All gone. Just like that. First, Matt left to get back to Pensacola (just in time to be hurricane evacuated again!), then on Friday we put Kayla and Abi on a bus for the airport to Pittsburgh and Pensacola. The next day, Hannah, Tim and Liz took the
bus while the rest of us drove. These
little rental cars just don’t hold enough luggage, and we had to use the
busses. All went well, and Pete and Cate
even got paid 300 Euros to take a later flight. They were thrilled!!!
I am writing now from Oxford on our second night in England. All is calm here after the bombings and the Birmingham scare. We had very hard times finding accommodations
on the first night. We hadn’t made them
in advance, and had to drive over 100 miles before we found a hotel with 2
small but comfortable rooms. We are now
in our long arranged accommodations in Oxford,
and I went to the opening events of the Wycliffe Hall week.
There are about 100 of us, most from the US, many others
from around the globe. I’ve met three
people I know, and a few more I have heard of. The opening night was Dean David Wenham speaking on the Sermon on the
Mount! Good overlap with Dallas Willard’s
thoughts. Afterwards Bec and I went to a
sung evensong at Oxford Cathedral. Then
ice cream and back home with the tired girls (Susannah and Hannah are here with
us – all the rest have gone home).
What did I love about Ireland? Bec and I talked a good bit about that. I
loved the wildness of the country. The
rough beauty of the land, the harsh and haunting coastlands and ruins and holy
wells. It fits my spirit far more than
the settled and spectacular beauty of the English countryside.
I loved the surprises around every bend: a Zoe
Conway concert in an all but abandoned Anglican Church, 50 MPH winds on a true
links golfcourse, another holy well (behind Peter at left) made inaccessible behind thicket run amuck,
the takeoff of the Vinney biplane right over our heads on our last day as we
started 9 holes of golf. It was surprise
after memorable surprise, but all with the character of “the edge of the world” Ireland.
I loved reading about St Patrick and praying his “Breastplate”
again and again with our family. I loved
slow time along the coast (you can’t get a cup of coffee in Clifden before 8:30
or 9 AM) and long mornings, and the peat fires in our woodstove. I would scramble to find them - and need a little help from my boys (left - we laughed about me falling into that invisible thorn-covered stream for days)! 
I loved the seafood chowder and the pints of Guinness
and fresh oysters and brown bread. I loved the wild sheep and the peat bogs and the megolythic tombs and Oliver Cromwell's forts (below).
God willing, Bec and I would like to come back to
Ireland
for a couple of weeks in a year or two. By ourselves, with lots of time to explore and walk and pray and enjoy
the people and the Lord and each other. These weeks were a sweet gift.
I MISS YOU DAD!!!!!!! COME HOMEEEEEEEEEE
Posted by: your daughter kayla!! | July 12, 2005 at 01:07 AM