Reflections - Part I

I was organizing our study the other day and found my diary from my first few days in England. The next few entries are excerpts from those days and then my reflections over three years later. Enjoy!

Journal Entry 2 September 2004

We arrived in Cambridge around 9 am Thursday morning September 2, 2004. Our journey included David, Monette, and Charles’s grandma taking us to the KC airport around noon and then flying from KC to Chicago around 3 and Chicago to London Heathrow from 5pm (Chicago time) to 6 am (London time). So needless to say we were very physically and emotionally drained upon our arrival. However, our tiredness was minimized by the fact that Brian (my younger brother) was our apartment waiting for us.

We unpacked our bags and made due with the space we had, took a nap, and then headed out to set up a bank account. The first bank we went to was Barclays. After a rather lengthy discussion we were told that Barclays would not be able to open us a join account. They could offer Charles a student account but couldn’t put me on it because I wasn’t a student and couldn’t open an account for me because Deloitte was not a ‘named employer of the bank’. So we left slightly defeated and moved onto HSBC. Here we were told that the line was so long that we would not be reached by 5 pm so we needed to come back Friday morning. So we left with a ray of hope.

We went back to the apartment and ate bean burritos which we brought from the USA. We headed to bed very tired and slept very well.

Reflections now

It is so much fun to read this. I can remember the emotions I had so clearly. The most vivid one was crying on the airplane as it left Chicago and being very aware that the man sitting next to me was staring, but I still couldn’t stop crying. This emotion is vivid for obvious reasons but it also sticks out to me because I had no idea how much I would cry three years later as I put one of my best friends on the coach to Heathrow bound for Brazil (via Heathrow, thankfully). Little did I know back in September 2004 how much God had in store for us in Cambridge largely through the relationships he gave us. Ana, Rodrigo and Gabriel are just one of the many examples. (I just wiped a tear away from eye as I wrote this!)

I pray the same is true in the next three years. As we are still settling in here in London, I am already aware of how God has given us some great friends. But I trust that three years from now I will be amazed at his blessing of friendship once again.

On a lighter note, I read the above excerpt and am struck by how my word choice has changed. I never would have guessed that I would start writing dates the European style (date/month/year), that I would refer to our apartment as a flat, and that I would call a line a queue (and that I would get very use to them living in a country that makes queuing their national past time!).