You might think something has gone very wrong with me, I have simply disappeared into thin air. Someone who will write and write suddenly stopped.
Well, it is all a combination of various factors that have me stopped for such a long time. We have lived in 4 countries in the past 5 months, that is sort of disruptive, don't you think?
Anyway, I am back. This time, I am in Aberdeen, Scotland, borrowing our neighbour's wireless internet signal (with his consent) writing this entry.
We have visited families, friends and churches, many of them, in the past 6 months, it feels great to see them again, however, it is a bit sad that we know we won't be back to see them in a few years, at least.
We have arrived in Aberdeen for two weeks now, though we have quite a bit of challenges, like because of hurricane Ike in Texas, we missed ALL our flights coming to Aberdeen, slept on the floor of New York JFK airport (well, basically, only Kioni slept), ran through London Heathrow airport with 6 bags of luggages, three hand-carry bags, a car seat, three blankets, a stroller with a 4-year old in it so that we could catch the last plane to Aberdeen, then cramped all our bags and ourselves in the tiny B&B room before throwing ourselves in the beds. Oh, we took showers in the little cubicle that fits Kioni perfectly.
Kioni sleeping on the floor in the arrival level of New York JFK, we got kicked out of the departure level by an extremely stern security guard.
Kioni relaxing in our tiny B&B room
We viewed a number of houses in the first few days, trying to decide which house to rent. At the end, we rented none of those houses. A couple who wanted to sell this house, decided that they wanted to rent it to a divinity student, and at the right moment, we walked through the door.
After we looked at the house, we asked them about the rent, she said, the leasing agency said it should be around 750 pounds to 800 pounds (x2 for U.S. dollars). But then she said, 'I though it should be more like 700.' Dan and I looked at each other and raised our eyebrows, never have I heard anything like that, lowering the rent without asking?
Anyway, we moved into this house, which is a bit tight in the U.S. monster house standard, but in fact is enough for the three of us.
We don't have a land line yet, it will have to be a week or so from now before we will have it, which means the internet is not available either.
We found out very quickly you pay twice the amount for similar items in the U.S., we were trying to save on lunch one day and went to McDonald's, BIG MISTAKE! Didn't go back a second time.
But what I really want to say, is how our faithful and loving God takes care of us all along, here are some examples, well, a lot of them, and a lot of them didn't get recorded yet, I am too sleepy right now to write them all:
1) When we knew we couldn't fly out of Detroit on our departure day September 14, a 24 year old Northwest staff spent an hour with us trying to call various airlines and ticket issuing companies to try to work out our tickets. Remember, all flights were affected, she had a long line of customers waiting for her help, but for some odd reasons, she decided that she would go above and beyond to help us. I have never experienced this before, usually, they will just tell you, "Your plane is delayed due to weather condition, come back tomorrow, sorry about that, and by the way, we don't provide a hotel room."
2) When we arrived in London Heathrow, the customs officer is obviously of Hong Kong origin, he is very concerned if we can make our flight to Aberdeen, and he said, 'You will have to run for it.' And we did.
3) When we arrived at the London to Aberdeen terminal, both Dan and I were huffing and puffing, , I sensed that people here move much slower, maybe the Scottish culture is more relaxed, and I thought to myself, not a good sign, maybe they just work too slow and we will miss the last flight to Aberdeen and we will, again, have to spend the night at an airport. When we got up to the counter, again, a Chinese looking staff helped us to reissue our tickets, and he charged us only the reissue fee, though we actually had to buy all three tickets all over.
4) We rented this house, but couldn't get in until the owner moved out, we were able to book another hotel for two nights, but after that, all the hotels and B&B were all full because of students coming to start school. James and Allison Merrick, fellow American student and his wife, opened up their house and allow us to stay with them for two nights, and cooked up some good food, plus quite a number of tips for living in Aberdeen, including where the Chinese grocery store is located and where the Charity (thrift) stores are.
Talking about Chinese grocery store, 'it just happens' that Allison has a Chinese co-worker, who tries to teach her how to make Chinese food all day long, and of course, Allison knows where the Chinese grocery store is, she even call her co-worker up to confirm the location, 'it just happens'. So I was able to get the most important condiment - soy sauce, several big bottles of them when we moved into the house.
5) After serious calculation, we decided that buying a car will benefit us more than not, especially on the ministry side. We need a car to drive students around, bring them to grocery stores and such. We were told by James Merrick of this Christian car dealer guy. We went to see him today. We had to take two different buses in order to get there, and all we had for the address was "the motor company in Newmachar'. We needed to use the internet this morning, so we could sort out our finance before we get to the car dealership. But we don't have internet access at home. Dan caught our next door neighbour getting ready to leave the house for the day, he agreed to let us use his wireless signal! He gave us his password and we are online! We were able to sort thing out before leaving the house!
