Livin and Learnin

A phrase that Matt and I have held on to the past couple weeks has been "Living and Learning." We couldn't think of anything that would describe our experiences more because of the mishaps that the Lord has brought us through. I'll be the first one to tell you that God has a sense of humor... and He's got a good one! I'm sure all of you guys have had the experience of, "This plan looks good. I think I've covered all the bases and made sure that there are no loose ends in my plan..." just to attempt to execute your plan and have it fall apart at every seam. I'm not saying that Matt and I have tried to step away from God's guidance, it's just that He has allowed us to experience, yet again, the realization that He plans better than us, and it's A LOT more beneficial for us to follow Him instead of doing our own thing. He has told us this and yet we don't believe Him... in Jeremiah He tells us that He knows the plans He has for us, and they are plans to prosper us. He KNOWS the plan for us, but the humorous thing is we think we know. We don't know.

This is Matt and I at Scotland's World Cup Qualifier against Iceland, and the picture on the right is at the England National game against Slovakia. And yes, we're wearing kilts at the Scotland game. It was only fitting. As a lot of you know, Matt and I had several goals to accomplish in our time over here, and one of those goals was to go to as many football games as possible. So far we've been able to see Rangers and Celtic, both professional teams in Glasgow, St. Miren (the local team where we are living), Manchester United, the Scotland National team, and the England National team... some of those on multiple occasions. The point is we're attempting to soak up as much European football as we can. We're like two kids trying to fit as many rocks in their pockets as possible before the teacher says that recess is over. We're having a great time! There are a couple stories I want to tell you from the past couple weeks.

First, I want to run through the events that have occurred. After all, yall aren't over here so you don't know what's going on. So the next couple paragraphs are probably going to be a really random group of sentences... no real connection other than the events in our lives... so hold on tight and grab a little bit of something to drink because this might be a long ride... I'd say water is a good one to go with, but Matt would fight me and most likely nock the water out of my hand trying to tell you to grab some juice, "because it's got flavor..." but you do whatever you want to do. Alright here goes. I got a hair cut. Which is sad to some of you, but I realize that all of the people that I have talked to and found out that I disappointed them by getting it cut all have short hair. All I'm saying is you can't be hatin if you're not joining the ratty long-haired mob that I was attempting to join. And if any of my guy friends have long hair at the moment... I wasn't talking to you. You probably look great. I'm mostly talking about the people I see over here with long hair. That's one club I didn't want to join... anyway, back to the goods.

Matt mentioned very briefly last time that we were offered the chance to go to our Dutch friend's home about 30 min outside of Amsterdam. Without much thought as to why we shouldn't we bought tickets and went. It was a great time! I'm going to try and make this the quick version. We get there and our Dutch friend, Stefan (the guy we refer to almost every entry), picked us up at the airport... and after about 10 min and a wrong turn at the demand of his father's GPS system we take a little tour along the German border. It was nice.. taking a little drive through a little German town. Stefan was completely embarrassed, but Matt and I kept telling him that it was more than okay, because we were now driving through Germany, which was a really cool thing to say at the moment! After about an hour and forty-five minutes of driving we were there. It was a nice little place, and his family welcomed us as we entered the house. What I really want to point out about The Netherlands is the size of the doors and the incline of the stairs. The doors could easily fit a family of moose through them, and the stair cases might as well have been on a playground next to the swingset because falling down those would have killed the bravest of souls. I'm telling you... there was one set of stairs that we came across in a pub the next day, and when I looked down it I had flashbacks of standing at the top of the Cliffhanger at Whitewater. I was expecting someone to tell me to sit down, cross my legs, and force me down the drop of death. The point is the stairs are steep.

While at Stefan's house we were introduced to probably the coolest thing that I have come across since my time in Europe. Let me ask you something. Do you like bread? Yes. Do you enjoy chocolate? Hopefully. I think a good amount of you have heard of Nutella chocolate spread to put on bread... or basically anything you wanted to transform into a magical experience. Well, I wouldn't say the item I am about to explain is better, it's just that this stuff was so different. I was left sitting in my chair trying to figure out why I was eating what I was eating. He brings out bread and then sets two boxes of chocolate sprinkles in front of us. We were like, "You put that on your bread?" I still wouldn't eat it every day, but it was something that boggled my mind. I can't even explain why it was that big of a deal... anyway, chocolate sprinkles, like the kind you would find on a cupcake, on top of bread... different.

