Round The Ball: Lent – 2009

Part of packing everything up and moving is getting rid of that stuff that just sits around and never gets used.  Today, Jesse and I (prompted by the, er, gentle nudging of Pam) loaded up some random things from Ikea that we’ve never ended up using and taking them back.  Nothing was out of the box, but they’d sat so long that I no longer had a receipt.

Now we’ve got an Ikea card with about $114 in store credit.  Of course, it’s only good here in the U.S. (even though there’s an Ikea in London), so we’ll see.  Jesse and I looked around the kid’s section and checked out bunk beds.  Might be a good thing for us to throw in the shipping container (still in the box).  Not sure the kiddos are ready for it yet.

Hmmmmm . . ..

Two cars were found rigged with bombs today in London. I discovered this by walking into an unassuming coffee shop and seeing the scrolling CNN headlines. It was a moment of panic: what neighborhood were they in? Who built the bombs? Why am I moving my family there?

It’s amazing how this feels like something more than just another headline for me . . . how much our hearts are connected to the reading of the afternoon news. I feel it from over here and we aren’t even there yet.

I talked with Ivon, the super-helpful immigration lawyer in London. He looked over our visa applications and gave me some pointers. Pam likens the whole process to a “big school project” – and then jokes that I’m the overachiever who likes to get it all perfect. She’s not far off. And this school project has kept me up late this week.

Ivon had a few good suggestions on how we could tighten up the language in our supporting documents to really prove that we are trained missionaries. Good call. Guess I have to finally dust off the resume . . .

There was a break in the water main this morning on the way to Ritual – a small gush of underground water, like a hidden spring, pushing its way out of a tiny hole in the street. Nature’s dominance over man’s best intentions. The road was recently paved over and painted . . . but still the water pushes up and out. “I will not be pressed down!”

I’ll miss how quiet it is here on Sunday mornings.  The streets are silent late into the morning as the City rolls over and hits snooze on the alarm-clock.  This is the one morning a week when you can hear birds chirping.  It’s the best time to be a pedestrian — there are so few cars on the road that it isn’t worth the energy to look both ways . . . you can hear if something’s coming.