Rainer and Lindsey: Off to London

We left the hayfield! We spent Sunday morning breaking down camp. Because of an expected storm, we worked very quickly and got everything down (tents, big top, family area tents, etc.) by 10am!.... only to find out the storm passed us by. But that night the students slept in the Rec Center and Rainer and I got our own room in the lodge! It was such a blessing!... And Jen (Curtis' wife) went and got us Dairy Queen for dinner, which was awesome compared to our food the past few weeks. It's amazing how good some things are, once you don't have them for a while.

We drove up to Chicago in the school buses once again, got through security and then boarded our Virgin Atlantic flight at 5pm. Curtis went over some really great guidelines for the students such as boarding quietly, owning their faith and convictions by choosing the movies to watch that are appropriate, and staying on the plane until everyone else has gotten off so not to crowd the aisles, and because we weren't in a hurry to get anywhere.

Once at the church, we met with the church leaders and got settled. We took off in our twos (the group was taught at training camp to walk in pairs in a line, to not overtake cities/halls/buildings/etc.) to the grocery store. I spent the time getting meal ideas, checking out prices, and converting pounds to grams and dollars to pounds in my head. Rainer and Curtis went to exchange money, which Rainer said was definitely an experience, finally having to go to the post office because the banks, "only serve customers". We took off towards the park to relax and group up to pray for the community and the people we will meet. Back at the store I got my budget and took 5 students around the store collecting items for two days of food (70 pounds for two days), while Rainer calculated for me.

That night, the church ladies prepared a wonderful meal for us and we then walked the students around the area just to keep them awake a few more hours!