Photo Journal of England & Scotland by Sherry

 Today marks the halfway point of this journey; we've been here 3 weeks now and have 3 weeks to go. So far we've spent 2 days in London, 6 days in Bedfordshire with our friends, Oliver & Co., 10 days in Annan with a couple of afternoons in nearby Dumfries, and now we are in Glasgow for 4 nights. Tuesday we go to Seamill, on the west coast in Ayrshire, for 3 nights, then all the way across the country to the east to Aberdeen.

I decided to do a photo journal this time. In case you think i posted a lot of pictures, you have no idea how many more i wanted to post but didn't. :p

View of London from the BT Tower

Alan, who works at the BT Tower and took us to the top

First evening in London, dinner with Sam & Bethan at Bethan (and Leah's) mum & dad's home. Andrew's not in the pic because he was miserably sick in bed with fever, chills and aches.

London-Playing with Hope & Esme

London-Esme and her bucket of snails that she collected from their garden. She's the same one who i took a pic of last autumn holding a bucket of pears.

Bedford-Oh, Lois! How you melt my heart! When she looks at me like this, she can have anything she wants!

Bedford-dinner with Oliver & Co. Precious friends.

I bathed Lois and did her in the same whoopty-do that i always did to my baby girls

She SO loved snuggling with Randall. She fell asleep right after i took this.

another dinner with Oliver & Co

Amber made cherry cheesecake...

And Olivia made sticky toffee pudding. I forgot to take the pictures till after we'd already eaten.

Water play in the driveway

Sunday's lunch was steak and ale pie=oh wow!

And the pudding was HOMEMADE meringues with berries and cream

Andrew & Randall living Last of the Summer Wine (their fav British show, if you've never heard of it)

The view of Yeldon from near Oliver's house

The view from our bedroom window

Waiting at the Northampton train station to go to Annan. Not by myself this time.

The main street of Annan, looking one way...

and the other way.

River Annan

Walking path along the River Annan

Tesco's sells American chocolate chip pancakes, 1 pound for a package

This is Gillian, the lady who waited our table the first night we were in Annan, and then we kept running into her around town. She invited us to come to a "coffee morning" fund-raiser thing for a city park. She's with her younger daughter and cousin's son.

Walking between sheep pastures on our prayer walk around the town of Annan, which was a 5-mile walk.

Randall kept track of where we covered with prayer (highlighted in pink)

Annan: Ms. Mary when she had us over for dinner after driving us around the countryside all afternoon.

Ms. Mary took us to the Solway, which is right outside Annan. Not sure if you can see here what the "ground" looks like that we were standing on; it's literally all these little "islands" that you have to jump from one to the next to get around. Mary said it's not safe to walk along the beach because there is quicksand.

Kinmount Castle, right outside Annan. The very one Randall claims he should be duke of. Randall insists he needs to "take it over" while the current owner is away. Mary took us right up PAST the sign that says "No vehicles beyond this point!", through the gate, to the caretaker's quarters. While she was taking forever to turn around because she was so busy talking, the caretaker lady came outside and stood there looking quite sternly at her, so Mary rolled down the window and as soon as the lady saw us she recognized us from town and immediately became friendly and chatty. :)

Westerkirk, near Annan: Mary took us to this church and insisted to the caretaker that he run back home and get the keys so he could let us in to have a look round! She's completely hysterical.

The same church

Westerkirk, near Annan: In front of the church. This was actually several miles from Annan, and it was surprising how different the landscape was here - lots of steep rounded hills. I thought i'd died and gone to heaven, it's so beautiful. Idyllic. 

Westerkirk, near Annan: This is in front of the same church. I walked up the lane behind me till i came to a house, then turned round. Sheep pastures and woods on either side of me.

Annan: All i wanted to do was go for a LITTLE walk along the River Annan after dinner, on the familiar east side of the river. Let's cross over the bridge and walk on that side, he says...Yes, we CAN walk right through this cow pasture along the river, he says...YES, there really IS a bridge just right up here where we can cross back over; i saw it on the map...Yes, we CAN walk through this private horse pasture; these people training their horse won't mind a bit...then the really dense wood in the pic above...and FINALLY, there was indeed a bridge to cross back over, and walk ALL THE WAY back. Andrew finally texted, "When are you coming back?" (he had chosen to go back to our room while we went on our "little" walk)

Annan: Soon after we got back to our room after The Walk, this was going on in the street below us. I guess they're practicing for the Riding of the Marches festival that is July 2. (It's around 8:30-9:00 pm here)

Annan: This was the view from our hotel window the night before summer began, at about 11:00.

