British Friends

I didn't really know what I expected when coming over here in terms of friendships, but I guess I didn't realize it would take as long as it did for people to warm up to Danielle and I.  Don't get me wrong, British people are nice, but they can seem a little standoffish at first.  For example, our first time at the student lifegroup, no one introduced themselves to us.  I felt a little bit awkward in a room full of people I didn't know but who all knew each other and me being the one who had to initiate conversations and introduce myself.  That's just not how it's done in Texas.  If someone is new at church or wherever, I welcome them in!

After meeting the university students though, they became more friendly and would talk to us at church.  Danielle and I initiated hanging out with some of the girls and made plans for tea, etc.  However, this week there has been a breakthrough!

Drumroll please....

People have asked us to hang out!

Yes, the tables have turned.

We went over to our friend Noel's house for dinner on Wednesday night and played games.  I even learned how to play poker, but I don't have much of a game face.  When I had a royal flush in my hand I got really excited and squealed...then Noel and Danielle folded immediately.  We had fun though, despite not being aloud to put sugar in our tea.  Noel insisted that British people don't do that, but I know that they do because I have seen them do it!

Thursday morning our friend Emma picked us up, and we drove out to The Peaks, a famous National Park in England.  We only saw a sliver of it, but we hiked six miles!  There were some ugly parts, only because nothing is green yet, but once we got to the top it was well worth the journey.   There was a beautiful view of the reservoir down below, so I'll post some pictures of it here soon.

After our hike, I took a really long nap because I was worn out and then got ready for girl's night.  Our friend Pip from lifegroup (we go to the 'YoPros' group now which stands for Young Professionals) invited Danielle and I over for dinner, along with our friend Rosie.  Pip and her housemate Hannah made us homemade pizza, and we just hung out and watched a chick flick. I love being around British people because I always learn a new word for something or learn what a phrase I keep hearing means....always enlightening let me tell ya. 

Did you know that 'torch' is the word used for flashlight?  I also kept hearing the phrase 'taking the mick' but had no clue what it meant.  Apparently that is slang for when you are mocking someone...which I might do on occasion.  :)

Ireland

Well, in true Danielle and Janelle fashion, we only had rough ideas of what we wanted to do when we arrived in Dublin.  When we landed at the airport, we bought a map and jumped on a bus headed for the city.  We started out walking through St. Stephen's Green, a beautiful park right in the middle of the city.

We walked through the Trinity College campus while imaging what it would be like to go to school in Dublin.

We went and saw the Book of Kells, an illustrated manuscript of the four gospels written circa 800 A.D., at the library there.  This is a picture of "The Long Room" at the college which holds a ridiculous amount of first editions and other really old books.  The shelves were stuffed!

We took a self-guided tour of the Bank of Ireland and luckily we got out of there when we did... it was robbed the next day, and the thieves took 7.5 million euros!

We went to the Dublin Castle but didn't want to pay for the tour.  Instead, we walked around the courtyard, and this is us trying to pose like one of the statues in the garden area.  Thank goodness for the self-timer button on the camera.

After the castle, we decided to make an appearance at the Guinness Factory.  The stuff is disgusting, which I expected, so we stuck to drinking our free cokes.  

This is a picture of a little town outside of Dublin called Howth.  We had to take a short train to get there, but it was worth it.  They had the best fish and chips I've eaten so far and a really pretty lighthouse.  

After touring Howth, we took a train to Malahide.  This gothic castle was part of the Talbot family and was taken over by Oliver Cromwell for awhile.

On our last day in Dublin, we walked around Merrion Square and stopped by a statue of Oscar Wilde, a famous Irish author.

Next on our list of things to do was find The Harlequin, a vintage shop I had seen in a magazine back in November.  It's famous for its celebrity shoppers, such as Brad Pitt and Bono, and on the way there, I spotted a pink door.  Dublin is famous for its Georgian architecture, and I became obsessed with all the different colored doors.  I had been hoping to find a pink one and couldn't believe I did on my last day there!

This is a random sculpture we saw, but I thought it was so funny.  It's a ball made out of metal chains....get it?  Ball and chain?  Haha...

