Just Smashing – England, London

Jesus is using my Chloe to teach me again. I am all about trip logistics and making sure all the various pieces fit together to flow well. Chloe is all about Jesus and is more concerned with all the lost souls around us. It reminds me very much of Martha and Mary. Martha was so concerned about the preparations of everything around her, while Mary just sat at the feet of Jesus. Everything Martha was doing was needful and good, but it was not what was best. Lord Jesus help me to be more like Chloe and Mary, help me to pay more attention to hurting souls than all the other things that take my time. We are on the train at the moment heading to Edinburgh as we create this blog post. Chloe felt lead to give a Jesus track to a young man beside us who was not interested, but could not refuse Chloe’s request to read through the book of John. He spent over half an hour reading through John before giving the Jesus track back. Chloe looked a little down hearted, but I got to tell her that only the Lord knows how that seed will grow. The Lord may remind that young man of what he read when the soil is finally ready for the harvest.

If anyone ever wants to know anything about London I can sum it up in one sentence, “Smashing, it was SMASHING!” We met a young man in Ambleside that used that phrase to describe everything, but I think it fits well with London. Imagine the doors opening on an already packed subway train, called the tube, and there being so many people around you that you do not really have control over whether or not you are going to enter it. The mass decides to pack further into the subway, so in you go with them. Inside the subway you are literally navel to navel as your head is extended over someone else’s body. Then if you have a beautiful young girl with you who has been eating lots of prunes, things really get wild! 🙂 Let’s just say as the fumes fly and people’s noses start to wiggle it gets very comical. You do not really have enough room to bring your hand up to your own nose, so you bury your nose in someone else’s neck, hoping the smell is better there. Add to this scenario a man who thinks the whole thing is hysterical and wants to take video to capture the inhumane conditions. No one looked very happy with me, so I had to limit my footage. Outside the overcrowded tube, we found overcrowded streets with cars and bikes flying by. Everyone is pushing and jostling for a better position as they hurry this way and that. It was all a bit much after our pleasant life in the Dover countryside. All this together helped us decide to limit our London visit to one night.

The highlight of London was the nautical shop, Arthur Beale. It is the only store in London that is still open and selling what it originally started out selling. It was started over four hundred years ago. What I loved was Ernest Shackleton actually shopped at this very same store when outfitting his trip on the Endurance to try and make history by being the first man to make it to the South Pole! You could tell it was a working shop for all things nautical and the men there really knew there stuff. I could learn a lot about sailing from them. On the way back to the hotel we also toured the British Museum, which was pretty cool as well.

We got back to the hotel early with little desire to spend much more time being pushed around London. We had not really seen any of the normal London sights, so I told Chloe I thought we should give London one more try and we did. We took the tube, just as crowded, over to Big Ben, the clock. Along the route Chloe got to pray for a young lady who was crying on the tube. You could tell her heart was breaking and there were so many people between us that we could not ask her about her troubles. This allowed us to pray quietly for her. Praying for someone else made our own situation of being overcrowded not an issue. I love how God works like that, when you take your mind off yourself and put it on helping others God changes your heart in the process.

After giving London another chance we went home content that we had seen enough and had a great night’s sleep. This allowed us to get up the next morning and make our 8a train back up to Edinburgh, Scotland.

Chloe’s Take:
We got up and ate a wonderful breakfast in Farthingloe in Dover (I actually got to eat a lot this time). There was a big family (the biggest family we have seen here) with four little kids. We walked in the beautiful morning air and got to our train station early. We sang a couple songs and then we got to talk to a lady who sat next to us. We got to give her a Jesus track. We got on the train and we came into London. It was busy and smushy and we were glad to get out of the train station and walk down the road. Even there it was smushy and it smelled terrible. We tried to drop our backpacks off at the hotel, but we were too early. They did let us leave daddy’s backpack in a day storage area. This allowed daddy to carry my pack for me. Then we went shopping and past a bunch of shops with yummy food, but we were not hungry. There were not many shops, only eating shops. We did get to go into an old rope shop. Then we came out and were a bit hungry (we had not eaten lunch yet). Oh and before that daddy got me a delicious, wonderful, yummy carmel gelato. I had a pointed sugar cone and then I got a big scope of the carmel gelato. I think it was the best carmel ice cream I have ever had. It was soooo good and this made us hungry. We looked around for the yummy shops we had passed by on our way to the rope shop and they were all basically trashy shops. Finally we found an Italian eatery named Eve’s. We order homemade Lasagna and it was good! Then we went out to the busy smushy streets. We were finally able to drop our packs off at the hotel, which we call our boat room because it was so small that it barely fit two single beds inside of it. There were lots of confusing stairs to get into our room too. When we first went into our room, we thought it was a closet because the first door went it a small area just large enough for the door to swing into and then there was another door behind that one that we had to open to get into our boat room. Finally we decided that we had to give London one more try before we went to bed. So, we went out again and this time God had us get on the tube (subway). We saw a lady who was crying on the tube. Daddy saw her first and asked that I quietly pray for her. So, I prayed in my head for her. I think she had just gotten a text message to make her cry. Then we got on another tube not as smushy. Then we got off to see Big Ben, a big clock, and to go into Westminster Abbey, but Westminster Abbey was closed when we got there. So, God had us meet a very nice lady, from Ireland, in front of Westminster Abbey. She was trying to find out things for her church and we had a pretty good talk. Then we went back on the smushy tube and finally got to our room again after dark. We got to video chat with our family. We are trying to leave a Jesus track at every hotel. We got the idea at Farthingloe (daddy’s idea from God). I do not like London’s smell or smushiness. We had a great sleep in our tiny boat room, thank you Jesus. As I finish my take up, we read bible in the morning now and then do all the other stuff. God goes first! Praise Jesus!