So how did I end up in London? It all started back in May '10 when I had a really detailed, vivid dream about flying to Europe. Some friends of mine were on the plane, including one guy that I didn't know at the time, but met not to long after the dream. The dream stuck with me so much that I knew sooner than later I'd be in Europe. By the end of May, Jesse and I had moved to Nashville. I could write a whole book just on our time in Nashville! We were living in a house in east Nashville with 5 other people, 3 of them guys in some big time bands in the music scene there, 1 massive doberman named Gambit and wayy too many cats (5). The day we got to the house, we spent hours talking to Emma (one our friends/roomies) and all the we could talk about was Europe in January. I'm not even sure if I had told her my dream at this point. She just started going off about how she saw us in Europe in January. Either way it was getting really obvious that something was going to happen in January. As the months went on, Jesse, Emma and I took a roadtrip out west, ending up in San Diego...I really, really really wanted to move there begnning of 2011. By that point I had kinda given up hope on Europe; but during a phone conversation with my mom, in October, I told her we'd probably be in San Diego in Jan, "Well if we're not in Europe" which came out of nowhere, cause by now I didn't think it was going to happen. Time went on, Thanksgiving came and went; but the knowing that very soon I'd be in Europe intensified to the point where on Dec. 17 I started getting some stuff together and making lists of everything that Jesse and I would need to buy for the trip. Actually, the reason I did this was because in the dream I had, there wasn't much time for preparation, everything was very rushed and when I got on the plane I didn't have anything I needed because of how rushed everything was. So I took the warning to heart and began to prepare even though we had no money. 3 days later, Jesse and I were handed a check for $3000 to go to Europe!! I was relieved to discover that I wasn't crazy all along and we really were going to Europe in January!
Our flight for 1/11 was cancelled due to the freak snow storms taking over the south. I was extremely relieved by the cancellation, since I really had a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach about flying out on the 11th. We rebooked our flights for the 13th. At this point we still had no idea what we were going to do once we landed. After buying everything we needed for the trip: backpacks, passports, warm clothes, plane tickets...all we had was $30 to get some food during our layover in Atlanta and €130 Emma had left over from her time in Italy. We did have a hotel for the first night but after that we had not a clue as to what to do. A day or 2 before we left God told us that we were to go to Cambridge, and he led us online to a church he wanted us to go to. The 13th came and we headed to the Nashville Airport. Oh and a way cool side note....we were flying to London on the same day that our 2 friends (from my dream) Munday Martin and Jesse Shamp were flying from Northern Ireland back to Nashville, and on the same Airline. How rad is that!
During our (10) hour layover in Atlanta, Jesse and I both were internally completely freaking out, even though we didn't say anything to each other. Freaking out to the point where we almost didn't even get on our flight to London. We were going to Europe for 5 months with pretty much no money and no idea what we were going to do. But we both had the overwhelming feeling that it would be far worse for us to not get on that plane. The scripture 'Obedience is better than sacrifice' comes to mind. So as hard as it was we got on the plane. During the flight we met a pastor from London, as the plane was landing he handed us all of his contact info. We really didn't think anything was going to come of it so we just headed over to our hotel and passed out from jet lag.
The next morning we woke up and rushed to the coach station to catch the coach to Cambridge. By now it was Saturday morning and all we knew was that we were supposed to go to that church the next day. We arrived in Cambridge and walked all over the place trying to find a B&B. Cambridge is absolutely amazing...especially to a history buff like me. Its were the Kings of old went to study, where evolution and atheism were born, even the ancestor tree of the tree Sir Isaac Newton was sitting under as the apple fell on his head and the laws of gravity were articulated is there.
