#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.

#4 - "...but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to"

10/22 - I started typing this just over a week ago, and thought i'd include my reflections of the journey as well, but now i believe i'm going to do a separate post about that. So here's the continuation of the day-to-day happenings for the last 2 weeks of the journey in Europe:

10/14 - As i type this we are about to fly over the southern tip of Greenland. Nearly 8 hours left till we land in L.A.  

I haven’t been able to update this blog in over 2 weeks partly because we’ve been overwhelmed with travel complications and partly because we’ve just been busy. But here’s a quick run-down of our life since the last entry. (P.S. Ok, maybe it wasn't so quick.)

Monday 9/28 - made our way by bus, ferry, and bus from Annan, Scotland through Belfast, Northern Ireland and down to Dublin. Arrived in downtown Dublin to find the train to our hosts’ house at about 10 pm with no euros and no way to get euros. Ticket machine wouldn’t accept our bank card. I looked at Randall and was just saying that we needed to find a place to sit down while we wait for God to work something out, when one of the station employees walked up to us to see how we were doing, and when we told him the machine wouldn’t accept our card, he escorted us to the ticket gate where the employee there let us through for free and told us which platform to go to for our destination. Seriously. Then Craig was at the stop to meet us and take us basically just around the corner to where he and Merschon live. Did i mention that we didn't know Craig & Merschon till just now? And that we’d only given them about 2 days notice that we were coming? They are friends of our friends, Scott & Denise, who’d been living in Dublin for the last 5 years and just moved back to the States this last February. 

I didn't have much of a chance to get photos of Belfast because i was whisked onto a bus to Dublin before i had a chance to catch my breath. But this proves we were there for 2 seconds. (There's no reason to think there was any kind of tift over this between Randall & me)

Tuesday - Craig & Merschon gave us some insider tips on what to see & do in Dublin, so we spent the day around downtown. Meltdowns before lunch (from Andrew, not me), Cornish pasties (McDonald’s for Andrew) for lunch, Dublin Museum with Viking stuff, Chester Beatty Library, Museum of Ireland Archaeology, groceries at Tesco’s, and discovering a wonderful park on the way back to the train station were all part of our dream day in Dublin. Fun times.

Inside the Dublin Museum

I tried to get all the different colored doors in one shot; they really are all different colors.

I hesitated to add this photo, but have decided to at least for a while. This was during the middle of his meltdown. Was all over in a couple of hours. See park pics below.

Playtime and picnic in the Giant's Garden

I just thought a pic of this train conductor was cool.

That evening Randall sat in on an English grammar class that C & M lead in their home. Six different nationalities were present.

Wednesday - C & M drove us a few minutes east to hike along the coast of the Irish Sea and have a picnic. Very surprised at how uncharacteristically energetic i was for this venture. Nothing we would have planned for ourselves, but loads of fun!

This is what he did all along the hike: up, down, forward a little ways,  up, down...

He and i also ate blackberries all along the way.

Picnic at the top. Can't believe i didn't get more of Craig & Merschon in this pic.

Thursday-Saturday - took the bus to Kilkenny, but spent most of the time we were there trying to sort out travel plans. Any plans, just SOMETHING PLEASE! Tried 5 times to book tickets through Ryan Air to Italy - failed every time -no explanation. Tried all over Italy. Tried Albania. Nothing working. After having dinner at an Irish pub with live music, got a text from our friend that we thought we were staying with in Italy, and his itinerary for the next week was NOT going to work with our plans. Dead end. Randall handed me the bank card and told me to look for tickets back home - tired of the closed doors. Found some super-cheap tickets leaving over the next several days (???), but not wanting to make any rash decisions, i decided to put it on hold till morning. Went to bed wondering why the only open door was back home already.

Oh YES they are! (purveyors of happiness, that is.) Best iced mocha to be bought anywhere.

