Answer to last week's post

Gotta love painting Betel-style!! I love the advice in the pink poster on the wall: "Keep Calm and Carry On."

Painting

Quick! What's wrong with this picture? How many things can you find?

Put your guesses in the comments. Answer will appear next week.

Free Day in Oxford!

This is my second free day since I got to Betel (my first one was in Madrid in December). Ah! How I valued and needed a chance to just be away for the day.

(This doesn't have anything to do with my trip...we pass this pub every time we do our food donations run. Does this strike anyone else as funny, or is it just me?)  

Sheep in a field in Birmingham

Amanda and I in front of the pub where C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien used to meet every Tuesday with their group called the "Inklings"

There are a lot of bicycles in Oxford!

A typical street in the city center

Me in front of a door to some famous place (forgot which one now...oops)

Me in front of the BEST PLACE EVER!! The Bodleian Library, which claims to have every book ever published. You have to pay to go in for a tour, so we didn't, but just being that close to all those books was a happy place to be. (In addition to their very large building here, they have miles of underground storage.)

Courtyard in the Bodleian Library

They had a glass case displaying some of Haydn's music. Is this the perfect song for me, or what? ("The Knitting Girl")

Lovely street view

Never in America would you have the entrance to a little Panini shop be such an elaborate archway! 

Lucy and I in front of Christchurch (Lucy was our gracious hostess and tour guide--she was the best! You will probably remember her from my time in Betel in Madrid. She was volunteering there at the same time as me, but she was from Oxford and invited us to come visit.)

View from inside the gate at Christchurch

Garden at Christchurch

Sign on the wall of the "Eagle and Child" pub, where C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and others met regularly

Lucy and me in the Eagle and Child

My lunch--Chicken and mushroom pie with mashed potatoes and roasted vegetables. The puff pastry on top of the pie was unlike anything I had ever tasted. Yum!

The grounds at Blenheim Palace, birthplace of Winston Churchill

Amanda and me in front of Blenheim Palace. You had to pay 11.50 (in pounds) just to see the grounds, and 20 pounds to see the inside of the building. That would be about $15.75 and $30, respectively. We didn't have much daylight left, so we just saw the grounds. Next time I want to see inside! Check out the website for just a taste of how amazing it is inside: http://www.blenheimpalace.com/. 

Panoramic view of Blenheim palace from the front gates

So in exploring the grounds, we had great fun, especially me, because I decided to give into my monkey-like impulses....

Then we found another amazing tree which all of us just had to explore.

Lucy and Amanda 

Amanda inside the tree

Me up on top

Me being crazy and hanging upside down

After exploring Blenheim's beauties, we drove through the picturesque town of Woodstock, just outside of the palace, and the went back to Lucy's family's home for dinner. It was a wonderful, jolly meal with lots of banter and laughter and an amazing dish called "Beef King David." Lucy's family is wonderful and it was a treat to get to meet them. 

Then Amanda and I headed back to Birmingham on the train, fresh and ready for another stint at being in Betel. Yay for free days! But even more YAY for participating in God's work in this ministry!!

England Update!

I haven't intentionally neglected my blog. It's just that I have had way less time to be online, and the blog unfortunately has had to suffer.

So here are some pictures!

My bedroom (only 2 of the 6 beds are showing; mine is the pink flower one on top in the photo). Notice that there is a sink in the room...this is a huge help for cutting down on clogged bathrooms. Every room has at least a sink and sometimes a toilet, too! 

Me in my high-visibility vest that I have to wear whenever I go on the food donations run. We collect groceries donated from local supermarkets, and we have to wear the vests because we go in through the back loading dock area, where by law the vests are required. Windmill House is the main Betel-UK headquarters.

Me in the furniture shop that the girls run. We have a lovely lot of furniture and a coffee shop that just opened in the front of the store. The girls make home-baked cupcakes and brownies that are AMAZING!

Flying!! Not literally, but that's what they call distributing flyers. We pass them out from house to house in people's mail slots, which are usually a slot through the door. In the photo with me is Jan, our house leader.

No mailboxes here! This is a nice system...the mail falls right inside your house! :-) 

The price of airport food

In Madrid, I ate breakfast:
Coffee
Orange juice
Bocadillo (ham & cheese sandwich)
Cost: 11 euros ($14.43)

In London, I ate lunch:
Sandwich
Chips
Water Bottle
Cost: 3.45 pounds ($5.45)

And while we're on the prices of things, gas prices...
In Spain, it was 1.36 euros per liter = $6.74 a gallon
In England, it's 1.40 pounds per liter = $8.37 a gallon

*gag*

First visit to the UK

I am in England as of Friday, and it has been quite an adjustment from being in Spain. 

