Nearing the End

Tomorrow is a very important day in my life. It marks the last mouth surgery I have to have! yayyy *applause*
I am simply having 2 screws put in my lower jaw where I am missing some teeth and then it will be stitched back over to heal for 4-5 months. Assuming nothing gets infected, after those  4-5 months I will get them uncoverd (opened back up) and little pegs will be put in. Once the gum heals around those pegs then it will be time to put the fake teeth on and I'll be done! In this case it will actually be 3 teeth on 2 pegs as a small bridge. And done is assuming nothing goes wrong, which it shouldn't and I'm not at all worried about. It's just a disclaimer.
Often when you hear someone is having surgery you think "Oh poor little Suzie. She's having surgery. She must be so scared" and maybe say a prayer. Well feel free to say a little prayer, but unlike little Suzie, little Leah is not scared. So instead think "Oh little Leah. She's having surgery....YAYYYYY for Leah!". But don't worry about me cause I'm not worried. :)
I say all this seemingly random stuff to really say...
1. Surgery tomorrow.
2. Pray it goes well.
3. Rejoice with me that it's the last one. Praise God.

3 days-post return

The England Odyssey trip was amazing. You may have noticed that I started updating less towards the end of the trip for certain reasons but now I will give a more complete overview.
We went to London Thursday and and stayed through Sunday. We went on many tours and learned soooo much history. It was way too much to soak it, but it was incredible to see the history come to life in these buildings and artifacts. History first person is so different from history on a page in a book. We went to the Tower of London and had quite a funny tour guide. Some people thought he was mean, but I just thought that he was stern when necessary and made sarcastic almost mean jokes. So naturally from that description I loved him. He told us what is and isn't true about the tour including some common misconceptions. For example: about 5 minutes in the tour he told we had been in the Tower of London longer than William Wallace ever was. Thank you Mel Gibson.
We also went punting one day in Cambridge. To be honest, I didn't want to go. But it was actually quite relaxing and fun. Since we were in London we of course went shopping and got a bunch of cool stuff.
Soon Monday came and it was time to go home. We said goodbye to our much loved Christian Heritage representative and went to the airport. If you have read the news there have been some terrorist threats focused in Europe targeting Americans. So let's think about this. Airport security+terrorist threat+plane to America+plane coming from Europe=security checks BEFORE we even got our ticket. It was painful, but of course necessary. Obviously we are home safely now so all is well and I have no room to complain.
I am so glad to be home. However some ask if I miss anything in England...
Yes. One thing: English tea. It was the only food/drink that I considered wonderful and I miss being able to have it whenever I want. I love England tea.
Moving on though I do not regret going on this trip in the slightest. I did get homesick, but it was a wonderful experience and I learned a lot. If there are any students from my school reading this, go on an Odyssey trip. It's worth it. :)

England 12-13 10/5-6

The past two days we have been doing lots of school work, some shopping, and we've been listening to some Christian Heritage lectures by the man named Ranald. It was been quite thought provoking. He's talked about why he believes that Christianity is in such decline in the Western world and also what we can do about it.

Tomorrow we head to London. Please pray that we have getting there safety there and that God guides safely back to the United States as our trip winds down. I realize this is a short post, but that actually sums it. :) Please keep us in your prayers!

Song

We had about 12 hours or so with no internet and I got so frustrated that I decided to write a song about it.

Yes, it's badly written but funny.

Sing it to "Oh Christmas Tree"

Oh internet

Oh internet

How awful is your signal

Oh internet

Oh internet

Why are you never working?

 

I try to do

Some Calculus

But all you do

Is die and die

 

Oh internet

Oh internet

How I so despise you

Why won't you let

Me do some work

You are being

Quite a jerk

 

Oh internet

Oh internet

How I so despise you

 

England 9-11 10/2-4

Saturday we went to Edinburgh, Scotland. We sent to the Castle of Edinburgh which was so beautiful and fun. Also on the streets of Edinburgh there were bagpipe players EVERYWHERE. It was so cool. I was freaking out. I got a picture with one of them. It was great. We also had a tour guide of Edinburgh by this pastor who gave us a Christian history tour. Did you know that the grave of John Knox is now "parking spot number 23". They put a parking spot on top of his grave! There is this little square box which is left from the memorial that used to be there for him.  The memorial is now in the church that is next door. That's a prime example of how Christianity is viewed in their culture.  Just build something on top of it and soon it will be forgotten. I hope and pray that we can prevent that from coming to America.

Sunday we went to church in Lancaster and then shopped there awhile which was fun. I bought a scarf. :)

Today has been mostly a homework day, but some Christian Heritage people came today and will be teaching us some. About what specifically I will say later when I know more.

Now the best for last:

Friday on the train ride back from Scotland we met this Muslim family.  One of our boys decided to talk to them and for the whole two hour trip he and mainly the father were debating the Christianity and Islam. As the trip went on more of us joined and there were about 6 of us talking with this family. The beautiful thing was that it was completely controlled by God. A prime example would be that he said something about 9/11 that we did not agree with at all, but the Holy Spirit held ALL our tongues and we did not let our politics affect our witness. We moved on and had a very friendly discussion.  He asked us questions and we asked him questions. The funny thing was that they kept trying to change the topic and we would follow that for awhile, but then ask another question. We could not be wavered. Thanks be to God. We learned a lot and I hope he did too. I praise God for the training we've had at my Christian school to be able to talk with him the way we did and for the opportunity to do so. I think we would have made our Bible teachers proud, but most of all I believe we made God proud for we were his vessels in communicating truth in love while unashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That was probably the highlight of the trip so far. If you want to know details you can comment or email me and I'll tell you more in depth the conversations we had.

Tomorrow we start the Christian Heritage stuff and continue with school work. Thursday we leave for London. Once Thursday hits I think this trip is going to fly even faster than it already has.

Those of you praying: Internet. internet internet internet. We have to finish all our school work before Thursday because after that point we will have very little time to work on it. In fact as I type this the internet just went away again... (probably the 3rd time this has happened today)

Pray that we will finish strong, learn a lot and enjoy the last few days we have here.

 

England 6,7,8 9/29-10/1

Sorry I haven't updated in awhile. We've been busy and are continuing to have internet problems.

Recap of the past few days.

A few of us went to a missions outreage on Wednesday evening.  It is a ministry for unchurched teens and it was so fun. Basically, we just played with kids for 2 hours. It was great. Also on Wednesday before all that, we went to Kendal to shop. :) I got a new dress which I am quite excited about. We did another missions outreach that day where we helped with RBC ministry which is a Christian radio program.  We stuffed about 1700 envelopes for them. I believe we also did school work Wednesday. That was quite a busy, but good day.

Yesterday we went to 3 classes at the Bible Institute we've been attending. When we got back we did school work. Are you noticing a theme? Oh and let me just say that me and my AP Calculus buddy are 14 pages ahead of the class back at home. :) We are on top of things. However there are some classses I have done close to nothing on because my teachers haven't posted anything. :/ Missing a whole week of AP classes is not good. We'll work it out though. This trip is going very well so far though.  Tomorrow we're going to Edenborough, Scotland. I am so excited. I know my mother is jealous.

Well, guess what I must go do now.

Think...think... you have three guessses the first two don't count.

that's correct! School work! Great guess.

Now it is almost midnight my time. We went to an outreach today that not many people except the volunteers came to which was kind of disappointing.  But I have a nice conversation with 3 of my friends and this british guy about politics. We talked about the President, healthcare, guns, knives, prisons, terrorism, capital punishment and so much more. We solved all the worlds problems.

Anyway, time for sleep! Good night world! Scotland tomorrow!