|
lawsongirl
|
read my profile
sign my guestbook
Name: Rachel
Birthday: 7/3/1985
Gender: Female
Interests: I like Jesus, reading, my nephews, my family, chocolate, Montana, baseball, NBA, movies, comics...Yep I'm positive there's more but that's all for now!
Occupation: Massage Therapist
Message: message me
Member Since:
8/15/2005
|
|
SubscriptionsSites I Read
|
|
|
|
| Here I sit, watching the Champions League Quarter final between Chelsea and Liverpool. Most of my mates here want Liverpool to win by at least two goals so that they can stay in the competition. The score now is 3-4, Liverpool! But there are others of my friends that want Liverpool to be utterly crushed. Oh my gosh! The tension in this room in immense! So exciting. Anyway...
So we are officially on the Outreach phase of our DTS. Our first week of outreach was spent in Birmingham, the second largest city in the UK. When we got there on Saturday we heard a little bit about what our week would look like. (Aaah! Chelsea's just scored!! 4-4 now!) First of all, our accomodations...All fifteen of us would sleep in the lounge of a student's flat. On the floor. Placed very strategically so we could fit. It was actually quite fun for the most part, besides the occasional snoring and hacking coughs of our sickies!
Also, we would be working with Birmingham City Mission (BCM) in downtown Birmingham. The guys of BCM take a box to stand on and preach from while the others of them hand out tracts to any person who happens to walk by. Now..I know what you're thinking..."Preaching from a soapbox? Do people still do that sort of thing?!" And the answer is Yes. Yes they do. (Oooh, the game's over. Liverpool are out. Booooo!) So yeah, there I was watching these dudes preach and pretending to hand out tracts cuz to be honest I was skeptical and my attitude was quite poor. Eventually though I began to see that the dude on the box made starting conversations with people really easy. And actually, if people don't want to talk with you they just walk away. And if they DO wanna talk with you, they'll stay. And it's awesome.
We also did a bit of door-to-door work which was also really cool. Once again, people were either quite willing to talk or they weren't. Simple! Different people from our team were also able to go to a homeless shelter, a retirement home and a church coffee hour, giving testimonies, chatting to people and generally serving. I personally got to talk with a bunch of interesting people this week, from so many different walks of life and I've loved it! Yeah..Thanks for your prayers!
This week we are back, staying at The Kings Lodge. We are doing "social action" i.e. practical work in the community. Today we started building a fence around a field at a horse riding school for the disabled. Sweet! I am now quite adept at hammering, digging and sawing! K, not really but I'm not bad. I'm gettin betta! We'll be doing the same tomorrow (and until the thing's done!) and THEN we getta put up an electric fence! Fun stuff. Ohhhh....And then, I got interviewed. It was awful. I felt like a muppet which is english for stupid! I officially don't like interviews.
Also today we started learning a dance/drama thingy for Thailand. It's gonna be awesome. I have a long role..Scary but actually fun! Yep, so that brings you all up to speed on my current life. Does anyone have any questions for me or anything?
Oh also, the situation in Bangkok right now is a bit sketchy. If you all would pray that we can still get in, that'd be awesome. Cheers! Bubye now! 
So this is some of my team!! And it was actually taken in London (in front of Westminster Abbey), not Birmingham but I thought I'd throw it in anyway. Yeah | | |
| Well, here we are at the beginning of week six. It's been a crazy, lovely, tiring, uplifting time so far! The teaching we get on a daily basis is so full of depth and truth that I feel like I need a week to process it all. But I don't have a week to just be processing, so I write down as much as I possibly can and am content that I can reread it and listen to it again as many times as I want.
This last week our teaching was on "Sin, The Cross & Repentance". Doesn't that sound scary or at least a little depressing?! Well I thought so too but it was completely the opposite. It was amazing. The whole week was full of the truth of what those words actually mean. Did you know that repentance isn't scary? It's actually supposed to be a response, not to our sin but to the grace we see in our Savior. And shame? It wasn't meant to be associated with repentance because God doesn't play like that. If you came to your Heavenly Father with something big you'd done and were so sorry for, would you think that He'd throw it back in your face and call you a fool?! No, He wouldn't. He's happy that you've come to Him. Crazy cool information! Also...What if God actually really IS everything you hope He is...? Yeah..I'm learning so much.
This week we have an Australian speaker named Johnny Fall but he is definitely called Johnny Storm in my head! I sat next to him at dinner tonight and he seems like a fun fellow. I told him what my brain has been adamantly calling him and he said that it was cool for me to call him that. =) Gotta love people who are good sports!
This weekend was the first long weekend for the DTS. Out of our group of fourteen students, ten of us went to London. =) Wow..I never thought I'd live in England and be close enough to go to London for the weekend. It feels like a dream! Anyway, we saw all the sites: Big Ben, Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, and so much more! And we all took a million pictures so if ever I can find the time to put them online, you'll see much fabulousness.
I have to say that I was a little disappointed with the palace. There were many buildings in London which were much more beautiful and grand, in my opinion, then that palace. However there was a very lovely gold-looking gate near to the palace which was a gift from Canada. So..I was extra proud of my brother-in-law in that moment. =) I also got to see my lovely cousin Alida while we were in the city. So cool to see a small bit of home and get an American hug! Haha...