In the first place, I have caught myself more than once speaking Spanish instead of English. I said "hola" to the guy who sat down next to me on the bus from London to Birmingham. I said "perdón" instead of "sorry" when I bumped into someone. and once when I fell asleep in the van, I said "Yo quedé dormida" when I woke up ("I fell asleep"). 

But the thing that has absolutely confused me is this business of driving on the left! I keep feeling disoriented and surprised...going into the roundabout, you move to the left...left-hand turns are the ones that don't require you to cross any lanes...and the oncoming traffic is to your right! Ah! 

So the first day I was here, I was in the van with the girls to go back to the house. The girl in the driver's seat got out of the van to unload my suitcases. Then the van went forward. I gasped internally. "We're moving and the driver is gone!" I thought. But no... the driver is on the right here! So the girl who got out was actually in the passenger seat! 

It's funny...I knew these things...I knew they drive on the opposite side here...but I keep getting surprised as if I didn't know it. 

No Words Needed

Please protect me from myself...

So today I was working in the Rastro (secondhand store...kind of like Goodwill or Salvation Army).

We have a little back room with a fridge and microwave and some snacks, and about 11:00 today, I went to make myself a cup of tea.

"I think I'm supposed to use water from a jug," I thought to myself. I'm always unsure when it's safe to use the tap water, but I thought I remembered that the responsible in the Rastro had showed me the jug of drinking water. Sure enough, I saw a bottle on the shelf and poured a cupful. I heated it up in the microwave and then put a tea bag in it.

After waiting a couple of minutes, I looked at my tea. It wasn't steeping very well...the water was still quite light and the tea bag was swelled up in a strange way.

"What is wrong with this?" I thought. "Did this tea expire years and years ago or something?" (I didn't think tea could go bad... but there was definitely something wrong here.)

I noticed it smelled funny. I sniffed the cup.

"This smells like bleach!" I thought. "Maybe, long ago, this packet of tea fell into some bleach water and then dried out." (But there was no sign that the paper had ever been wet.)

Then it hit me.

It was BLEACH that I had poured into my cup and heated in the microwave.

Bleach tea.

Now that's a new one, even for me.

