July 8^th’s Quote: “What excuse are you using?”

                 By 9:30 this morning, we had finished another wonderful breakfast (complete with tea and toast), prepared ourselves for church, and were headed out the door and down the road to Gravel Hill to, once again, catch the tram. I think we classify as experienced travelers now. Here are two things we have learned about tram travel – the tram only comes once every 15 minutes on Sundays, and, as our favorite poster explains, you don’t wanted to be remembered by a handful of flowers by the tram tracks.

                We were plenty early when we arrived at the queue for the 11:30 service, but  weren’t too sad because we had observed that the church-welcomers were slowly making their way down the line and making conversation with each clump of visitors. We couldn’t wait to see their reaction when we explained that the four of us had grown up in Thailand together. Sadly, we must have appeared to be very deep in conversation as our welcomer walked past because he simply said hello and then went on to the next couple. That was slightly depressing.

                Not much later we were lead to the entrance and found ourselves some seats near the front of the theatre. We didn’t recognize any of the songs, but I genuinely enjoyed one called beneath the waters.

                The guy that spoke was a young man named Simon, who had been awake for the past 36 hours and has a huge passion for tennis and Andy Murray. This made us very happy, and we liked him from the start.

                He had us look at the book of Jonah and made everyone say the words “Get up” whenever we came across them. It had been a while since I had studied Jonah, and to be honest I had forgotten how God used Jonah’s disobedience to bring the whole ship of people to Himself. That might be my favorite part now.

                What Simon took from the first three chapters of Jonah was how we tend to run away and make excuses rather than to follow the Lord’s leading. The quote from today was a challenge from him to us to figure out what we use in our lives as lame or “good” excuses to keep from obeying the Lord. I guess mine is fear of what others think of me. When I was talking to that guy at Starbucks and I could tell that he wasn’t happy to hear me say that the reason my family lived in Thailand was because God called us there, I decided not to mention my Savior again for the rest of our 20 minute conversation. I guess I need to draw closer to the Lord, because “perfect love casts out fear”, and I don’t want my silly fears to get in the way of God bringing beauty to a broken life ever. Why do we fear things of the world anyway?

                After the service, we walked over to Covent Garden and found a lovely little place called the Traditional Pub where Shaina and I got to have Fish n Chips as well as a Posh Fish Finger sandwich (we enjoyed the name so much we simply had to try it). Twas a very delightful experience. And since the Hardys had treated us to this true English lunch, we treated them to London’s best waffles. Fair trade, huh?

                We looked at several cute shops at the square, marveled at the tin man with amazing balance, and dropped some loose change in the cup of the man who sat on the corner singing through a traffic cone. And then we were back underground, on our way to Starbucks once again. So we aren’t only experienced travelers, but also Starbucks regulars. : )

                Anna met up with another friend, so it was back to the trio as we travelled back to Nanny’s, but this time we didn’t run into our entertaining friends. Nor did we find a man in a suit to update us on Andy Murray’s match.

                When we arrived we watched an exciting game show called “The Chase” and then found a channel that let us know that Andy lost. Sad day. We had tea to cheer our spirits, and then Kate had to leave.

                Since then we have enjoyed other channels, more tea and toast, my first hot cross buns, and now a quiet evening with Fiddler on the Roof playing in the living room. It’s been a good day.

                And considering how I already shared a bit from my heart earlier in this post, I think that will be all for now. God bless!