A full week!!

I can hardly believe the first full week is over! We have heard from four speakers thus far and the material is so RICH!! All of the speakers have been with YWAM for a minimum of 18 years and Paul Hawkins, the lecturer for this week, has 37 years as a YWAMer. He was here at the beginning. Paul is speaking on the character, nature and ways of God. He has made it a point to say that "How we see God will determine how we see everything." It has made me stop and think about how I see my God..I want to know Him more. This teaching is foundational in the YWAM organization..what a privilege to receive the message from a man who has been walking faithfully in missions for almost 40 years. He has incredible stories of God's faithfulness, his provision, his goodness and his love. REALLY GOOD STUFF!! I am so excited to be here..to see what God is doing in the lives of the people here...to see his work throughout the Kingdom as we hear from the missionary family who is preparing to go back to Central Asia. God is truly amazing..he is so good.
I had the opportunity to spend this past weekend in London with my friends Hope and Vince. We packed as much as we could into two days..we must have walked 20 miles!!! Saturday started with the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. It was quite a ceremony that required the entire area in front of Buckingham Palace to be blocked off. Many other streets are closed too as the guards march in and out of the palace gates while playing patriotic music. This was a highlight of the trip for me...Hope loved the tall fuzzy bearskin hats worn by Prince Charles' guard.
We then headed to Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament. I'm not sure I have the words to describe how beautiful these monuments are. We all three just seemed to stare in awe at the size and beauty of the buildings....well, Hope and I stared but also snapped a ton of pictures!! Big Ben is on the end of the Houses of Parliament...WOW! Just amazing. We were among thousands of people who were looking to get a glimpse of history.
Sunday we headed for SW London to church at a Vineyard!! The subway system in London is called "the tube" and little did we know the city would be doing repairs on Sunday. So off we go, on the tube to the Vineyard... one hour later we arrived! What should have taken 30 minutes turned into and hour as we tried to manage the tube...Thank goodness the Vineyard here breaks for tea and donuts after worship!! We made it just in time to hear a wonderful message. That was great!!
OK...gotta get to bed but will share more tomorrow if I can. I will leave you with our memory verse of the week.... For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10
Blessings!!!

First Full Day

Today was the first full day of activity...and boy do I feeeeel it! :) We started with breakfast at 7, devotion at 8, Base intercession 8:30-9:30, lecture 9:45-11:10, coffee break, lecture 11:30-1, lunch from 1-2, reflection time from 2-3, work duties 3-5, one-on-one 5-5:45, dinner 5:45-6:15, FREE TIME 6:15-7:30 (unless you have kitchen clean up duty-my days are Monday and Thursday) 7:30-8 Family in mission - this is the time where we all gather and the children are allowed with us, 8:15-9 missions night!!! WOW!
Tonight we watched several videos of the 2005 CDTS outreach trip to the area in the Philippines that we will visit. It was so incredible to hear the stories of Jesus and see the faces of these beautiful people!!! We will be visiting an area called Smokey Mountain which is a HUGE garbage dump. Many people live on the garbage and some have spent their entire lives there. There was a picture of a woman who was 93 years of age and she was missing an eye...a precious woman. When she heard the story of Jesus she said she knew now why she was alive...and that she had waited 93 years to hear it but could hardly wait to tell others!!! Praise the Lord!!! There were so many wonderful testimonies...I can't wait to go!!! I can only imagine what God will do as we travel to see these beautiful people. He is so good and forgets NO ONE!!! Thank you for your faithfulness Lord.
Here is the sunset I promised...this is right out the front door...beautiful!

Happy Easter

View from my room

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!!! It was another lovely day in the English country side!! They still warn that the rain will come :) We visited Living Rock Church today...it was awesome!! Great worship and a powerful message. I really enjoyed it. Visit livingrockchurch.org.uk if you are interested. Think I 'll go back again.
Sundays here at the lodge consist of church in the am, family style lunch and football at 2pm...all are invited to play!! The kids are amazing with a soccer ball. I opted for a long walk but see myself involved in a game or two before it's over. :) One of the students in my class lives in a village about 8 miles from here. She had us over for a late movie..Revenge of the Pink Panther...haven't seen that on in a long while but it is quite funny!!
Well, things get started tomorrow. Breakfast at 7, worship at 8 and class at 8:30. The course is very challenging so I may go to every other on the blog though I will try to keep up.
The message today centered around the statement IT IS POSSIBLE! Possible to be cheerful each day, to be kind each day, to have a wonderful marriage each day, to give more than we think we can each day, to be loving each day...and the list went on and on. If we choose to grab hold of the Resurrection power of Jesus, each day, ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE!! I was encouraged. Happy Easter everyone....love you all!!!

