Week 22- England

Saturday, 31 October, 2009 4:17PM Huddersfield, England

Hey! So it’s been a while and I’m again trying to remember what I wanted to say...

This past week, we were in Ilkeston, where I stayed with Siyabonga and Penuel. It was really fun. Our host was an 82 year old widow. It’s interesting to stay with older people sometimes. She had just had her birthday and she had 40 birthday cards in her living room. At first I thought she was collecting them from all the holidays, but when I looked closer I realized, they were all from her recent birthday. I remember as a child going to my grandma’s house and she had string going back and forth across the living room with all her cards on it. It had just been a long time since I had seen someone get that many cards. She is a very loved lady. It was nice to stay with her.

I am currently in Huddersfield, which is near Sheffield. We are in a huge church. It’s like a theatre...it holds 2000 people, it’s got a full book store, a full cafe, a indoor child play place, and a waterfall. I almost forgot about the full size Santa! Anyway, I’m in the cafe, but the Internet server is having problems, so I will type this and sent it later.

Yesterday we were in Middlewich, I had a great host family, of course the one night stay has the ensuite! Haha, it’s alright. They had a 16 year old daughter, and she was really touched by the girls. They made such an impact on the whole family, the mom was talking to me about it, and it meant so much. That’s why we are here.

I’ve gotten connected, but it’s working slowly...

My Chocolate/Chips Update: I guess because I was sick, I felt bad, and well....yeah. I kinda gave up. The first 2 days I was sick, it was the last thing I wanted, but then I just needed something to make me feel better about being sick. Bad idea, I know. I’m not happy with myself. It’s scary to think I have an addiction, but I do. I can admit it at least. I can promise to make a better effort this week.

The guy in the cafe winked at me. Haha, just thought I would share that with you all cuz I thought it was funny.

Same day... 12:30AM

It’s late, I know. I should be sleeping, I know. I needed to respond to 15 emails and sort some things out back home....

Tonight was INTERESTING. So we are at this HUGE church, and right before the kids are about to go on stage, the power goes out. So, they are rushing around trying to get it up and running again, and it doesn’t want to work. So I told the kids to pray that it would go back on.

They ended up performing in the dark, not complete darkness, they had back up lights, but they weren’t very bright. We had to only do African songs, the English ones have sound tracks with them, so we couldn’t use them. It was alright, the kids were ready to perform any way it was. They started on stage, we then brought them into the audience so people could see them better. They were excellent! I was so proud of them. It really speaks to me, and others I’m sure, when they see something like that. I really think they gave more energy than usual. Because we had to cut out some songs, the concert was a bit shorter, but in a lot of ways it was good, that means earlier to bed and more rest for them. I really see it as a blessing.

Just as we were about to meet our host families the lights came back on. God answers prayer, just not always in our timing! So our hosts got to see the children’s faces clearly before taking them home. It was really sweet.

I just wanted to share that story with you :) Good night!

P.S. I kept forgetting it was Halloween. Tour life sometimes takes you into a bubble away from the outside world. It's also not as big here...but I saw a few kids on the way home tonight. I don't feel like I missed out on anything though.