Annan: the ladies i chatted with at Kate's Kitchen: Fiona, June, Hazel, and Mary.

#5-Table Life and Royalty: The Conclusion (i think) of our Latest Journey Journal

So here it is a full 3 months since my last post when i promised to process this big MISSION SURVEY TRIP to England, Scotland, and Ireland. I've tried over and over and over again to open my mouth to express what we just experienced, but the words would not come out. How does one put words to something so big, so life-altering, so unspeakably amazing?  This is my feeble attempt.

John 3:8 - "The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.  So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

Let me start by restating our original purpose from before the trip:

-"We plan to visit the friends we have throughout Italy and the U.K. as we seek what God is doing there and what He wants us to do. We plan to come back to the U.S. sometime around Thanksgiving? and move into whatever God wants us to do next. The funding from the sale of the business (the down payment + the 21-month pay-out) should support us as long as we don't go all fancy pants, keeping things simple and staying close to the ground (but hopefully not sleeping on the ground!)

-Our focus will be on people, not places or things to do. Of course, we'll still be homeschooling Andrew [although it'll officially be world schooling], so we'll have to go on a few field trips.

-Our mission will be to bless as we have opportunities. 

-We have no other agenda. We are very intentionally trying not to go with all our plans up front; we tried that before and it didn't work very well for us. We want God to do the leading. 

-We plead for your prayers. I (Randall) have been referring to this next step as a vacation, but only because it's so much simpler to explain, and because "vacation" can sometimes describe a change in environment. But technically, this is NOT a vacation. It's not a pleasure trip, except for the pleasure of God. We don't expect this to be easy."

Seek what God is doing...focus will be on people...mission is to bless...let God do the leading (a.k.a. follow the Spirit (John 3:8). That's it in a nutshell. Sounds simple enough, and in a way it is, but it's also difficult if it's not your normal way of doing life. This is, in fact, the way we've been doing life for quite some time now, only it's quite scary doing it as you travel overseas.
(I didn't plan it this way, but as i read over those 4 statements i realize they are a sandwich: focusing on blessing people sandwiched between following the Spirit.)

DEUTERONOMY 8:7-10 - Abundance

I started a "bus-stop" study (as in, not in-depth) on Deuteronomy just 2 weeks after returning to the U.S. Three video sessions in was a lesson on the 8th chapter.  Now, the first irony is that i already had the entire 8th chapter highlighted from 2 or 3 years ago because i loved every single word and thought it'd be fabulous to commit the whole thing to memory. (Which i haven't done YET.) What i learned from this video session was that vs. 7-10 are bookmarked by the words "good land", and that the word "land" is mentioned 7 times in those verses, as well as 7 different kinds of produce: wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, pomegranates, olive trees, and honey. There is also the phrase "you will lack nothing." Immediately i stopped the video to count - and no, i am not making this up or adjusting the facts to fit my parameters - 7 families throughout our travels that we connected with: the Olivers, Sams, Williams', Richards, Ms. Mary, Craigs, and Alans.  This connection nearly knocked me over. These Deuteronomy verses were linked to 1 Corinthians 1:4-7 "You Do Not Lack any spiritual gift..", as well as John 15:4-11...Yes, indeed. It WAS a "good land" in which we lacked nothing.

DEUTERONOMY 12:7 - Hospitality

The next profound revelation was in the following video session, on chapter 12, verse 7, "There, in the presence of the LORD your God, you and your families shall eat and shall rejoice in everything you have put your hand to, because the LORD your God has blessed you." Every single one of the families i listed above extended overwhelming hospitality and kindness to us.

Please indulge me while i (try to briefly) recap what these precious people did for us.

The Olivers - English
I am completely heartbroken that we never took a table picture of the Olivers, because we shared several meals together over a 4-week period. Oliver picked us up at the airport when we first arrived in England, took us to his home to meet his family and have dinner, & drove us an hour to our hotel. He'd already planned to be out of town over the next couple of days with a couple of his children, but even so, after we'd spent the afternoon in the city, we spontaneously phoned Leah and asked if we could "swing over there on our way back to our hotel" to see her and the children left at home. We just attempted to hang out with them and the Sams as much as we could during our week in London; then a few weeks later when we knew we'd have to cut our travel short because of logistical trouble, we intentionally flew back to London so we could spend more time with them. Again, they already had a trip planned to Bedford for a few days, so they invited us to accompany them. Wonderful blessed fellowship!