Relaxing day

Last night was my first night to sleep and feel rested. My body seems to have made the transition....at least I hope so! I suppose I'll know more at bedtime tonight.
We had "campus orientation" today. Three hours of how to live in a community environment and do it safely. Takes me back to my college days and dorm living. I am adjusting to having four roommates...well, I think. :) Having lived alone for several years I was hoping to make the transition easily. Wonderful women of God I am sharing quarters with..they all have amazing stories of how God has worked in their lives.
We went into town for a few hours to learn the lay of the land!!! I'll be honest...the fact that they drive on the opposite side of the road has made it challenging for me to gather my directional bearings!!! The roads here have areas called "round abouts". These are traffic circles that appear in the road and give you many options of direction. So you could take a number of roads off of the round about depending upon the direction of desired travel. Anyway...it's all very confusing to me. :) I think it's better if I catch a lift when I need to get around..no driving. So town was quite lovely. :) I had my first cup of filtered coffee since I've arrived in England. They drink instant coffee here and as many of you know, I am quite the coffee snob...(that is bad, I know..working on it!) so this has been a bit painful. I found out that the nearest Starbucks is 9 miles away. I was so excited to hear this until I found out the price of their coffee....a cup of joe @ Starbucks here costs about 3 pounds..which is $6 US. Tea is sounding better every minute!! :)
A few of us took a long walk in the countryside after dinner. The sunset was amazing...I'll post a picture of that soon!!! I really find that God speaks to me a lot through nature...his creation, down to the most simple creature, fascinates me.
Tomorrow I will attend church with a few of the more local people. We can attend anywhere we want so I'm excited to visit Living Rock Church for Easter Sunday. I'm sure it will be a wonderful experience. Till next time....BLESSINGS!!!

Day three of the British adventure!! For those of you who knew...there was a chance that I would be in a room that sleeps ten....you guessed it!! I am in the BIG room. ;) At this point we have five women in our room. Ok Ja Lee and Chang Su Kim are from Korea and Dawn and Nicole are from England. We are expecting another woman from Africa but it has been said she is not likely to get her student visa. It is hard to get a visa from that part of the world.

This first weekend is really just orientation to the grounds, the local towns and churches and an overview of the program. We are going into town tomorrow to get the tour. Our classes start on Monday morning at 8 am and the schedule is very tight. We are busy from 8 am until 7:30 pm M-F. Weekends are free unless you are on work duty. We have work duty one weekend each month. The classes range from Hearing God's voice to Spiritual Warfare. I'm very excited to study and here many of the speakers that will be here.

Well....stay tuned...I know God has a lot planned for this class!!! Blessings!!!

cow's to the barn!!

The adventure is underway!!! I traveled for close to twenty hours over Tuesday and Wednesday. I flew into Manchester, took a coach to Birmingham and a second to Coventry. My directions were to call the school once I arrived in Coventry. After two calls, both of which went to voice mail, I got a little nervous. :) I text Hope a couple of times and then found another phone number-FOR EMERGENCY ONLY. I was feeling that this was an emergency...tired, not much sleep and needing to see a friendly face. :) About twenty minutes later a friendly woman approached me and asked if I was Cindy. "YES I AM" came roaring out....I'm sure of that!! I later asked her if I looked like a scared American looking for a ride...she laughed and said no....that they had been there for a while and had walked past me many times. I recognized her husband and he had definitely walked past a few times!!! :) We then traveled another twenty minutes to the King's Lodge. I thanked the Lord many times for such an easy trip and friendly people.

The Lodge is an old English boys home built around 1860. My college dorm's were built about thirty years later so I am familiar with this place already. Sue, the friendly face from the bus station, gave me a tour. As we approached the laundry room I noticed a rather unpleasant odor. I said nothing...Sue looked at me and said "Oh, I need to mention the cow farm that backs up to our base. The smell is most noticed in this room but you will catch the odor in the breeze a lot." I thought I would fall out laughing. THIS IS SO GREAT!!! I really want to go check out the cow's!! :) Great place...I can tell already. I will write more later...thank you to all of you who have been a part of this!!!

I have spent a lot of time talking with the Lord about this whole trip. It has really been amazing to see how he made it all possible. He told me that day on the deck that HE would make this happen...if only I would trust him. Thank you Lord. I will give you all I have while I am here.

Much has happened since my last entry. Most of which involves getting my house on the market and sold. Selling my home is the detail I most worried about....but shouldn't have. This process has been so God! :)
I put the "For Sale by Owner" sign in my yard and two other small signs out on busy streets...NO OTHER ADVERTISING. Less than two weeks later...I had an offer, a good offer. Not only that but the buyer can close before I leave. Many have prayed for all loose ends to be tied up before I board the plane to England and I believe he is ordering just that. If all goes as planned, the house process will be complete, start to finish, in just over 4 weeks...4 weeks!! I couldn't have dreamed up a better scenario. Go God!!
I can't tell you what a lesson in faith this has been. He truly cares about ALL of the details in our lives and I love him so much for that. Stay tuned and I'll let you know how it all turns out. Thank you Lord for your faithfulness.