6) We had to take two buses to get to the car dealership. We went on the first bus, get to the exchange stop, got off, then successfully got on the next bus. But we were a bit not sure after we got off, how we can get there. Dan said he would call the guy when we get off the bus. While we were sitting on the bus, an old gentleman must have saw our 'we are clueless' expression. He asked us where we were going and told us he was getting off at the same stop. So we followed him off the bus. Where we got off was like a little quaint town, there was no business in sight! He walked half way with us, and then pointed up a road and told us the car dealership was just up there, which we couldn't see from where we stood at all. We walked for another 3 minutes, and we found it, without making a phone call!
7) The fact is, we would not be able to make a phone call, because at the moment we arrived at the car dealership, Dan realized that he has forgotton to take his planner off the bus! And all the car dealership's phone number and a whole lot of stuff is inside. He was so focused on finding the car dealership that he forgot his planner. The lady in the car dealership's office, (turns out to be the owner's wife), was very kind, she immediately made phone calls to the Lost Property departement of the bus company and left Dan's name and contact number with them. I thought to myself, she could have cared less, the most anyone would do was to give you the phone to make the phone calls yourself, but she made all the phone calls for us.
8) We test drove the car, an 8-year old Ford Focus, silver in colour, very pretty and solid looking. The price is 2950 pounds. When we came back to the lot, a tall smiling guy welcomed us, Brian, the owner shook our hands. He didn't talk about the car for the first twenty minutes of the conversation, rather, he told us how God found him before he found God. How God has blessed him all along, even he became a Christian 5 years ago, how God, within a few weeks, saved his whole family, his wife and his two grown sons. Then we started to talk about which church he goes to, it just happens to be the church that has been mentioned to us at least 10 times, even from when we back in the U.S.. "By the way, the pastor is coming for lunch with us, he will be here in 20 minutes."
Then we get into the office to talk about the buying of the car, he pulled the paperwork for the car out and said, "I will sell it to you for 2500 pounds, you will need to pay about a hundred or so more pounds for the various paperwork with the government, I hope lowering the price will help you will that. I am here to help anyway I can. I see myself as God's transport manager."
"What?" "This is the second time this happens to us, lowering prices before we ask for it. Do they do that a lot in Scotland?"
I don't think so, and I know who did it for us.
9) The pastor walked through the door of the office, "Daniel Bush", he said, "Mike told me about you." Mike is the ReachGlobal (our mission agency) Europe director, 'it happens' that Mike and the pastor are classmates in the same PhD program!
10) Since we cannot drive the car back home with us today without the proper paperwork, we had to go home by bus again, which will take us another hour. But Brian said, "My driver will drive you home, it takes about 12 minutes." "By the way, do you need someone to pick you up for church on Sunday? We will come pick you up and take you to church. How about we should up around 9:00 at your house?" God knows how depressed we were last Sunday when we couldn't go to church because we didn't know which church to go to, and when we decided on a church, we couldn't get there because we don't know the bus routes, and we couldn't find out because we don't have internet access.
Brian also asked, "What do you need? Do you have furniture? We have a pine table and chair set sitting in our shed, do you need it?" I almost pinch myself for that, we just spent 99 pounds buying a set from the store! His wife offered pots and pans, and other household items. Either they are not kidding about the Scottish hospitality, or God is fast at work here.
11) The pastor said, "We have lots of Chinese students in our church." Dan and I looked at each other, and in my heart, I am already at the church, I want so much to meet these Chinese students. How I pray that this church will partner with us doing this tremendous ministry. Oh, by the way, the pastor's degree is in Missions.
12) Some of you might know, Kioni loves horses. Can you believe this: A hotel down the road from our house owns a horse. There is a path leading to where this horse lives just behind our house. It is a grand total of a 2 minute walk if Kioni wants to visit the horse walking down that quiet path, which also leads to a huge playground, complete with swings, slides, see-saws, and a zip line. The horse,
Milly, is very tamed and loves to eat from people's hands. She always comes over when she sees us walking down the path, hoping for some carrots or whole wheat bread.
I don't know what you call all these, 'it just happens..."? I would rather say we are well taken care of by the Almight One, our most loving God.
Freecycle saves my day again. Since I am very afraid that my clumsy hands will soon break the second French Press that I am using, and therefore means no coffee in the morning, I put a wanted ad on Freecycle. Two people responded, one with a small French Press, another with a small coffee machine.
