Beauty in an Unexpected Place

Greetings from Manchester! I hope this post finds you all well. Sorry it's been a little while since I've posted, but it's been a crazy last few days. Anyway, let's get on with it.

Manchester, England is not a stop most people try to include in their tour of Europe. Like any city, people assume it's got it's quirks and hidden treasures, but it's not a priority simply because it doesn't house the famous statues, extensive museums, or impressive architecture that you'll find in the big dogs like London, Paris, and Rome. However, what Manchester does have that you may or may not be able to find in the big cities is a community unlike any I've ever seen. Specifically, Grace Fellowship Church of Manchester. They were actually the reason we planned a stop in Manchester. The preacher of the church, Kevin Williams, is affiliated with a pastor in Kirksville and visited Truman this past March, where Tyler listened to a sermon he gave. When Tyler told him we'd be traveling this summer and might like to visit their church, they were able to coordinate a place for us to stay when we got there. We were there for a home Bible study, a women's brunch, and a church service on Sunday.

We were obviously humbled by and grateful for the hospitality shown to us by the Williams' family. They picked us up from the airport, gave us a place to stay, fed us, welcomed us into their church, and made us feel at home. But the beauty in Manchester went deeper than the welcome we received from the people there. The church was so...real. So alive. It was a living, breathing body that had a true grasp on the biblical church. They talked about their relationship with the Lord, about serving Christ, not because it's the right thing to do as a Christian, but because it's in the forefront of their minds, it's the biggest and most important part of their life, and it's the true desire of their hearts. I don't know if I've ever heard traditional hymns (you know, the ones we halfheartedly sing at church while we're wondering when we'll be able to sit down again) sung with so much passion. It left me craving more, and it left me disillusioned with the image of the church in America. I'm not lumping all churches everywhere into this category; I'm aware that some churches have it right. But legalism is so prevalent in the church that we've lost sight of what Jesus intended for the church body to be. Now we're so focused on doctrine, denominations, theology, and laws that we would be grouped with the Pharisees in Jesus' sermons if we were in that time period.

What if we as a church came alive? What if the focus wasn't the definition of a Baptist, Presbyterian, or non-denominational church, but living by the Spirit and professing our faith? What if the most important thing was showing others Christ through our love so that others will crave what we have? We do the best we can, and I recognize there is no such thing as a perfect church. I guess all I'm saying is that I want to see passion within the church. I want to see genuine desire to know Christ and share Him with others. And our time in Manchester was just that.

Here are a few pictures from our time there! Unfortunately we never got a full picture of the whole Williams family (sad day). But we did capture a couple of moments.

This is the outside of the front of their house.

This is the "patio" where we had afternoon tea.

After church on Sunday, we had a barbeque at the Williams' house. 

More pictures. The backyard was so full! Something that was cool about the church in Manchester was the diversity. There were probably 10 countries represented there.

The Williams have three kids; Zach, the youngest, is 5. He had fun listening to Tyler read to him.

A couple of cuties! This was Zach "smiling." He said cheese and everything. When I said I wouldn't take the picture until he smiled, he said (with his cute British accent), "I am smiling."

Waterfalls and Black Sand Beaches

Greetings from Iceland! (not really...we're already in Manchester but I just kind of want to start out each blog post about a different location that way) What a beautiful country. Seriously, go there.

See??? Isn't that beautiful? This is Skógafoss, meaning "forest waterfall" in Icelandic. And it's one of the many natural wonders we saw during our time there.

We began our trip in Reykjavík. We stayed at a hostel called the Capital Inn, and it was quite a charming little place. We had a 4-person room all to ourselves, and although it was about 2 miles from the city center, it was a good base for all our adventures.

We ended up walking about 5 miles our first day, around the sights of the area, downtown, and back to our hostel. Here are a few pictures of downtown Reykjavík:

This was City Pond. It was pretty much downtown and was home to a wide variety of ducks and birds, and was surrounded by homes, cottages, and businesses.

These were just some storefronts and apartments in the heart of downtown, just across the street from a very old parliament building.

This was called Nauthólsvík Geothermal Beach. The water in the pool blocked off is heated naturally, hence the name. There was also a hot tub on the premises, and the whole place was packed with kids. Typical Iceland summer: going to the beach.

