Some pics!!

Love the terminology :)

The mall in Manchester 

Conwy Castle

These steps were so tiny!!

I just loved this garden :)

Day One

Today actually began yesterday morning when I woke up at 6:30am. Reason is, I never actually “slept” last night. I dozed off and on through the night, but there was never a break from Friday to Saturday. We had almost an hour delay in Philly last night because of a broken arm on one of the seats on the plane. This was literally 10 minutes after David had talked about a prior flight almost being cancelled because of this same issue. Because of that, we didn’t get in to Manchester until almost 9am (6am EST). We had to hang around and wait on some more arrivals so we sat in the terminal and tried not to fall asleep. Their plan for us today was to keep as busy as possible so that we wouldn’t have time to fall asleep. Our first stop was the most amazing mall!! It looked more like a palace or Roman cathedral than a mall. Lots of live entertainment too which was very cool. I had to snap pictures of the British words they use for things; like “nappies” and “knickers”. We were there a couple of hours. I had to buy some shorts because the UK is experiencing unusually warm weather. This is a problem for me because I only brought jeans and pants. (actually as I am typing this I am sitting on my bed in my room looking out over some strait (can’t remember the name of it) and the Island of Anglesy. The only problem with this picture is that there is no A/C because they generally don’t need it and I don’t have any shorts and tank tops. We are all praying that since we are so unbelievably tired we will fall asleep no problem, even with the heat.

So anyway, back to the day…

The CeLT guys who were our “guides” were named William and Wallace so we dubbed ourselves the Braveheart bus J They were great guys that gave us lots of good information. Wallace has been in Ireland for about 10 years and it’s the 3^rd summer in Wales for the William.

After the well we went to the Conwy Castle in Wales. Edward I built this castle between 1283-1292. This wasn’t built to be a showy castle like the one in Caenarfon where we are staying. This was more of a fortress of sorts. We walked all up and through it. Some of the steps up to the highest tower were so small I could barely fit my feet on them. It was freaking me out a bit actually! The original medieval walls are still intact. I’ve dreamed of getting the chance to see and touch something so old and it was just as cool as I expected it to be. In some of the areas of the castle you could really imagine what life was like way back then. We then walked the Conwy Town Walls, although not very much of it. There was a lot of climbing and we were pretty exhausted. The views were stunning though. I am so glad to be somewhere that looks NOTHING like home. J

Then we drove to Caenarfon. They don’t allow busses into the actual city so they had to drop us at the city gate. Thankfully it was a short walk to our house. ..our house ::sigh::  It’s the most adorable house ever!!! The name of our house is “Isfryn”. It’s black and white with a red door. It’s absolutely perfect! We got our room assignments and then dinner was waiting on us…chicken and dumplings. It was so yummy, I had 2 bowls of it. After dinner we went up to our little rooftop terrace. David joked with me when I said how European everything is. But it is and I have always dreamed of seeing it so I have been in heaven all day. You can see the castle not far away and the wall of our terrace is the wall of the city, that is part of the castle. It’s very hard to describe, but it’s just the coolest thing ever J

David, Ashley, Nik and I then took a walk around the city. Pretty much everything was already closed, but I sat in the square and sketched part of the castle for a while. We just walked and looked at places we want to go back to. It started to get chilly outside, although it’s still not feeling the least bit cool inside!!

It’s 9:30pm our time right now. Lights are out at 10pm!! I am ready for sleep!!!

 Having issues connecting to the wifi so this may not get to be a live update. 

Leaving Philly!!

Leaving Jax

Dinner in the Philly Airport

The journey

Well…it’s finally here. The moment I’ve been waiting half my life for. I am en route to my very first mission trip. I can’t believe it’s actually happening I have no doubt that it is going to be worth the wait, but this journey didn’t start at the Jacksonville airport. It started years and years ago.

As a teenager I dreamed of going on a mission trip. We had friends from our church that went regularly to the Philippines and I always wanted to go. I would have gone anywhere, but it was the only place I really knew of at the time. Admittedly, my mom was too prideful to ask for donations and my parents definitely didn’t have the money to foot the bill. I don’t know why God never allowed it back then, but I’ve learned over the years that some answers He gives, and some He doesn’t.