Good thing I didn't actually come to taste it.

~~~

Tune in next time for another episode of "Please Protect Me From Myself."

View from our backyard

Large storks resting on the treetops

 Lovely little river behind our house

Water

Scratch my luck?

Monday, January 16, 2012

It’s amazing how this idea of being contagious has transformed my perspective, with the result that I do things which would normally be scary.

Today, for instance, I had to put gas in the van. All the pumps are prepay, and we use cash, so I went in to the gas station and asked the attendant to put 50 euros on pump 1. I pumped the gas and then went in to get my receipt. While the guy was printing it out for me, he casually asked me if I would like to “rascar la suerte” (scratch my luck), and held up a lottery ticket.

“No, no thank you,” I said. “I don’t scratch my luck. Do you know why? Because I don’t need to. I have something better than luck. My name is written in the book of life. I have eternal life!”

“Muy bien,” the attendant said, taken aback. He handed me my receipt and I walked out of the store, smiling to myself at what I had just said, shocked that it had actually come out of my mouth. Ordinarily, if such a thought had come to my mind, I would definitely not have said it. But it just sailed forth as naturally as any other kind of small talk. Yay!

Rhema

Sunday, January 15, 2012

“Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.” Isaiah 60:1-2

The Lord spoke to me profoundly today through this verse. We were singing it in a song at church, and God spoke to me so clearly and impressed the truth of it so firmly upon my heart that the tears were coursing freely down my cheeks as I sang.

Coming on the heels of the yesterday’s idea of being contagious, it clinched the matter and powerfully impacted me.

And then, as we were singing, Conchita, the mother of Pastor Alberto, happened to pass by. She is a little old lady, very kind, very godly, and very faithful. I was standing near the end of the row and I smiled at her. She reached out and touched my hand. “I see the glory of the Lord shining from you,” she said, out of the blue. Ah! It was the cherry on top, and I started crying afresh.

Contagion

I am sitting here reeling with hope.

A new dream has dawned in my heart, something that seems so absurdly obvious that you would wonder why I never saw it before.

I could actually be contagious.

The burning heart, single passion, and profound joy that I know in the Lord could actually be passed on to another person—by me being contagious!

Here I am—Here I have been for years, longing for others around me to be passionately in love with Christ, wondering why they weren’t and trying to conform to the cold and incomprehensible existence that they live, just so I could fit in.

And I have just come to this realization: I had no hope that anyone else could ever catch the fire. If they had it, they had it, and if they didn’t, I thought there was nothing I could do about it. I enjoyed the few who were radiant lights, and lamented the fact that such a small percentage of people around me exhibited this ardent love for God. I wished for more to discover the pure, undiluted joy of drinking from the never-ending fountain, but I stopped there. I considered it a hopeless wish.

Why?

Why did I think this?

Oh, some combination of fear of rejection mixed with deception. I believed the enemy’s lie, which paralyzed me. Instead of igniting others, I let their cold water quench my fire.

But think: What did God use to ignite me?

Other people.

Other people with burning hearts, a bright and shining light, and a readiness to proclaim the truth and loveliness of the Lord. (That would be my parents. Thanks, mom & dad.) Their fire was contagious, and caught me on fire. There have also been a multitude of occasions where a preacher or a friend stimulated me to higher and better things, just because they themselves were contagiously radiant with the things of the Lord.

Jesus said of John the Baptist, “He was a burning and shining light, and ye were willing for a time to rejoice in that light.” Here is the same thing. One person! One guy! Just one “burning and shining light” was enough to catch many, many other people’s hearts on fire for God. John’s light reached far beyond his lifetime and even to other countries (see Acts ____).

Wow! I want to be that light. I want to catch people on fire—because I’m on fire.

And what a marvelous thought to think that I can!

I’m really quite staggered by the possibilities of this. Just think! Instead of merely witnessing to someone and getting them to pray a special prayer with you, and then shrugging your shoulders at the way they live the rest of their life, what if you could actually impart so much fire that they become a burning and shining light with you?

What if everyone I know, in my circle of Christian friends, was absolutely passionate about loving God, absolutely united for a single purpose, given to the glory of God and the advancement of His kingdom?

What if we could leave behind the empty, senseless interactions that we’re so accustomed to? What if we got so hot that we didn’t care about whether we painted our nails, or whether our favorite team wins their next game, or whether our coffee drink was just the way we liked it?

What if we got so hot that we didn’t care what we ate, or if we slept, or whatever we had to sacrifice, as long as we could walk with God and do His will?

This whole thought process was stimulated by a conversation with Rosi in the ice cream aisle of Eroski (the grocery store). She expressed regret that there was not more wholehearted passion for God among the girls in the house, and she said that she came to Christ through the testimony and example of just such wholehearted, God-loving Christians. She was discipled in that environment, and she misses it now that she’s not with those people any more.

  

R said that she would never have come to Christ if it weren’t for the contagious exuberance of all the Christians around her. With the background she has and the strong personality that is hers, she is convinced that nothing less would have worked.

But there we were, standing in the grocery store, both of us absolutely burning with the passionate love of the Lord in our conversation, and yearning to impart it to others, desiring that everyone in the house (and in all of Betel) would work together in one heart and one mind, plumbing the depths of Who God is and how we can know Him more.

Enough with mediocrity and wishy-washy Christianity! Let us be consistent! Let us be strong!

And her contagion ignited me. I, too, want what she wants!

“How is it that we become contagious to others?” I asked.

“You know what I do?” R said. “I take every opportunity possible to work with one of the new girls. And the whole time I’m with them, I’m giving them a testimony, speaking a word of exhortation, singing praise to God, and just being a burning light.”

As we talked, my heart soared with joy, first at knowing that here, too, is someone of the burning heart. Secondly, that we could mutually lift each other up by being a burning flame of light together. And thirdly, that I could even dare to dream of igniting people’s hearts with the passion that I have.

If her contagion (and that of so many others) has ignited me, then surely God can use me to ignite others. 

Churros and Porras

These are churros.

And these are porras.

Both are basically like an unsweetened donut. They are made of fried batter and you dip them in your coffee or chocolate, or in pure sugar... yum! The difference between them is the diameter and the recipe (churros are about an inch in diameter, and porras are about 2 inches).

So today I was eating churros for breakfast, and I said to O, "I think I like the porros better." She quickly corrected me: porras.

What a difference one letter makes! Porros are marijuana cigarettes! Oops! Haha...