kids we work with in our programs we do, but well it is still the ghetto haha:) Halloween is a lot different over here. It is seen as a lot more evil and most Christians don’t celebrate it at all in any fashion. Also kids go around egging everything and everyone in sight. Yup our house got egged:) Also they have a day called Guy Fox (Not sure of the spelling of that, but that’s how it sounds) that celebrates a day where the Brits captured a terrorist named Guy Fox that was trying to blow up Parliament. How do they celebrate you may ask? Well of course by shooting fireworks. Literally fireworks were going off everywhere! There are no laws about where fireworks can be shot off here, so imagine what our lovely abode in the ghetto was like on that night. I felt like I was in a war zone. The lovely kids in the neighborhood will also shoot the fireworks off at passer bys. So everyone in our house had to make a run for it from the bus stop to our house. But hey it was quite a memory maker.
Thanksgiving is this week which is sad to be away from family and friends at this time of year, but we will be celebrating it in our own fashion. A couple from the church we attend had us over Sunday after church for a Thanksgiving feast. You could have rolled us all out of there by the time we were done. Then this coming Saturday the Americans are making a Thanksgiving feast for all the British students. It should be interesting seeing as the dishes we are planning on making have only ever been made by our moms HAHA as well as the cooking spices and such are way different over here. Whatever the outcome it will definitely be a memorable Thanksgiving!
I have about 3 weeks left which is absolutely insane! I can’t believe it has gone as fast as it has and that I’ll be going home so soon. Half of me is jumping for joy to go back home to everyone, and the other half of me doesn’t know how I could leave this place or the amazing people I have just spent the last 4 months of my life with. As the end draws near, the pressure is on to get everything done. I am feeling a bit overcommitted and spread a little thin at the moment which for anyone reading this that knows me very well knows I have a habit of doing this. But on top of my normal fairly full week I have added two more projects. One is alongside one of the Brit students named Esther. We have the task of writing a Christmas play for the kid’s groups at the church we attend, practicing it with them, and performing it December 13th. And just in case I hadn’t overdone it yet I am also going to go into about 6 different elementary schools and teach the Christmas lesson alongside another one of my teammates Carrie. We’ll be teaching the lesson to our equivalent of 2nd graders, and we will have about an hour to do so. All of these are amazing opportunities, but definitely only the Lord can help us get it done. Please pray for me in this last month that I won’t be so focused on the excitement of going home that I wish my time away here. Also please pray for all the different tasks I am doing to be done well and lead to the glory of God and furthering of His kingdom. This has been an amazing opportunity to spend this time in Wales. God is definitely starting something special in the hearts of the people here, and it has been exciting to be a part of it. But the opportunity is not over, and I hope the Lord enables me to have the perseverance to finish strong. Okay so since I have updated this thing in forever I totally owe you more than just one British word so here we go. A plaster is a band aid, a rubber is an eraser, wellies are rain boots, someone’s fringe is their bangs, and a jumper is a heavy sweater. Have great week everyone.