We went around Amsterdam the next day and saw things like Anne Frank's House, the Van Gogh Museum, we toured the Netherlands' National football stadium... and all I am going to say about that is watching Matt as we went through this place was like watching an art lover walk through a gallery of original works of Vincent Van Gogh, which we also did... so I know this comparison is accurate. I'm not sure how many pictures he took... but it was enough to capture the moment, I garantee it. There was one point when we went into the little museum for the stadium and there were a bunch of old jerseys from past matches and Matt asked Stefan and I, "Can you name who those teams are?" Of course we couldn't... I think we named like one, but Matt goes around the whole room naming the different clubs. It was truly a site. The picture is of Matt looking out from the Commentator's Box at the Netherlands' National team as they practiced for their upcoming World Cup Qualifier against Scotland.

The following day Matt and I went back to Amsterdam without Stefan, because he was visiting his grandfather in the hospital. We went on a canal tour of Amsterdam. It was cool... basically we rode on a boat for a while.. but it was nice to see the city. This is a picture of one of the many beautiful scenes from our canal tour. Later that afternoon we met back up with Stefan at the train station and rode with his dad to the airport. We flew to Glasgow and then stayed in this little hotel near the airport, because we flew out the next morning at a very early hour.

So... now we're in London. We toured.. looked at things like Big Ben, Trafalgar Square (where I jumped on the lions.. I mean, I mounted it like a true hero would mount a lion), some other things and then we decided that it was time to go to the stadium. As you can tell I'm just going through stuff... So we get to the the area around the stadium and begin to ask about the hotel that we had reservations for, because we wanted to put our bags in the room... to make things easier. This is the point when God started showing us that our plans are flawed. Can't escape that. No matter how much you plan things can go wrong, but praise the Lord that His plans never go wrong! Anyway, we're walking.. and walking and walking some more... we walk to this road that has the same name as the road we're looking for, so naturally we think, "This is the road." We walk to the end of the street looking for 16, and it literally ended at 15. Yeah.. imagine our thoughts.. So we go back some ways to where we saw a little hotel and went inside to ask if they knew the location of our hotel.

We came into the front office with some hope of finding our hotel... that small bit of hope was soon smashed when the lady behind the desk began to lightly laugh while she informed us that our hotel was located in another city... yeah. ... We bought a room somewhere we've never heard of... Our plans were not perfect, and we had to come to grips that we are in desperate need of God even in the planning of a trip such as this, but what a revelation! We decided to go back to the stadium and hang out before the game (at this point we only had about an hour). The final idea was to go back to London's city center and find a hotel there after the game... the game was fun... the crowd was great and England won... not much more to it :)
So the time came when we were going to hunt for a hotel and we decided to pray that God would help us, because we really didn't want to sleep in the airport. To quote Matt, "We did our best Mary and Joseph impersonations." We went to about 12 different hotels to find that there was no room in the inn. But after another prayer and our hopes refueled God provided a place to sleep. I will attach a video that we made that night of the room... it was fun.

Right now I just want to comment on how great God is. Matt and I pray together in the mornings, and just having the ability to do that is a gift. He has watched over us the many different trips we have taken to unknown places while teaching us both a new meaning of trust in Him. It is weird to think that we have 7 some odd weeks left. As Easter has been approaching I have really been thinking about what this "holiday" really means. Over here it is definitely focused on chocolate and a bunny... but that is not the point. Easter is the picture of the Gospel. It is where the Gospel becomes "good news." This is the time that Jesus died for our sins and was raised by the awesome power of the Holy Spirit to take back from the devil what was stolen! I want to challenge all of you as you read this to reconsider what you are focusing this Easter season on. Praise God this holiday season and tell others the true meaning of Easter.

Lastly I want to comment on what will be going on the next week as we have our Easter break. Matt's family is coming into town on Friday and they are going to travel around for the week... going to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Stirling, Aberdeen, and possibly Lock Lamond. As for me... Deborah is coming! What a blessing it will be! We are going to travel a little bit to London to visit Suz (our friend from Mercer studying at Oxford) and then head over to Prague to see my missionary friends from last summer... so the week will probably fly by, but it will be a great week! Keep praying for us and for what God has for us here. Pray for ministry opportunities and for our obedience. Thank you all for the support and we'll be talking to you soon!