Well that's my trip to Ireland summarized into a few pictures.  I have loads more but don't want to bore anyone...until I get back home ;)

The Happy Song

I'm sure everyone has heard this Delirious song, and the lyrics keep running through my head tonight because it's how I feel!

Here's how it goes:

Well I could sing unending songs

Of how you saved my soul

And I could dance a thousand miles

Because of your great love

My heart is bursting Lord to

To tell of all you've done

Of how you've changed my life

And wiped away the past

Well, I want to shout it out

From every roof top sing

For now I know

That God is for me, not against me

Let me just reiterate the "my heart is bursting" part because it is!

One of my clues for treasure hunting today was 'trees,' specifically outside.  When I shared this with Daniel, who I was paired with today, he said he felt like it was a park near the church offices.  I said great because I had no clue where there were big trees in the city centre.  We headed there and ended up spotting one of Daniel's clues which was 'bleached hair'.  We saw a guy with bleached hair sitting by himself so Daniel struck up a conversation with him.  His name is Michael, and he is a college student here in Sheffield.  The three of us chatted for a bit about traveling, school, his church background (which he didn't have one), and then I pulled out my "treasure map".  

I showed Michael our clues that led us to him, and then I started crying....awesome.  I just felt so overwhelmed that we had found our treasure!  I showed him where we had 'Devonshire Park' written down and 'bleached hair'.  I asked him if his hair color was natural, and he said no it was bleached and laughed.  I said I didn't think he'd mind me asking since he wasn't a girl, haha, and then we all laughed.  

I proceeded to tell Michael that he was our treasure, and that God loves him.  You know what his response was? He said no one had ever told him that before.   What?!  Can you imagine never hearing that before?  This made me sad, but it also increased my hope that our meeting was really impacting him.  

We talked a little bit more and Daniel asked if we could pray for him.  He said yes, so the both of us got to pray for him while sitting there at the park.  Michael said he had never read the Bible but had recently been thinking about it.  We encouraged him to go for it!  

I can't really explain how I feel right now, but it is an incredible feeling to find the person God has you looking for!  It was also really cool because often times people here are not open to talking, and if they are, they usually don't want prayer.  I know God wanted us to find Michael today, and I feel so blessed that we did!

A Trip to York

We hopped on a train and headed north to York on Thursday.

We had a rough idea of what we wanted to do when we got there but 

played a lot of it by ear. Danielle and I make great traveling partners because we're pretty flexible and go with the flow. We bought a two day "York Pass" that let us into many attractions around the city for one set price. I highly recommend looking into these for big tourist cities, and there's even one for London that I'm going to check out.

We toured York Minster, a beautiful Gothic Cathedral in the heart of York containing the largest expanse of medieval stained glass windows, each window being cleaned every 100 years. Imagine the dust!

Outside the minster is a statue of Constantine the Great, close to where he was appointed Emperor of Rome in 306 AD. What?!?! York was founded by the Romans in 71 AD, and the entire Roman Empire was even governed from York for a couple of years. I love the history here!

I got excited when I heard there was a Roman Bath in the city, but when we went to see it, I was a bit disappointed. There was a Roman Bath there and all, but it was just a one room "museum" underneath a pub, jazzed up to make it more than it was. It wasn't professionally done (there was construction paper cut outs hanging on the wall, ha)  I guess I'll have to wait until I can actually go to the city of Bath when my mom comes to visit in March.

Walking the streets of York was a lot of fun because it's very picturesque. The streets and architecture look exactly like I imagined England should look like. Sheffield is great and all, but it's not as pretty as York. The city is surrounded by fortress walls that are open during the day to walk on. Danielle and I had a blast walking along them, even though some parts don't have railings...scary! It was fun to imagine what it would be like standing on them 2000 years ago, guarding the city. Apparently there's a law that still exists today that anyone standing on the city walls can shoot a Scottish person with a bow and arrow if they're spotted after dark. Maybe that's why they lock the gates at dusk...

We caught the musical 42nd street at the Theatre Royal for just 5 pounds! Of course we paid for our cheapness when our seats were at the very top of the theater, above the stage lights. The best part of the musical? Hearing people with British accents attempting New York accents and one character tried for a Texas accent. The lady next to us asked if they sounded American, and I tried to be sweet and said said some of them did but then Danielle came right out and set they weren't even close.

