Setting a Stake in Stratford

If you quite interested in reading about how many cups of tea I have had in the last week or the many productions that we have seen, well you should probably tune in for a later post :) This is more of an update of my life, and what I would absolutely love prayer for as I continue on this journey across the UK.

Can I say what a blessing this trip has already been?  The Lord has been so faithful to bring me here, and every day I am astounded by the beauty around me.  The downtown area is full of quaint shops in beautiful buildings made of dark beams and stone walls.  The chapels here have plaster pealing off their walls, revealing hidden paintings covered over centuries ago.  Sunflowers and thistles blossom in gardens.  The Avon runs through the town, filled with barges, swimming with swans, and surrounded by families with two year old speaking in British accents (is there any way that my future family can all speak that way?).  The productions that we have seen explode with creativity and stunning imagery.  Imagine watching two four story bookcases tilt to dump their entire contents on stage, creating a winter scene!  Imagine a stage filled with trees where the leaves are sheaves of pages from books, and a two story bear puppet that emerges from a doorway of smoke (that just doesn't even do justice to one of the single stage effects that we saw last night in The Winter's Tale-- READ IT!).  I have seen the halls of Oxford, the palace walls of Blenheim.  And all of this that seems to be great about humanity should be pointing me back to God.

So here is the stake that I'm setting...and you all will be witnesses (well at least you, my 14 followers :) This trip is not about me and everything I want; it is about Christ, about knowing Him more and sharing Him more.  I have been quite caught up in a whirlwind of excitement, overwhelmingness, and entrancement and I'm  finally now slowing to catch a breath before the motor tour begins.  i want to embrace EVERY moment of life and live it to the fullest.  How I wish there was a step by step guide to doing that...How exciting that the Lord set me in this very place.  Please pray that I would not exchange God's path, the ultimate adventure, the ultimate life abroad for my meager substitute.  Pray that my time with the Lord would feed me where ever I go, whatever the schedule, whatever the situation.

Just like a stake in the many fence posts that line Stratford, or perhaps like a stake in one of the lovely english gardens pointing out that sunflowers are planted there, I'm placing a stake to seek to value Christ above all.