As of late...

Life has almost been too busy to stop and reflect in the last month or so.  First, as I wrote in the last post, there was the Youth Service which took a lot of time (and some recovery from). 

Then, last minute planning and prep kicked into high gear for our Church Weekend Away.  For the past 10 years or so, the church has gone to Othona, which is apparently a bit like Iona, in that it's a community set up around an ancient Christian worship site.  The chapel there, St. Peter-on-the-wall, was built nearly 1400 years ago -- a staggering number for those of us, particularly in the States, whose oldest buildings (of the white, Christian world) are only a couple hundred years at best.  (There are some buildings, of course, in the States like Taos Pueblo, which are dated back 1000 years...which is mind-blowing as well.)

Othona is at the end of the road, next to the Thames Estuary (a.k.a. "the sea").  It's a quiet place with unassuming beauty, and it was a treat to soak up the dark, silent nights.  Justin says that there's something about what a person experienced early in their lives as to how they best fall asleep -- for me, a country girl, getting the opportunity to sleep in deep dark and quiet is optimal, I guess :)

Photo of the chapel by David Jacobs from bradwellchapel.org

Sandwiched in between the busy events are the various sporting events that I watch by proxy.  World Cup football/soccer, the Tour de France as it whizzed by us in east London via the Olympic Park, Wimbledon, and motor sports.  Sometimes I think it's Justin's part-time job to keep up with all the sport happenings....

Watching the Tour whizzzzz by in a matter of seconds ... after waiting for hours.

And we've been incredibly blessed the last couple weeks to have a variety of friends and supporters from home visit us.  It helps us slow down when we have visitors around.  And the icing on the cake is that we have the much-anticipated treat of Justin's parents and friends here this weekend.   After having a relatively dry and warm summer, it looks like they'll arrive at just the right time to experience a true London forecast full of rain, rain, and more rain.  That shan't dampen our spirits!