Here they all are, except sweet baby Lois, right before we said goodbye for the last time. We are crazy about this family.  

The closest pic i have to the sharing of a meal is me making a pot of chili (and American biscuits) for dinner.

The Sams -English (Leah of the Oliver family and Bethan of the Sam family are sisters, for clarification).
We shared a total of 4 meals with this precious family over 4 1/2-weeks. Upon our arrival in London, Sam extended an invitation to take us on a tour of wherever we wanted to go in London. Wanting to do something un-ordinary,  the idea came up for he and his oldest son to take us on a 2-mile walk along the canal, stopping for a picnic lunch, till we got to his parents' canal boat. Then Bethan had dinner for us at their home, and lunch for us at the church on 2 Sundays, plus another picnic lunch at a lovely wooded park.

Church Table Life. Auntie Sherry just wants to adopt all 4 of these sweeties + the 7 Oliver sweeties as my nieces & nephews. That would make Leah & Bethan my sisters. Yes, please!

The Williams'- English
This was our first introduction to what following the Spirit was going to be like on this trip. Back at the first of August i posted on my Christian homeschool mum facebook group that we were coming to the U.K. and looking for reasonable places to stay-anyone have recommendations? Leonie replied within 10 minutes and invited us to stay with her family. We spent 3 nights with them, she took us on a little tour around the Southampton area, and drove us (by her own invitation) to our next stop in Northampton, simply because she could drive us there in far less time than the bus!

Southampton Table Life - William had a tradition of reading a selection either from the Bible or, as here, from a book about Spurgeon's life, at the start of every dinner.

The Richards - English (the only person either of us knew in advance of this trip was Richard, and even then it was only Randall who knew him from 2002.)
Another one with a tragic shortage of appropriate pictures, but that's just the thing-we had no idea as we were going along on this journey that table life was going to be a major theme.
This pic was taken at the restaurant where Richard took us after church because his wife was sick at home. His mother-in-law was going to be out of town for a few days, so they allowed us to stay in her lovely home. When my guys left me in Northampton by myself to go on their hike, his wife invited me over to their home for dinner on Wednesday evening. It was me, the 2 of them, and the family of 5 that was temporarily living with them, plus a visiting family member. And again, heartbreak that i never thought to get a photo.

Proper English Table Life - at the restaurant where Richard took us for lunch

I added this picture to make the point that Richard not only drove me to the train station, but helped me carry all my luggage all the way to the platform. I was having to lug not only my own suitcase, but everything that my guys didn't take on their Hadrian's Wall hike. I was so nervous and self-conscious about traveling with much luggage, but in fact, this day was the start of a very special God-moment. He totally spoiled me today!

Interlude
I need to camp here for a minute to recap from my previous post the significance of what happened on this day. I had been tied up in knots for a whole day before R&A left for their hike because i didn't know what i'd do while they were gone; none of the ideas i had were working out. I was finally able to book train & hotel reservations to Annan, where i would stay until they were done with their hike. But actually by the time i awoke on this morning, Randall had already called off the rest of the hike due to his knee injury, so i would be meeting them in Annan later that day.
I was the first person to arrive at the platform; soon after there arrived a very amiable older English lady, who helped me get my luggage onto the train. I sat next to her on the first leg of the journey and we had a lovely chat. And she was so kind. She was also on the next leg with me, but we had reserved seats on that train so we didn't get to visit anymore. Then as the train was pulling into the Carlisle station, i once again lugged all my luggage to the door to prepare to get off, only i missed the stop.
Of course i felt like a total dunce, even though it happened because someone else was blocking my view, and i was also a bit freaked out at the news that Glasgow, 1 1/2 hours away, was the next/final stop. How much was this mistake going to cost me?  Once the conductor was informed that i'd missed my stop, the VIP treatment started. She mapped out the connection to get me directly to Annan from Glasgow, brought me snacks, explained the situation to the Glasgow station employee who escorted me to the VIP lounge to wait for my train, then escorted me and put my luggage on the train when it was time. And so i made it to Annan to meet my guys by early evening. And my God had not only taken care of me, but had spoiled me all along the journey with the amazing kindnesses of total strangers, and a quick glimpse of Glasgow and the astoundingly beautiful countryside of southern Scotland.

