Thursday, July 29, 2004
I'm home!
I know you all missed me terribly.
It was a great trip, and there's so much to tell. But I know I will be FAR too long-winded if I try to give an overview of everything. So, here are my favorite and most memorable parts of the trip:
- Being greeted with "Welcome home!" by my host family
- Staying up till 11:30pm the first night there, enjoying frozen Twix (or is it Twixes?)
- Hot chocolate at Verdi's and walking along the beach at the Mumbles
- Worship—singing "Reign in Me" somehow never got old
- Horseback riding along the beach (but not so much the sore bum afterwards)
- Going to a chip shop in the largest caravan park in Europe at midnight
- One of the kids in my class, Jack, who told me I was the best teacher he'd ever had
- The kid in my class who guessed that San Diego was a country in Africa
- Wandering through Hay-on-Wye with my Welsh host family
- Sunset at Rest Bay in spite of the freezing wind
- Hanging out with Jude, my Welsh little sis
- Finding out that I can fit under Jude's bed
- Hanging out with Eric, the annoying little brother I never wanted (who doesn't label his CDs!!!)
- Getting a whole lot of lovin' from Rachel
- Butt jokes & cannibal jokes (you really had to be there)
Ok, now my list is just degenerating into inside jokes...
It was really sad to say goodbye to everyone--to my Welsh friends at the coach station in Cardiff, to the mission team at the hotel in London, and then to Heather at Heathrow. It was weird to travel home alone!
I came back to find a ton of changes at work--two co-workers have gotten promotions, and another quit while I was gone. Changes at home, too--I'm moving to Palo Alto on Saturday, and I am now immersed in the craziness of final packing and cleaning. I can't wait to be done with the move so I can unpack and know where everything is again.
And I'm still thinking longingly of Wales and wishing I was there instead of sitting here at my desk catching up on the last two weeks of work. Sigh.
One of the songs we did with the kids at the Holiday Bible Club keeps coming back to me, and it really sums up my feelings about the trip.
Come and see what God has done,
All the wonders under the sun
Come and see what God can do,
He’s alive in me and you
This trip was a time of stretching for me in many ways--I was doing more leading than I had done in the past. When I'm leading, I so often get caught up in the details of getting everything to work just right. But God is good at sending me reminders--and it's amazing to see what God can do when I take the time to pay attention.