Post No.7 - Goodbye the UK and hello the USA

Pete & Anna Smith with the Pimms

Well, our time here in the UK is fast running out! On Sunday we say farewell to St John's Harborne, pack our bags, attend to the last of the cleaning and ready ourselves for our trip to London by train on Monday morning. In London we will do a bit of sightseeing around the centre of the city before catching up with my cousin and his wife, John & Terry Weller, in Reigate in the afternoon. We will stay the night at an airport hotel so we won't miss our 7.30 am check in time on Tuesday morning. All going well we will arrive in San Francisco at 1.25 pm on Tuesday (USA time) where my sister and brother-in-law, Jenni and Grant Brewster, will pick us up and take us through to Redding. They are coming down from Seattle in 2 cars so they can leave one with us. It will be great to have our own car on this leg of the trip. In Birmingham the public transport has been great and we have been able to manage without a car, but Redding is a different kettle of fish, and wheels will be good even if we are going to have to learn to drive on the right-hand side of the road.

The famous No.11 bus route

Talking about public transport, on Friday we decided to do a final bus excursion around Birmingham on the famous No.11 bus. This is the longest commuter bus ride in Europe. It takes a circular route around the city servicing the key suburbs. It took us nearly 3 hour to complete the route from start to finish, taking us through some areas of the city we had not been to before. It's most probably the last time we will see such a cross-section of this ethnically diverse city! During the ride we had a very dubious looking young man (gangster) sitting behind us recounting to his friends, in very loud and animated tones, the story of a police raid on his house looking for drugs and money. According to him the police had bust down the back door and in the resulting search found about 4000 pounds. Due to his Brommie accent the story wasn't always easy to follow. We were quite pleased when they got off!

The garage and missing bikes

We had an interesting experience happen to us on Wednesday evening that has left a bit of a sour taste in our mouths; it's been the only real negative thing we have experienced and a reminder of the nature of the community we are living in. We had just returned from Bitteswell in Leicestershire where we had spent the night with Pete & Anna Smith whom our 3 boys had stayed with on their cricket excursions to the UK. We had always wanted to meet them to say thank you for the hospitality they had shown the boys. Stephen had come down from Manchester to accompany us, and we had had a very enjoyable few days. On arriving home I had decided to mow the lawns as the weather was fine and the forecast poor. While mowing the rear of the property the two mountain bikes we were using were stolen from the garage from right under my nose. I was very disappointed at my lapse of security in leaving the garage door open and unattended, if only for a few minutes. The first thing we did was pray about it asking God to (a) bring the bikes back or (b) for the situation to be used to bring honour and glory to him, and preferably for both (a) and (b). Then we rang the police! About 1½ hours later (9ish), and much to our surprise, a policeman arrived to check out the scene and take a statement. We gave him a coffee and chatted about his work and life in Birmingham until about 10.30 pm. We were up front with him about who we were as Christians, that I was a pastor, and we were prayerfully trusting God with the situation. I took the opportunity to share something of Jesus with him and in doing so he told us that he was a Muslim. I encouraged him to spend some time exploring who Jesus was, using the angle that if Jesus was real and true, and he had died on the cross and been raised from death to life, and was who he said he was as the Son of God, then he needed to be taken seriously. I gave him a biblein11 card and encouraged him to watch the gospel presentation on his computer (www.biblein11.com). After he left we prayed for him to become a follower of Jesus. I had a strong sense from the Holy Spirit that God was at work here doing something profound. If it takes the theft of two bikes for someone to be become a follower of Jesus, that's alright with me!… Since then Lenda and I have spent some time walking the neighbourhood looking for the bikes but so far we've come up empty handed. I wonder what tactics God will use when we are in the USA? Until next time. Blessings, Lenda & Ian

Thai Restaurant - Very Buddhist! 

Lenda at Rugby Station

Sightseeing the Birmingham canals