Ms. Mary - Scottish
How do you explain something like Ms. Mary other than as a God-thing? You could call it a happy coincidence if you wanted, unless you're on a Spirit-led trip. There are no coincidences when you allow the Spirit to lead.

Scottish Table Life - She never knew i took this pic. We were having potato and leek soup at a deli/restaurant. I wish i'd been bolder and taken a picture of all of us at the table. But again, i didn't realize the significance when we were in the middle of it all.

This sweet lady thoroughly delighted, entertained, and spoiled us during part of our time in Annan. She offered to help Randall research his family history, drove us all over the countryside for the whole day, invited us to do our laundry at her house since Annan has no laundry mats, and gave us each one of these:

An Ecclefechan tart

The Craigs - Americans living in Dublin
Up until this point, we'd only heard of the Craigs through our long-time friends, the Karnes'. The Karnes' and the Craigs have been living in Dublin for several years, and the Craigs moved into the Karnes' flat when the Karnes' moved back to the States last year. So 2 days before we needed to leave Annan to head for Ireland, Randall contacted Scott to see if the Craigs might be willing to host us for a few days. Craig messaged Randall that they'd be happy to let us stay if we gave them a day to recover from the company they'd just had, and that they'd be taking a trip themselves in a few days.

There were several times during our stay in Dublin that Craig would ask us, "How can i serve you? What kind of help do you need?" They helped us try to make travel arrangements for the next leg of our journey, gave us advice on what to see & do in Dublin, recommended that we spend a couple days in Kilkenny and what we should do there, and even sent us out on a date night while they entertained Andrew with popcorn and Big Hero Six.

Table life by the sea - I don't know what i was thinking by not getting all of us in this pic, except that i don't do very well at taking selfies. Thoroughly disappointed.

Family Table Life - This was the impromptu picnic we had when we stumbled upon a wonderful park on our way from the grocery store to the train station

Us with the Craigs before flying back to London - hard-working servants, they are.

The Alans - he's English/she's American
This is the one that slays me every time i think about it. But maybe that's because this was the most critical moment of the whole trip. After so many stressful hours of trying to find plane tickets to get us back home, we finally purchased some on a Wednesday night, only to find out the next morning that they really weren't available after all, and we'd have to wait a few days for our money to be refunded to our bank account. This left us with only the cash we had on hand, which wasn't much with the exchange rate. With absolutely no other options, we took the train from Bedford back to London. On the way there Randall messaged a couple of churches that he was vaguely familiar with in the London area, but never did get a call back. He also sent a fb friend request/message to a gentleman referred to him by a friend back in Tulsa. When we arrived at St. Pancras International Train Station we quite literally settled ourselves in to see what God would do. I remember wondering if they kicked you out of the train station after a certain hour every night, or was it possible to sleep there. I also briefly looked online for reasonably-priced hotels in the area.

We posted this picture at 4:45 called "Homeless at St Pancras." (trying to be light-hearted, of course)

At 5:35 Alan accepted our friend request, and Randall sent him a message explaining how we got his name and that we needed help:

...They've notified us that the flight was no longer available. We have to wait 3-10 business days before we get a refund so we can try again. Do you know any Christians that might be able to host us (3) while we get this sorted out? We're currently at St Pancras Station.

And at 6:37/6:54 these came in: 

Hi should be able to help just driving at mo but will get back to u in 10-15 mins

Hi so sorry my phone died earlier. We can certainly come by and pick you up tonight. Our apartment is in a bit of a state at the moment so we will put you in a hotel near us overnight and then you can stay with us as long as you require. We are about about an hour or so outside of London. We also have 3 cats in case anyone has allergies

We have 1 double bedroom spare with a double bed and a couch in the living room

I'll quote Alan as he told it to his congregation when he was introducing Randall to preach on Sunday (as soon as i realized that he was giving his account of how we met, i started recording, so that's how i got this): 

"I'm on the Underground on my way home from work, checking facebook, see this friend request...you know, you do your usual thing: who's friends with who - what's going on - do we know this person, is this valid? I see a few (mutual) people i know from singing school...so connect through...I'm having troubles on the Underground, wifi in and out...then i'm on my way home further on, driving to pick up sarah...and suddenly the message comes through, "Help us, we're stuck in King's Cross...can you come and help me?" Now normally it's not my normal thing to go to King's Cross to pick up total strangers, but God leads us in very strange ways...and i'm so glad to be able to host Randall Adams..."

