A Glorious Return!

Sunday: An absolutely lovely day back in the land of the healthy. I had church in the morning,
followed by confirmation class. This was followed by a little excursion with Charlie and Sarah to an
incredible little cake shop called ‘The Tenth Hole’. My cheesecake had glitter on it! I could eat here
every day and be happy. I had a relaxing afternoon, and headed back to church for the 6:30 service.
And instead of going to the pub, I scooted on home to watch the finale of Downton Abbey. The TV
seasons here in the UK only have about 7 or 8 episodes per season! I don’t know what I’m going to
do now that it’s done....

Monday: I was actually joyful walking to work today. I was SO happy to be out of the house and
my head was full of Christmas songs. It made for a wonderful walk to work. I went for my first run
in 6 months... I’m still hurting, but it was totally worth it. The seafront is a beautiful place to run...
completely flat!

Tuesday: Work was uneventful. At Bible study, we are moving away from Genesis and beginning a
study on worship. I was so enjoying an in-depth study of the Word. A lot of the preaching I’ve been
listening to during the past few years has been very topical, which is great. But I’ve been loving going
through a chapter of the Bible, and dissecting it verse by verse. But I know that I will benefit from
this study; I know that God has brought it to our attention for a reason. So it will be interesting to
see where it goes.

Wednesday: A complete déjà vu day. I spent the day at the New Theatre Royal with 5 of the Year
9 girls. They were participating in a series of backstage workshops: costume design, lighting, props
making and script writing. I felt like I was back at the Phoenix, especially during the lighting session
(I thought I was done with gobos and Fresnells!). But it was a great day... it’s been ages since I’ve
been in a theatre and I miss it. It’s great how the craft and practice of theatre is virtually the same
worldwide. I felt completely at home. That evening, I did some lesson plan drafting for Sunday’s
confirmation course. I’m leading a section on Jesus as a role model. I had such a great night studying
the gospels, and analyzing the text (not that I necessarily did it well!). It was so rewarding, and I feel
like I learned so much in an hour and a half.

Thursday: Bleeding children! The day was relatively calm except for a manic hour in the afternoon. A
gaggle of Year 9 girls were playing tag rugby on the common, and two of them collided heads. One
of them smashed her eyebrow bone, and the other had a gash right on her hairline. There was so
much blood. Poor girl with the swollen eye was going in and out of shock – laughing one moment,
and sobbing the next. She has the most amazing black eye I have ever seen. It’s huge! Both of these
girls were covered in blood, and the nurse and I were cleaning them up and applying first aid in one
of the teacher’s offices. In the midst of what looked like general surgery, another girl was seized by a
migraine and ANOTHER girl became incredibly ill. And the nurse had to scoot off to the hospital with
our rugby stars, which left me with two ill girls on my hands. It all worked out, and everyone was
fine, but I feel like I set problems in motion! I never needed to administer first aid before I took my
course, and now that I have, I feel like I’ve used it every month since I’ve got it!

Friday: Today. Work has been (again) uneventful. The plan for the evening is to go for a run (let’s see
if it actually happens), and finish up lesson planning for confirmation. I’m off to London tomorrow
with Ashley for Christmas shopping, lunch, coffee, walking in the Park etc... I’ve done most of the
tourist stuff, so now I get to just go and act as if I lived there!

Also, I am SO excited for Christmas!! I’ve started making lists of who I have to shop for, what I need
to bake, who gets to eat my baking, where I want to go... it’s great!

I still love and miss you all!