The view of Kilkenny from our hotel window

And looking the other way, toward the river

One happy boy. I won't tell how much we spent on that root beer, but i told him it'd be his only one till we got back home.

Pasties=one of my favs. Would be happy to have one of these everyday.

What i had for breakfast: bread, cheese, juice, mocha = so European.

What the boys had for breakfast = a typical Irish breakfast (or an English breakfast, or a Scottish breakfast, with slight variation.)

The Kilkenny Castle is just to the right of center.

We had dinner at a pub so we could experience traditional Irish pub music, and our table was right here next to them.

Saturday - checked the plane ticket prices again first thing in the morning - still cheap. Had to catch the 7:45 bus back to Dublin because we’d left most of our stuff at C & M's home. Wifi not working on the bus. Spent the entire time texting Bethan about possibility of coming back to London before leaving Europe. As soon as we got to Dublin, headed for McDonald’s for a wifi connection. Unbelievably, every affordable ticket back to U.S. was through a site only for college students. Spent 2 hours trying to find something. Finally purchased tickets through Aer Lingus to London for that night. For the first time during ALL my attempts at finding a hotel in/near Woolwich since July, one was available, but only for the next 2 nights. Attempted to book it, but wouldn’t accept our bank card, for some reason. The Sams offered to book it and we’d pay them back. Arrived in London at 10:20 pm, and Oliver offered to pick us up at the airport and drive us to our hotel. We are spoiled.

This area of Dublin was VERY crowded with pedestrians.

Merschon & Craig

Sunday - another Lord’s day spent soaking up the Olivers and Sams. As soon as Bethan knew we’d be coming to London, she asked if we wanted to have lunch at the church with them again - yes, please! Church, lunch of baked potatoes with chili, —over to the Olivers for wifi so we can figure out what to do when we have to check out of our hotel tomorrow morning - OH, Olivers’ invite us to go with them to Bedford from tomorrow till Thursday - YES, YES, YES! - back to church for tea & treats, church, more tea & cakes, back to Olivers’ for fun times, then finally off to hotel to bed.

Once again, walking to church, or actually, to Tesco's to meet Leah so she can drive us to church in Woolwich.

Is it shameless of me to keep posting photos of all this cuteness?

I saw one of these being used by the cleaning staff at one of our hotels and i thought they just added the face themselves, but turns out they come like that, with different names & faces!

When i asked Leah if she wanted me to make my chili for one of the meals.

Monday 10/5- we make our way to St. Pancras International Train Station to take a train to Bedford; Oliver picks us up at station. (There wasn’t enough room in their van for us to drive up there with them; they are a family of 9, after all). Their good friends, another Christian homeschool family with lots of children, invited the Oliver to stay at their house while they are away on holiday. The Olivers might plan to move to Bedford soon, so have some homes to look at, and they have a home improvement/organizational project they want to do for a surprise at their friends’ house that we’re all staying at.

St. Pancras International Train Station. If you zoom in and look toward the back of the crowd you can see Andrew sitting off by himself, having another crisis.

Tuesday - Mrs. C is not as adept at housekeeping as she is at homeschooling or other areas, so Randall, Amber (oldest Oliver child - she’s nearly 14), and i go to work on the refrigerator. We start out with a pretty nice system: Randall empties the fridge and puts all the contents on the table by category & takes out the shelves & drawers for me to wash, and Olivia wipes out the fridge. Till she gets about halfway down, and then she hits a wall. (I can't blame her - it was pretty nasty.) Now it’s just me & Randall. Takes us all morning to just do the fridge; we never even got to the freezer. But yay for us! We did accomplish the fridge, and it was a beautiful sight. Should have taken a picture. 

Cleaning the fridge

Otherwise, we’re just herding cats-er kids, loving on and cuddling with Lois, trying to find plane tickets, washing laundry, making chili and biscuits, griping at Andrew for being so uncooperative with school, and going out on a late-night chocolate run with Leah. And a little more travel plan stress for Randall & me. 