Friday was a beautiful day filled with more tourist activities. My favorite part was walking through the Clifford's Tower, the only remaining part of York Castle. William the Conqueror had built a small tower on this same piece of land, but it was burned down two years after having been built. If you look closely, you can see small slits on the walls. That's where bow and arrows were shot. They were big enough to allow the arrow through but small enough that no other arrow would get through....clever clever!

After that we headed to the Fairfax House, a townhouse displaying furniture from the 18th century, and I learned a little about Georgian architecture. We also toured the York Castle Museum which had a replica of a city street as it would have looked in the 1700's, down to the bank, general store, and schoolroom.

We ended the day by having tea at an Italian cafe. I drank white hot chocolate (am I the only one who has never heard of this?) and tried chocolate caramel shortbread for the first time. It was delicious and is now my favorite snack to get at coffee shops here.

I highly recommend York if you're ever in England, and I hope that I get to come back before I go home in June.

Treasure Hunting #2

I was very excited about treasure hunting today. The weather was just beautiful with the sun shining and everything. This week I was hoping to see some of the clues that the Lord spoke to me during our prep time show up on our trip out.

My group ended up being Daniel (the pastor whose family I live with), Izzy, and me, and when I was sharing my handful of clues, one of them was clearly the word lonely/loneliness...which Daniel had heard as well! It's always exciting to see when more than one person has the same thing. One of my other clues was the name Matilda. What? Matilda? I refused twice to write this down because I'm pretty sure it's not an English name or common name at that. As it turns out though, there is a street in Sheffield called Matilda not far from where we were. I got so excited when Izzy said this!

One thing about treasure hunting that Danielle had reminded the group before we started was that we need to be creative with our clues. For example, a name might not be the person we end up talking to on the street but the name of a family member who they want prayer for, etc. Well, we didn't end up making it out to that street because we ran out of time, so Danielle said she would go with me tomorrow so we could check it out. I'm just so curious!

Anyway, my group of 3 ended up going to the Peace Gardens (a central location in the city centre) because Daniel had a picture of this location, specifically near two restaurants. The three of us were walking around looking for someone sitting by themselves and saw a few people but decided to go to the specific area between the two restaurants. As we rounded the corner, we saw a guy sitting on a bench. We knew we needed to go talk to him. Izzy and I decided to give it a go while Daniel waited close by (so we didn't overwhelm the guy). We sat down next to him, explained what we were doing, and asked if there was anything he wanted prayer for. He said no, he wasn't feeling well, and then started convulsing. I couldn't really understand him at this point and wasn't sure what to do. Daniel walked over, and we all tried to talk to him.

Izzy and I went to grab some water from a nearby cafe and brought it back to him. Daniel told us his name was Aaron, he was from India, said he was a Christian, and was a student at the university here and didn't like it. He was lonely and hated Sheffield. All the while, he's still convulsing. Daniel prayed out loud while Izzy and I prayed. We started to talk to him about sin in his life and asked him if there was anything he needed to confess. I asked him if he had an addiction to anything, but he never clearly answered. The more we talked to him about spiritual things, the less Aaron could talk. He seemed to try but nothing would really come out.

After a long while of praying and trying to talk to him, we had Aaron take a walk around the gardens with us to gain back some control. He was able to talk more clearly again. Pretty soon into our time with Aaron, we realized he was not just sick but possessed by a demon. Something was clearly not right with him, and when we started mentioning Jesus and confessingsin, he became more and more mute.

This was my first time to be around this kind of situation, and I truly believed he would be set free from his oppression. When he wasn't, I was really confused. Jesus' disciples cast out demons all the time. I have faith and truly believed it could happen so why didn't it? Did I do something wrong? As I talked to Daniel, he said that it all comes down to Aaron having to confess his sin not just us praying for him or rebuking the demon. He had to be willing to do this, and he didn't seem to want to confess anything.

I know we found and talked to the person God intended for us to. It makes me sad for Aaron that he wasn't willing to let go of things, but I pray he's still thinking about it. I pray he realizes someone cares for him and that he doesn't have to be alone and depressed in this city, far from home. I'm hoping he'll come to church on Sunday and find community, so we'll see.