Fast forward to about 6 years ago; God had gotten ahold of me and had turned me from the awful path I was on. I began living for Christ again and part of that was my desire to go somewhere and do mission work. The problem was at the time I didn’t have a husband who was ready to let me go. I asked numerous times if I could go and every time he told me no. Again, I questioned why God was not allowing this desire to be fulfilled. There were tangible reasons I believe the answer was no, such as me getting pregnant or my mother becoming very sick and needing me. But I also believe some of the reason was because my heart wasn’t 100% genuine. Yes, I wanted to go and serve Him, but I think it was a pride thing as well to an extent.

Then in 2011 one of the coolest parts of God saying “no” to this desire happened. The church had a team doing mission work in China, a trip I desperately wanted to go on.  It was a Wednesday and I had been talking to my mom about the frustration I was feeling about not getting the chance to go on this (or any) trip. Literally a few hours later my pastor posted a FB status that said something like “if you want to work with internationals let me know.” I immediately said yes. So the following week we went to an amazing school in Jacksonville and learned about how foreigners are being ministered to and were being told about Christ, right here in town!! I knew that this was a place I needed to be. I was so excited and I was thanking God when it dawned on me. I leaned over to my pastor and said, “if I was on the China trip right now, I wouldn’t be here and wouldn’t know about this place.” Now that’s not to say I wouldn’t have had another opportunity to be introduced to it, but God confirmed for me that night that I didn’t have to go somewhere else in order to show the love of Christ to people who didn’t know Him. Within a few months I was teaching English as a Second Language to refugees and immigrants. I love this place and these ladies so much and I can’t imagine not being with them. I feel so blessed to be able to be a part of this amazing ministry. He even used this school to place a woman in my life at exactly the time I would need her. My mom passed away just a few weeks into the school year and my new friend Kristin was able to help me in ways she could never even imagine. Even now, I know I can get good godly counsel  from her and I’ve needed someone like that since my mom went home.

But back to the actual “mission trip”…last year the church began advertising different trips that we would be taking in the next year. When the trip for Wales was announced it was like the Holy Spirit yelling, “that’s it!” But then I found out it was just supposed to be a college trip so I was pretty bummed again. The amazing thing that had happened though was that Danny was finally ok with me going JJ I began thinking about going to Haiti instead. Then at the end of 2012 this trip to Wales was opened up to anyone. I was excited, but knew that I still had a long way to go. I had to pay for it!!

I began fundraising in January and even through that God confirmed in phenomenal ways that this was the trip He wanted me to go on. When I paid in full I was so overwhelmed that I was that much closer to this dream! All the while though I tried to not be so excited that if something did fall through I wouldn’t be devastated.

After hearing some more about this trip and the landscape of the country we were going to, I realized that another dream of mine was coming through as well. So let’s take a little side trail…

For years I have wanted to go to England. However I’ve always said I wanted to go to England 200 years ago…castles, manors, cottages, greenery, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I still want to go to England now and London in particular. However, the more I learned about Wales I realized that the landscape of Wales was exactly what I have always wanted to see! This was just an extra hug from God in my book. That He would fulfill 2 dreams of mine in one trip.

So here I am, sitting in the Charlotte airport, waiting to board a plane to Philadelphia…to board a plane to England. To then drive to Wales. I still can’t believe it’s finally here!

More later…

First Post

Hi everyone! First of all I want to thank you for your support! I appreciate all the prayers that have been lifted up on behalf of myself and the rest of the team. Not gonna lie, I also appreciate the monetary donations - otherwise this wouldn't have been possible. :):)

 I'm not sure how much live blogging I'm going to be able to do while I'm there. From what I hear the wifi is pretty spotty, so I may just journal everything and then when I do get to a wifi connection I'll post everything at once. I can't wait to share everything that has transpired in order for this trip to happen for me, but tonight is not the time. It took me a lot longer to get this blog set up than I thought so I am extremely tired.

So alas, I will say "good night" in Cymraeg (which is the language of the people we will be engaging while we are there: "Nos Da" :):)

Thank you again!
Brittany