A Tale of One City...

Michael and I at Westminster Abbey

The outside of the Metropolitan Tabernacle--Spurgeon's church

You know what it's like to reach into the pocket of an old pair of jeans and find 20 dollars. What elation! Even a dollar makes my day. :-)

Yesterday as I was loading a few files onto my jump drive I found MY 20 dollars--my journals that I wrote intermittently while in London in 2006. Experiences that I had forgotten about came rushing back to me with the most bittersweet emotions... I'm going to include one particular journal entry here, describing our first visit to church while in London:

September 24, 2006

Today, Meredith, Michael, Carrie, Ryan and I attended Metropolitan Tabernacle Church, otherwise known as Charles Spurgeon's church from the late 19th century. I was so blessed by the service, especially in light of the tragic loss of the Christian religion in London. I had been feeling discouraged because of the lack of anything spiritual in this city, but the service was excellent. We sang a few hymns (only one of which I knew), one of the elders prayed, and a guest preacher spoke. He looked just like Babe's owner in the film. We were greeted afterwards by a sweet woman who invited us to a fellowship lunch. She told us about the church and how it had grown so much after the arrival of their current pastor, Dr. Masters. I plan to go back as soon as I can. She told us about her job as a secondary school history teacher and how she speaks of the Reformation as a good thing, although many of her students are Catholic. They eventually catch on and one girl said, "I think I finally realize that you don't think anything is holy but the Bible." Lunch was very good, too. Ryan, Michael, and I stayed and ate and were given the chance to meet other members of the congregation, one of which was an 83 year old man who was missing one of his bottom teeth and who was blind in one eye and deaf in one ear. I laughed to myself every time he would speak and another piece of food would fly out of the gap in his mouth. He told us about his time in WWII and how he actually landed on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. He described it as "something he would like to forget." Ryan asked him what position he was in the war and all he said was, "PBI.... Poor 'you know what's' infantry." We were treated so nicely there--a wonderful relief.


I had forgotten how surreal it was that we were in a country thousands of miles away, able to speak to veterans who remember fighting such a local war, and to teachers whose descendants were probably directly affected by the Reformation. Oh, to return someday!