So yeah, the moral of this story is that I'm having a fabulous time over here. The people around me continue to amaze and intrigue me and I feel like I could know them for the rest of my life and not get enough of them. Me and Tasia (she's from Oregon and she's beautiful and on DTS with me..) decided today that we in our DTS should all start an organization of some kind. We all have such different talents and giftings that we could be a rocking force of Jesus-ness in this world! Plus I actually would get to know all of them for life. That'd be the best bit. Anybody else wanna join?? =D
One last paragraph....!!! And it's all about our outreach. We still have no idea where we're going. We pray about it as a group and we still aren't sure. Pray for us that we'll be able to hear God's heart in this, wouldja? We're all a bit anxious to know and we wanna tell all of our family and friends too (that's YOU)!! So yeah, pray for that if you think of it. Thanks so much! I pray that each person who reads this would be blessed by it and would be spurred on to find more God-truth in their own lives and worlds. Bye for now!
| | |
| I was just thinking about my first day here. It feels so surreal now! I'll share with you all about it so you will know what awaits YOU if ever you decide to do a DTS at The Kings Lodge near Nuneaton, England. =)
Okay, so obviously I started my England adventure at the airport. I was going through customs and trying to explain myself to the officer dude there when he suddenly asked if I was with the girl in the next queue over. I said no. But then I listened to what she was saying and it sounded remarkably similar to the spiel I'd just given this guy. So he stamped my passport and said, you should go meet that girl! So I did! And it was Emily, a girl from my DTS team. Haha..We'd been on all the same planes all the way from Minneapolis and we didn't know it. It was nice to have a friend there to experience things for the first time with! So we got our baggage and we just wandered around wondering what the heck we're supposed to be doing when this tall, thin English bloke walks up and asks if we might be Emily and Rachel. We said yes. Haha..
So we drove to our new home...Beautiful! But we were driving on the wrong side of the road and I was sitting in the drivers seat even though I wasn't driving and all the houses were made of brick! What's all this?! Haha..I quite enjoyed it all actually but it's so different and a lot to process.
So we got "home" and Ben (the tall English bloke, who is one of our leaders) says, okay, we just need to keep you guys awake for another 8 hours. After a 14ish hour plane journey and having left Montana at 2 pm, this was not really what I wanted to hear. Oh well..Gotta get over jet-lag somehow! So I went down to the dining room to eat a bit of lunch. It was the strangest lunch I have ever eaten. There was a slice of bread, some stuff I thought might be coleslaw and a banana. I thought.."Really?! So...Do I put the coleslaw-y stuff ON the bread? How'my supposed to do this?!" And I figured then that English food would be really strange stuff. I don't remember much of the rest of that day except that Ben said I could go to bed at 9pm and it didn't happen. At 9 o'clock I was sitting in a room of people I didn't know, listening to how they'd come to be here and trying really really hard to make my eyes stay open. Aah!
Looking back now it's just really strange because I didn't know anything of this place or these people and now I do. I like thinking about the beginning because I can see how far we've come as a group and as individuals. And now this old building feels like home and this group like another family. A really strange, diverse family, but definitely people that I love and feel loved by. Yay Jesus!
Oh, and for those of you who would like it, I have an address here where you can send me amusing and informative bits of mail, if you would like! (PLEASEEEEEEEEE??? Haha..) It is:
Rachel Lawson
The Kings Lodge
Watling Street
Nuneaton, Warwickshire
CV10 OTZ U.K.
I love you all and hope you are richly blessed this day! =) Bubye!
| | |
| So I live in England now! In an effort to keep everyone informed on what I'm doing and so I can look back and remember the fabulousness, I shall be blogging often. I hope. =)
I live near Nuneaton in Warwickshire county. I live at The Kings Lodge YWAM base. It's amazing and gorgeous. It was built as a boys boarding school back in the day. I think somewhere in the late 1800's. I share a room with the six other women on my DTS (discipleship training school). There are 7 girls and 7 guys in our group, not including our leaders. We have 5 americans, 2 germans, an egyptian and the rest are british. The accents are SO fun! I've been practicing my english accent. Haha..Good times. The worst thing is that they have all different words for things. Such as: pants are not pants over here. "Pants" means underwear. So it's a little awkward when one of us americans will say, "Ooh, my pants are all wet!" It's really funny though.
Our schedule is pretty crazy but I'm keeping up thus far. We have amazing speakers and we will receive 8 years worth of sermons by the end of our three months here. Craziness! It's a lot to take in and process for sure!
So, I love love love it here so far! Today a few of us went on a little walk (about two hours) around the countryside near our house. It was amazing! Every landscape looks picture worthy. We went on this little path called a Green Path. It's basically just walking through grass and fields with little signs here and there to direct your path. Today we went through much mud and large lake-ish puddles to stay on our track. Our petticoats were 6 inches deep in mud (or would've been had we been wearing petticoats rather then trousers..) so us girls were reminded of Pride and Prejudice. So tonight we will watch it. Right now in fact, so I must be done!
If anyone has any specific questions, lemme know! I hope you're all well and that you have an amazing, fabulous day. =)
| | |
| Today, I suddenly wondered whether or not I could fit through a plastic hanger. So I tried..The first hanger wouldn't go. The second hanger wouldn't go. I had about given up when I spotted a largish black one. So..With bated breath (for if I tried to breathe, it just wouldn't have worked!!), I tried Blacky. It was painful! It was squishy! It was stinkin awkward! But in the end, it was victory. Hurrah! I can fit through select plastic hangers!
| | |
|