Making the chili

And lovin' on Lois - more shameless photos

In case you didn't see this on fb, Joash & i inadvertently wore matching shirts, so i grabbed my "matching" scarf, then sent Emily the pic for her morning greeting. She sent me the pic of her (yes, she did choose that outfit on purpose, based on me & Joash)

At the end of Wednesday we booked plane tickets from Brussels, Belgium through Miami and Denver and finally to Fayetteville, but hey, they were cheap. They said they’d let us know in 240 minutes if our tickets were confirmed. 240 minutes came and went - no confirmation. Went to bed not knowing. Woke up still not knowing. Not long after getting up, email came in saying that due to some complication with the airline, our tickets could not be booked, and our $ would be credited back to our account within the obligatory 7-10 business days. Did i mention that we had just used all the $ in our account to buy those tickets? (Now we did have some cash with us still, so we’re not completely broke, but we also know that there’s too much unknown at this point, plus there’s still that whole sorry-exchange-rate-with-the-pound thing).

The Bakers; no doubt Oliver just said something cheeky.

Thursday - we very reluctantly say goodbye to the Olivers for what we assume will be the last time for a while, and Oliver drops us off at the station to catch the train back to London St. Pancras. We’re too tied up in knots with stress to eat any lunch before we leave, but by the time we arrive at St. Pancras we’re considerably calmer and more at peace. Randall looked up phone numbers of 2 churches he’d heard about and left messages, plus messaged a Park Plaza friend for suggestions on London contacts, and Keith gave him a name to try, so Randall sent a friend request on facebook, and we sat down at St. Pancras to wait on God to provide. We literally did not know where to go or what to do.

Literally waiting on God at St. Pancras Station

(I will address this more in the next "reflections" post.)

Alan comes to St. Pancras at about 8:30 pm to take us to a hotel; a very nice one, i might add. Nice enough that you’re kind of sorry that you don’t get checked in till 9:30 so you don’t have much time to enjoy it.

Friday - we check out of the hotel, leave our luggage with them while we walk into the little “village” nearby. (We’re on the outskirts of London; Bethan referred to it as “the sticks.”) Alan comes to pick us up and drop us off at Ikea while he finishes some errands. Picks us up at Ikea and takes us to the garden center where his wife, Sarah, works. No ordinary garden center, this place has all manner of stuff, and even has a cafe/tearoom. So we get cream tea while we wait for Sarah to get off work. Then we go their flat. This is where we stay for the next 5 nights. 

Saturday - Randall has a migraine, so he stays home while Andrew & i go on an outing with the Sams. I had requested to spend one more day with them, so they picked us up and we went to Belhus Wood Park, which was a big woodsy park. We had a picnic and walked around; it was a beautiful fall day. Then we went to Ikea for coffee & hot chocolate. By the time they dropped us off, Randall had plane tickets. For real and for true this time. London to L.A. Not my first choice, but at least it’s something. His dad & stepmom live near L.A., so we’ll stay with them for a few days while we figure a way back to Oklahoma & Arkansas. 

The Sams

Sunday - Randall preaches at the Thamesmead church of Christ. 

Monday - made chili for Alan & Sarah.
Tuesday - spent the day doing a few things in London that we hadn't had a chance to yet: the British Library (one of only 4 known copies of the Magna Carta), walking through Hyde Park and over to Kensington Palace (yes, my eyes were peeled for signs of Will and Kate), then over to Covent Garden to meet Alan & Sarah, who had the distinguished honor of singing with their choir at the season opening performance at the Royal Opera House.

And that brings us to the night before flying out of London to Los Angeles, staying with Randall's dad for 3 days, then hiring a car and making our way from California to Arkansas.

Sunday morning we went to the Oxnard Church of Christ where Randall's family went till he was 4; he hadn't been back since, so the preacher asked him to come up and tell about himself.