Farewell to Blighty

Where has the time gone? It doesn't seem possible that nearly two years have passed since I arrived in England. It's incredible. It's been an amazing journey of discovery, learning about another place, another Church, and about myself. I've met some wonderful people and some not so wonderful people. I've had good experiences and not so good experiences. I've traveled loads--probably not as much as I would have liked, but I've seen places I'd never seen before. Here's my chance to brag--in the last 2 years, I've been to Lisbon three times (thanks Pedro!), Rome, Athens, Paris, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dublin, Cardiff, London; travelled all across England to see places like Bath, Canterbury, and York. What an incredible opportunity this has been. I hope I've taken as much advantage of it as I could.

As I leave tomorrow, it will be with much sadnes, as I have truly made this place my home these last 22 months. The friends I have made and the people I have met will be greatly missed, as they have touched my heart. I do hope I'll get to see them again.

So off we go, onto the next adventure. This new one has a lot to live up to, if it wants to come anywhere near competing with this last one. God is faithful, though, and so I'm sure life will never be boring.

Farewell England, and thank you.

Winding Down

Guy commented yesterday that I hadn't blogged in a while. Which is true. So I thought I might post a brief update.

Paris was fantastic. Exhausting but fantastic. We had a good time running all Paris to see the things we wanted/needed to see. Unfortunately, that didn't leave a whole lot of time for rest and relaxation, but when you've got two days in Paris, well, you see all you can. Guy has a good summary of the trip on his blog, so I'll point you there instead of repeating it all here.

The always unfortunate thing about going on holiday is that you have to come back. And, as Guy said, we did get to escape things for a while, but life was waiting when we got back....namely, my imminent departure from these fair shores. People keep asking me if I'm looking forward to going back home. I've decided the truest and safest answer is, 'Yes, I'm looking forward to going home, but it's going to be hard to leave.' There's always a bit of excitement (and not a little bit of trepidation) when you start something new. So, of course I'm excited about starting a new job in a new place. There's always more potential than one can imagine. At the same time, leaving here is not going to be a simple task. Last week, I took the last service I'll do at Trinity. I broke down in floods of tears. It was quite embarrassing, really, but not something I could help. Today won't prove any easier, and neither will next Sunday.

There is a certain element of relief, also. I feel like I've been saying good-bye for about six months now, and it's a great load off to finally stop thinking about it and just getting on with things. Two weeks from yesterday, my flight leaves Norwich airport, and about 17 hours later, I'll arrive in Kansas City. Then, five days later, I'll move to Advance. A quck turnaround, for sure. Probably not one of the best ideas I've ever had, but I wanted to honor my committment to the church over here for as long as I could (more later on the egocentric view of the UMC...or better yet, call me or email me to ask about that....probably not a good thought to publish in such a public space). So it's going to be a whirlwind of a month, that's for sure.

My how quickly these last two years have gone.