England!

We’re in England!!  Have been for a whole day now! Incase I didn’t mention before, two days ago we had a lay over in Atlanta, then left for England the next night. Kellie met us in Atlanta and we spent the day watching TLC wedding shows, and food shopping for our long flight. We barely survived our lunch at Sonic because a bee was all up in our business. We moved tables 3 times before eventually eating in the car. 

Bee: 1

Team England: 0

(taken on the plane)

THANK GOD for the South! The morning we left for England our Georgia-brothers helped us get through the luggage check-in and security line in well under 15 minutes! I’ve never been more impressed with an airport. On our way through security we saw a group of Muslim men and women saying goodbye to two of their sons. Their entire party was dressed very traditionally, guaranteeing them a good 40 extra mins at security. 

The plane ride was shorter than we thought. Our only disappointment with the whole travel episode, was the lack on monitors in front of our seats. Instead we had one big screen 10 rows ahead of us playing every overrated movie produced in the last 6 months.

But we made it! Paul (minister at Anglican) and his friend Barry picked us up at Manchester airport. Our luggage took up most of the car space, so I rode with Paul into Bradford, where as Marie and Bethany joined Barry. Paul told me all about our neighbors, each of which are supposedly “lovely” (Luv-lay!). There’s Ruth our next door neighbor who moved to Bradford from Germany sometime during WWII. On the other side of us, across a small street, is Frank and Hillary. Frank stopped by our flat today, unfortunately we were sleeping - I’ll come back to this later.

When we arrived at our flat we were greeted with tea and “biscuits” (cookies) by Ruth (Paul’s wife) and Val. Our flat is in a rather “dodgy” area. It has two floors, with three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. Marie took the tiny room right up the stair. Bethany grabbed the larger room with the sunlight, and I took the middle room which has three large dressers. The living room is cozy. The previous team painted cute little leaves on the walls - it looks very indie. Looking out, the front lawn is a peace sign made out of flowers. In the book their team left behind it asks us to take car  of their peace sing, we intend to. In fact, we plan on taking care of the back yard as well. Right now the back is a jungle of weeds and thick bushes. Soon we will put mow and put down weed killer to get down to the soil. We hope this will be our contribution to St. Wilfrid’s Crescent. 

So here we are, in our flat, just getting to know a few neighbors. Right now they know us as the “3 Mennonite girls.” Tomorrow I’ll fill you in on our first night here. It was - in a word- unforgettable. =)

Hello to everyone back in the states! Praying for you all in the love of our Savior Christ.

p.s. Thank you all for helping me get here. Remember that you’re here with me. The Spirit lives in us all, spreading grace and joy where ever we’re found.