For those of you who don't know, Iceland was historically viking country. This was an abstract metal sculpture of a viking ship at a view point off the harbor in Reykjavik.





Reykjavik is a beautiful city, but beyond that there isn't much to do, and due to its lacking in national roads and highways, there is no major public transportation system outside of the main city buses. However, to really see Iceland, you've got to get out of the city by either renting a car or booking a tour. Since tours were a little pricey and we preferred the freedom of time and destination, we rented a car for our last full day in Iceland. We're so glad we did! One of the major tourists outings is what's called the Golden Circle, which encompasses a national park, the site of where the name geyser originated, and a mega waterfall. It wasn't long to drive and very doable by car, so we set out.
                                                                              

       

This was the very first major waterfall we saw this day. It was in Þingvellir National Park, and we just couldn't stop oohing and aahing. We had no idea what we were in for.

Þingvellir National Park is also one of the famous places for viewing the separation between the continental plates, and they continue to separate about 2 cm per year. Here's a picture of that divide. This park was also the site of the very first Icelandic Parliament, which met here from 930 A.D. to 1799.

This was at Geysir Park, a group of geothermal pools, hot springs, and geysers. The big dog, Geysir, is actually the namesake of geysers today.

A geyser called Strokkur erupting. Too cool.

This was the last stop on the Golden Circle: Gullfoss (golden falls). It's a two-step waterfall that drops down into a deep canyon (from the viewpoints you can't even see the bottom, unless you go out on the rock right by the falls and look forward). The sound was deafening. So incredible!




Since Iceland has 24 hours of daylight in the summer, we had enough time to drive to the southern part of the island that's famous for it's black sand beaches and a cool formation that makes the southern-most tip of Iceland. Here are a few more pictures of that drive and what we saw:

 This was down at Vik i Myrdal, a southern Icelandic village famous for it's black sand beach. The fog made it even more mystical...it felt like what I had always imagined Iceland was going to be.

The black sand made the water look dark and threatening, but out in the ocean it was actually a bright teal color.

Behind us is Iceland's most southern tip, Dyrholavegur. The next picture gives a better shot at the famous archway.

Yep, there's that famous arch. We had quite a hike to get to this view, but it was worth it. And look at the water! In our hostel room there was an aerial picture of this but we had no idea where it was, so it was really cool that we actually got to go there.

 This is Iceland's famous Blue Lagoon, a series of mineral pools that are milky blue and naturally warm. Of course, they've turned it into a spa and charge an arm and a leg to use, but we got to see it from around back.

Apparently, sheep are a big thing in Iceland. It's one of their main meats (we had a traditional Icelandic hot dog while we were there that contained lamb meat), and they have a pretty big wool industry there as well. Anyway, they were everywhere. I'm not sure I've seen so many sheep in my entire life.

They were seriously everywhere: in fields, on the mountain sides, fenced in, not fenced in...we saw maybe two herds of cattle during the entire time we were there, and we saw three or four cow crossing signs but none for sheep. They should really invest in sheep crossing signs.



Sorry for a lengthy post, we just had so much we wanted to share with you! Hope you all are doing well. Look for another post sometime in the near future about our time in England!

So What Are You Doing in India?

Here's a little more background information on a different part of this trip.Some people have asked us what we're going to India for. Hopefully this clears it up a little:

As we are transitioning from college into the real world where jobs await us, and we think about how we can best use our gifts and abilities to serve the Lord, we have found we are both particularly drawn to serving Him abroad. We both love working with children, and we feel called to share God’s love with His children around the world. That being said, we wanted to use some of our post-grad time to get our feet wet in the mission field. Through prayer, a little searching, and God’s guidance, we came across an organization called Helping Hands India. HHI began in 2001 when a pastor and his wife felt moved by the Lord to do something about the poverty in and around Bangalore, India. While they have some medical missions, a tribal ministry, and a church planting program, the primary focus of HHI is the New Hope for Children orphanages. Home base for HHI is in Bangalore, but there are three more children’s homes in surrounding cities and villages.

