London

Hi friends! I arrived safely in Lusaka, Zambia Saturday morning around 5 a.m. (11 p.m.) your time!! The nearly 20 hours I spent on 2 flights really went by pretty fast as hard as that is to believe. I didn't really sleep on the first flight so I spent my time watching the Hannah Montana movie (awesome, i know) and listening to my iPod. I arrived in London around 8 a.m. Friday morning and my good friend, Lindsay Copenhaver aka "Copey", who actually lives in London, met me at the airport and then we took the Heathrow Express into the city. She lives in Notting Hill so we got off the tube on the Ladbroke Grove stop and walked to her flat which was really close. Her apartment is so cute and so "London." We dropped all my extra stuff off at her place and then left and walked down to the market on Portabello Rd. If you've seen Notting Hill, it's the little market that Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts walk around in the movie. We stopped and took a picture at "The Travel Bookstore" which is the bookstore he works at in the movie. We were taking a picture and some Italian girls stopped and asked us to take a picture so I was relieved we weren't the only annoying American tourists but apparently it's a pretty popular spot, for obvious reasons!

After that we walked through Hyde Park and stopped by Kensington Palace where Princess Diana lived and then through S. Kensington and ate at a little sandwich shop that I'd been to before on my first visit to London called Jakob's. After lunch Copey took me by her school, The Imperial College, which was just right down the street and gave me a little tour. They have a really cute grassy area where a lot of people were just laying out in the grass. The weather was amazing all day long. It was sunny and in the 70's (London is currently having a "heat wave"-must be nice, eh?) From Kensington we walked down to Harrod's because I'd never actually been inside and it was amazing. The only way I can describe it is extravagance, both the building and the stuff. We walked a little more and then hopped on the tube to go to Big Ben. Big Ben is where Parliament meets in London and it is right on the Thames. There were a ton of people there and we actually saw the BBC interviewing a woman about what the Big Ben meant to her, which I thought was funny. We had no idea at the time, but I later found out on the news that it was Big Ben's birthday..who knew?

The last place we went was Abbey Road, where the Beatles took their famous picture. I didn't get a chance to go there the last time I was in London so we took the classic reenactment pic but it was slightly risky because it's in the middle of a pretty busy road, so in one picture I was actually running instead of walking...woops. We probably walked 4 miles by the end of the day but it was so worth it. It was so good to catch up with one of my favorite people and experience a little of her life in London! I had a little time left to shower and clean up before my flight to Lusaka and then hopped back on the Heathrow Express to get back to the airport. Our flight left London around 7:45 and I was falling asleep before the plane even took off...my friends will appreciate that because they like to joke about how I fall asleep in random places haha :) That's probably enough for now so I'll post again soon and tell you all about what's been happening in Zambia...I love it pretty much sums it up.

Please be praying for the week ahead. I get my first group of kids tomorrow! Pray that:

-God will give me a spirit of boldness and not of timidity to proclaim the gospel.

-For my relationship with my Zambian partner and apostle, that the Lord would unite us and bless our relationship..they are both just precious.

-For the Lord's protection over the kids and that they would open up during our blessing time, which is the time that we talk to each child one-on-one and learn about their life.

Thanks for praying,

Christy