Long live the Queen

…who actually wasn’t in London when I was. My friend told me that the queen had gone up to Scotland for a few weeks at the end of the summer. Oh well, not like I would have gotten a picture of her anyways.

Now the flight to London wasn’t all that bad…except for the sick woman who was coughing without covering her mouth. Really?! You have an infant and you aren’t even covering your mouth to not get your infant sick? UGH….just praying that whatever she had I don’t get and pass along to the little ones. Didn’t sleep much – which I figured would happen. Watched the movie Epic and really liked it.

They had a vegan/vegetarian option for food – had eggplant lasagna for supper (which was really late) and had some b-fast I couldn’t eat since it was laced with sugar. It was overall a fair flight. Got off feeling my eyes were glued shut. Oh, by the way, Heathrow is huge….and British Air has their very own terminal which is larger than O’Hare’s international terminal.

Once I had a friend come visit me while I was still on Oahu and the first day we packed it in…everyone couldn’t believe we had done as much as we did. That was nothing compared to my 6 hours out and about in London Town! I have 5 blisters on my feet to prove it.

Here is what we did:

Piccadilly Circus

Walked through Leicester Square (cinemas)

Trafalgar Square

St Paul's Cathedral

Millennium Bridge

Tower of London

Tower Bridge

London Eye

Parliament

Big Ben

Westminster Abbey

St James Park

Buckingham palace

Green Park

Saw Anna Chancellor – Google her – at a hole in the wall, Mildred’s

This is an old double decker bus we got to take.

London bridges...falling down...

Have you done anything bad that deserves a trip to London Tower?

Parliament building and Big Ben

 

An English cottage in the middle of the park.

Buckingham Palace and some lovely orange cones out front.

Uganda Bound

The day is finally here! I have some prayer requests if you think of me throughout the next 24 hours...

1. God will be glorified by all I do and say
2. Flights aren't delayed
3. I don't get motion sickness on either plane ride
4. I don't miss the station my friend told me to get out at in London to meet her
5. I find my way to the Underground at Heathrow :)
6. My stomach doesn't have major problems with this traveling (this one is huge for me!)
7. There are no problems with my neck and back while traveling
8. That I actually sleep on both flights since they are both overnighters

Thank you, thank you, thank you! The next time you hear from me I'll be halfway around the world!!!!

Valuable Life?

Acts 20:24

Paul made this statement immediately after he said "the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me." In essence, Paul was throwing human caution to the wind and following exactly what the Lord wanted him to do. 

How many of us would willingly go when we knew we'd face hard times? How many of us go when we're told to not knowing what is going to happen? This is my prayer and plea these next few months as I go to Uganda. I don't know what is going to happen, but I do know that I have a course to follow and finish - testifying to the gospel of the grace of God to those around me. 

I am not worthy, but may I strive to be like Christ, knowing that my heavenly Father sees Christ when He looks at me!

1 Person with 4 Pieces of Luggage

There's so much still to do before MONDAY!!!! I can't believe that I leave Monday. It was just February that I bought my ticket....where has the time gone?! I'm taking quite a lot of stuff for the orphanage. A couple is shipping a bag of sound equipment, I'm taking a box of file folders (who knew that 600 file folders could weigh so much!), a suitcase of items from Ikea (excited to go shopping for it all) as well as other items that they need, and then one suitcase for myself. The total cost of 3 pieces of extra baggage? At the airport it would be $340, but online it's only $285.60. WHAT?! I found out too late that there is a process for wanting to take extra baggage for missions work....and you only get to take one extra at that. Thankfully I am allowed one free piece of luggage. On the way back to Chicago, I will definitely only be checking one piece in!

God is providing though. Will need to be very conservative with my living expenses as I don't have that much for each month. Again, God will provide exactly what I need. My biggest concern is food as I've gone to a plant-based diet....and before you ask, yes, it is different from a vegetarian and vegan diet. Although I can do vegan, so that's a plus. That's for another time though.

Please pray as I wrap things up here and continue to pack. Each piece of luggage can only be 51 lbs...23kg. What happened to the days of 70 lbs? Does anyone remember that or did I just dream that up? Happy packing!

Prayer changes things

I can’t believe that I’ll be in Uganda in exactly 2 weeks from today! Where did the time go? I would love to get on a plane now and go, but I’m not exactly ready for that. Was able to get a few pieces of luggage that I will be leaving at the baby cottage so I don’t have to pay to bring it back. Goodwill was so kind to let me buy each for less than $5. They aren’t exactly the size I wanted, but I’m very thankful that they were available. Just can’t believe how much I have to pay to take them…they will both definitely be below the 50 lb limit. British Airways lets you take one free piece and I found out too late that I could have taken a 2^nd piece for free since it’s a mission’s trip.

People have asked how they can pray for me lately:

Clarity while packing

Safety while flying

Servant’s heart while volunteering

Babies to be either reunited with their families or adopted by the time they reach the age of 5

Health while there – don’t want to deal with being sick while volunteering

Wisdom with what I can eat and that the Lord will give me ideas for recipes

Guidance for what the Lord wants me to do come December (hoping for some place warm)

What to do...what to do...

Found a bank today - absolutely free checking with no minimum requirement! That is a huge blessing. If you are traveling abroad anytime soon, there will be a 3% fee on your total amount when you use your debit card (possibly credit too, but since I don't have one, I don't need to know). If you use an ATM machine to withdraw, there will be a $5 fee on top of the fee to use the machine itself. Not too bad considering I won't be using an ATM frequently.

I somehow missed the fact that I only get to take one free bag of up to 50 lbs to Uganda. One extra bag is $60 and two extra bags would be $200. Trying to figure out what to do about that. Would like to take more bags for donations, so gotta work on figuring out what to take and what to buy there, then would try to figure out how to bring just 1 bag back since it's free. I know I can get stuff there, so I just might take the bare necessities.The only thing would be if I buy stuff (read trinkets) and want to bring it back, I would probably need another bag. Although I guess there's nothing wrong with leaving everything I took for them to use!

I am also trying to figure out what pieces of luggage to take. I have one suitcase that in of itself is already heavy, so I know I'm not taking that one. It's my largest one, so I'm a little sad about that. I might just go buy some sports-type bags to take donations in.

So many decisions are coming my way...what to do, what to do!

What's up with August?

I’ve been asked what I’ll be doing for an entire month off. First on my list of things to do is sleep. I haven’t been sleeping well with all the transitions and want to make sure I’m as rested as I can be physically and emotionally for the work God has in store for me.

I’m going to spend time with my family. Besides my sister and 2 nieces it’s been almost 1 ½ years since I’ve seen them. Unfortunately I don’t think I’ll see my brother who lives in North Carolina. Hopefully we’ll be reunited in December at some point.

I plan on spending time alone with my great God and Savior and taking a serious look at my life. As you all know, I don’t have any idea what I’ll be doing when I come back from Uganda in December. I want to make sure that I’m in a position to be able to hear Him speak to me – whether it’s something I need to change right now or telling me an idea of what I’ll do when I get back. Times like these don’t come around very often. I know it will be a struggle for me not to go into complete veg out mode and create a structure that centers on just me.

I plan on reading Follow Me by David Platt. 2 years ago I read his first book Radical. That book left me wanting to be completely open to whatever/wherever God wanted me to do/go. I look forward to how God will use Platt’s next book in my life. I just want to be open to the leading of the Spirit!

But, first off, I plan on spending time with friends in Phoenix. As you read this I’ll be wrapping my visit up…but as I type this I’m on the plane taking me to them. Here’s to a great month that will fly by in the blink of an eye!