When Alan came to pick us up, about 9 pm.

Oh my word!!! Who DOES that? How many people do you know who, after spending an hour getting home from a day of work in the city, would turn around on a dime to drive 1 hour BACK to the city, pick up total strangers, drive 1 hour BACK home, and invite them to stay for as long as they need to? Till we could get our bank account sorted out. "And," he says, "if you're still here at this time next week, you can come with us when we go to Bristol for the weekend." ?????????

Dinner at a London restaurant after the Alans sang with their choir at the Royal Opera House

Conclusion 

And that's not counting the random people throughout our travels who showed us amazing kindnesses: the Cadets unit in Southampton, the Dublin Underground employee when we encountered a scary complication at 10 pm, and so on. At no time during this entire trip, from start to finish, were we ever treated like anything less than royalty.
Also, as i'm trying to get this wrapped up today, something came to mind that i hadn't realized before until just now. A few days before we departed, i was visiting a dear friend who had been one of our key prayer warriors when we were in Italy, and i was telling her that we were hoping to find lodging that included kitchens so that we could be hospitable. And she said to me, "Hospitality doesn't mean just in my home, but into my life." And this seemed to be the key to the whole experience. Ironically, not one time did we ever get to rent a place that included a kitchen.

So as i've struggled to process our trip, i am confounded by the fact that i feel like we were blessed far more abundantly than we were the blessing. I know i've heard that said over and over again by so many people who've gone on volunteer mission trips, so it probably sounds cliche' to say it. But it's true for us. 

Seek what God is doing......focus will be on people...mission is to bless...let God do the leading =

Abundance and Hospitality

Following the Spirit implies giving up control, so we can't know what's in front of us. We can't know how it's going to turn out. It doesn't always look like what we thought it'd look like. but it's obedience. And it's a sheer blast! As for me personally? I am hooked.

Two more things i need to mention before closing this post. The first is an adventure that i talked very briefly about way back in the first post of my journey journal, about being late to church because of missed trains. Here's a little more about it: "I mentioned that Randall had very meticulously planned out the night before what time we needed to leave our hotel so that we could be at the train station by such & such time, and then take the train to this station and change to another train that would take us to Woolwich station, so that we could be in Woolwich by around 10:00, and that would give whoever would be meeting us to drive us on to the church plenty of time before church started at 11:00. (Yes, it was going to take us around 1 1/2 hours to get to church). I also mentioned that we got no further than our train station before the complications started. The attendant told us that there is no train running to Shadwell on Sundays, and that we should get on such & such train to take an alternate route. But then we got on the wrong train, and when church started at 11:00, we were still en route to Woolwich. It was quite stressful because it seemed like it was costing so much extra just get to church because we were on/off, on/off so many different trains, and because we weren't wanting to be so late for church.

I did not mention that when i was lying in bed Saturday night it occurred to me that we would be riding public transportation to church on Sunday morning, dressed up and with Bibles in hand, in a city that is known for it's ever-increasing mslim population, to the very borough where the British soldier was slaughtered and beheaded in the middle of the street in broad daylight a couple of years ago. I'm not saying it freaked me out; it was just heavy on my mind. And still as we walked to the train station on Sunday morning. But then during the whole fiasco of trying to get to church because of suddenly non-existent trains and wrong trains and confusion i didn't really think about it anymore. Until i was getting in the shower last night, and i was struck by the thought that it may have all happened precisely because God was protecting us from harm. And i haven't been able to shake it off. And it really overwhelms me." 

The other thing before closing this post is why we never traveled to Italy/rest of Europe. In short, we have no idea. The doors were very obviously closed, and we still have no idea why. But this i do know in retrospect: the dates we were tentatively looking at to return to the U.S.? Sometime around November 10-17.  The cities i was watching airfare on for those dates? Venice, Rome, Milan, London, Brussels, Paris... The date of the Paris terror attack? November 13. I don't know; of course there's no way to know about these kinds of things. And the simple fact is, we may never know why we were prevented from going to the rest of Europe on this trip.

What we're doing now

After staying with family since our return, we just this last week moved into a lovely rental home and are currently getting "settled" and planning to be hospitable. Randall came up with a pretty awesome idea for a coffee business, so he's currently trying to get it started online. Our hope is that it will help us be sustainable and location independent in future mission adventures.