We woke up Sunday morning, packed our bags again and headed to church. Since we had such a long walk to get to the church, we arrived kinda late but just in time to hear the pastor talking about Hebrews 11, which has been our theme chapter for this trip. At the end of the service the pastor, youth pastor and others came up to us and asked us what we were doing and we told them a little bit. Everyone we talked to (including the pastor and youth pastor) asked us if we had anywhere to stay that night. We didn't so we said 'No, we don't' and every one of them said 'Oh ok' and walked away. Which was fine by us, we know God takes care of us regardless; but we were really hurt for the church. Especially because even before we left the states I strongly felt like we were supposed to talk to the pastor and be an encouragement to him and his congregation since we were living what they were preaching. I was extremely glad that I was as solid in God as I am, and didn't have any people with me who don't believe in God cause it was really really depressing. We left the church and walked a few blocks to a beautiful cathedral called Our Lady Peace and Church of the Martyrs of England. We sat inside and it was so peaceful. It was very refreshing after what had just happened. We sat and listened for what God wanted to do next. All we heard was to go eat dinner at Pizza Hut and God told me "Now you go to the Gentiles", but I didn't know what that meant at the time. So with the last of our money we headed over to Pizza Hut.
Not knowing what else to do, after dinner we settled down in the park for the night. We sat there for a few hours and every time I opened my Bible to a page it landed on really intense scriptures that were exactly what we needed to hear. And God was speaking to Jesse about when times get tough will we look back to Egypt (where even though the Israelites were slaves they had shelter & food) or look to where He is going; which was really intense.
I had already decided not to long after we sat down that if it started raining I was going to go over to the Best Western and ask if we can sit in the lobby and wait it out. Well of course it did start to rain and thats exactly what we did. But after about 10 min it was way too awkward so we decided to leave. As we were leaving Jesse started talking to the guy behind the front desk who felt terrible that we didn't have anywhere to stay. He disappeared for a minute then came back and handed us an address. He said "My mom has a spare room, and said you are more than welcome to stay with her!" This was awesome cause earlier in the day I felt like someone had a spare room we were going to stay in because their son no longer lived at home! We walked back across town to her house. She was extremely hospitable and kind to us from the second we got to her front door, we stayed with her for 3 nights. It was actually a really interesting dynamic. The woman didn't like Americans, hated Christians and kept 'joking' about poisoning us. But she even said herself she was probably the only person in all of Cambridge who would have taken us in. We kept asking God if we were supposed to minister to her; He said not to worry about it and just pray over her and the house and bless her. It was a really interesting few days!
We left her house Wednesday morning and headed over to St. Barnabas Church were Rolland Baker was ministering that night! For those of you who have never heard of Rolland or his wife Heidi...definitely check them out! They are completely transforming the country of Mozambique http://www.irismin.org/
We did get to minister to some people at the church who were extremely encouraged by our story of how God has us living by faith. One guy was actually from Ohio and he and his family have been living by faith for a few months. He wrote in his journal only a night or two earlier that he really wanted to live this life of faith but that is was hard and asked God to bring him people who were living by faith as well. As the meeting ended we knew we were supposed to get on a bus to somewhere but we didn't know where to. We had enough money for a night at a hotel and bus tickets but God told us not to get a place for the night. By this point it was almost midnight so we got some Mediterranean take-out and sat in a particular bus stop that I felt we were supposed be at. As we ate our food we were getting frustrated. Knowing we were supposed to get on a bus but not knowing where to. We almost just got on a bus to Scotland! About 3am we realized we were supposed to go to London. God told Jesse we needed to get off the coach at the first stop. (Oh and the bus stop I was drawn to earlier was the one we needed to get to London). We didn't realize it then but the stop we were to get off at was the part of London where the pastor lived. The one we had met on our flight to London. We got to London, got into a hotel (which we wouldn't of had money for if we had gotten a place to stay the night before!) and emailed the pastor just letting him know we were in town.
As we were literally walking out the door of our hotel room the next day for check out the phone rang and it was the pastor. He said he had a flat in town and already had it prepared for us even before asking if we wanted stay there! He said we could stay there and use it a base for the rest of our travels in Europe! Which Jesse had actually described this whole situation to a T our last day in Cambridge. He said someone would have a flat in London we could stay at and they would let us use it as a base for the rest of our travels!
We've had a lot of exciting things happen this last week....but this is already a massive post so I will just write about it later!
the fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. it's our handle on what we can't see. the act of faith is what distinguished our our ancestors, set them above the crowd. by faith, we see the world called into existence by God's word, what we see created by what we don't see.
hebrews 11:1-3