A substantial percentage of the population of India lives on less than $2 a day, and according to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty. India has over 3 million children living on the street. 150 million children are working as bonded laborers, and there are 2 million commercial sex slaves between 5 and 15 years old in India. The need for God’s love in India is so vast, but we have an opportunity to make a small impact there this fall. Our hearts are just broken for the poverty and hopelessness among the people there. But our God is faithful! Helping Hands India is just one among the many vessels He is using to bring grace and healing to His children. 

We will be staying in Bangalore and working mainly with the orphanage there, although we will get to see and work a little with the other ministries as well. Some of the things we will be doing include tutoring, general first aid, leading worship and devotions, and just playing with the children. We're super excited! We've got a substantial goal of $6000 of support to raise, and it's hard because we won't even be home to track the progress of support-raising. But we have faith that the Lord will take care of us, and we have no choice but to trust; so trust we will. We won't be there until late August, so look for more information later this summer. Be praying for the people of Bangalore, for the ministry of Helping Hands India, and for us through our other travels as we mentally, emotionally, and spiritually prepare for that portion of our journey.

Schedules Out of Whack

Backpacking across Europe? Like, living out of a backpack? Traveling from place to place however you can get there? Cold showers and triple bunk beds? Are you for real?

Yes. We're for real. Some of you may be asking how we even got to where we are right now. Short story: Tyler's scholarship with Truman included a study abroad stipend. We looked for the cheapest study abroad option to get the most out of the stipend, and it turned out to be a three-week program in Bulgaria (July 22-August 10). That got us thinking and looking at how to make the most out of the rest of the stipend, and our trip to Europe was born. As recent graduates with a whole lot of wide open spaces in front of us, we're looking for any ways to save money that we can. For those of you who are under 25 and have a university email account, http://www.studentuniverse.com/ has significantly cheaper flights to and within Europe in an attempt to get students traveling. That got us started, and from there we planned a route. We want to see as much as we can without compromising quality time in any given location, but we are going to push ourselves to the limit. One of our goals with this trip is to really invest in people, rather than stay wrapped up in our own little world of tourism, and we definitely want to see what God is doing in other parts of the world. Another goal is to learn. Learn anything and everything we can, be it about a particular culture, piece of history, or language, or deeper things. We want to learn more about each other, about ourselves, and about God, and we are eager for a shift in perspective.

Long story short, here we are in Iceland, with sore shoulders, empty bellies, and schedules out of whack, but happy to be here nonetheless.We got in at 11:40 last night, Iceland time (6:40PM your time) and spent the night on the comfy couches at the airport. Today we are headed into town to start some exploring. Look for a post in the next few days about all our exciting travels. In the meantime, just to give you a little taste of our itinerary, hopefully you'll be seeing posts from England, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, and Greece (in that order). We're so excited to get this trip underway! Thanks for all your prayers and support. If any of you want to contact us or have any tips or people you know in any of these places, feel free to shoot me an email at djack6367@gmail.com. Talk to you soon!

Teetering in the Unknown

Hey, friends and family! I've never blogged before. So this may be interesting. I'm also not the typical Christian girl who has filled five journals during her time at college...I'm just not good at being dedicated to it. But I figured this would be a good way to keep you all posted on the crazy things going on in our lives, and also to reflect on what we're learning along the way. So I will do my best to keep you regularly updated. We're leaving for Europe on MONDAY. As in, three days from now. I do not feel prepared. I don't feel prepared in our packing, I don't feel prepared physically or emotionally, and I definitely don't think either of us have grasped what being away from all things familiar for five months is actually going to be like. How is living out of a backpack really going to be? Am I ever going to feel rested? How will we decide what all to do? What happens if we lose our passports? What's India going to be like? Are we even going to want to leave come October?

So many unknowns. So many possibilities. So many new experiences, new trials, new joys. I can't believe we have this opportunity! There have already been glitches in the planning process, and I am confident there will be many more to come. But with an open mind and an open heart, I welcome them. I am eager to learn, to grow, to be changed by the Lord, to be used by Him. Ready or not, we're about to leave the teetering edge and fall into the unknown. Hopefully you can stay with us and follow this blog to see what crazy things we're up to. As always, we appreciate thoughts and prayers.We love you all! See you in five months!