A Mystic Encounter on an Underground Escalator
Well this morning we walked to the top of our street, caught a bus down to Sheffield train station, and jumped onto a train down to London. From there we were due to get the Underground tube across to Heathrow to meet Alex and Lucas McManus at the hotel they were staying at on route home to LA from Kenya. Upon arriving at London St Pancras we headed down to the Underground. We weren’t really paying much attention to what we happening around us, but suddenly we saw familiar faces. “It’s Alex and Lucas!� They were going up, we were going down. They’d decided they would save us the trip out to Heathrow and meet us in central London. It was a good job we saw each other. Alex had told Lucas earlier that if they missed us they’d have to move like lightening back to the hotel at Heathrow!
After meeting though, it was great to finally spend time together face to face. Despite exchanging countless emails and having several phone calls, it was the first time we’d met in person. Yet, as is the case so often in friendships made in cyber world, it felt like meeting up with an old friend rather than seeing someone for the first time. And then we had a great time wandering the streets of London, and eating far too much food in a lovely London restaurant, with a great waitress.
We talked a lot about wanting to make a difference in the parts of the world where there is so much poverty and the need for the church to really engage with this problem. The world often has a much better image of what Jesus is passionate about than the church does. Somehow people outside of church instinctively know that Christ was for the poor and needy and yet churches so often have little or no concern for these people. Perhaps more people might be drawn to church if the church is more connected to the people and causes Jesus is most passionate about.
On the whole, we were both just encouraged and inspired afresh for impacting the city of Sheffield and beyond. Knowing we have the support of people like Alex is such a blessing.
Anyway, here’s a few pictures from the day:
Rachel, Alex, and Lucas
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Me, Alex, and Lucas (and some very tasty puddings!)
Alex and Lucas watching some performers in Covent Garden
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A screening of Charlie Chaplin at Leicester Square
April 24th, 2006 at 12:08 am
sam,
thanks for the heads up. i’m so jealous that he got to meet you before i. can’t wait ’til origins though.
lucas doesn’t look too happy in the first pic. he’s probably all jet legged =)
say hi to rachel for me.
April 24th, 2006 at 2:28 am
cool pics! I’m glad you got to meet up with them!
April 24th, 2006 at 3:24 am
I”m glad you guys got to meet up. That’s great.
April 24th, 2006 at 12:05 pm
Yeah, we can’t wait to meet you in a few weeks too, Niza!
April 25th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
Thanks for posting these. It’s nice to see all of your shining faces. Someday…
-Mel
April 29th, 2006 at 8:01 pm
I love seeing these familiar faces in a familiar blog… can\’t wait to meet you and Rachel in May!
May 2nd, 2006 at 2:10 pm
I’m not sure if you’ve told me before, but what part of the US are you from, Mel?
Staci - we’re really looking forward to meeting you properly! Not long now!
May 2nd, 2006 at 9:25 pm
I was born in New York State, and never quite got over it. But I grew up in, and currently live in, Cincinnati, Ohio. This means I am a highly interesting personage to politicians and a highly bizarre and incomprehensible personage to those who live on either coast.
Ohio = The Heartland. The Midwest. A swing state. The way we wind up voting in the Presidential elections is almost invariably the way the election itself goes.
Cincinnati = strikingly conservative, especially when compared to Cleveland. Some people say that the Bible Belt jumps up to include Cincinnati before falling away to the South on either side. Please keep in mind that, unlike in Europe, Right-wing does not mean “nazi” in America. That said, we do have our fair share of racial conflict.
It is interesting to note that we are the “accent free” part of the United States (although to you I suppose we all have an accent). When hollywood gets a new actor, or a news station gets a new news caster, and the elocutionists try to eliminate their regional accent, they tell them “Talk the way they do in Columbus, Ohio.” We’re not the South, we’re not the North, we’re not the East, we’re not the West. We simply are. And we like it that way. We have a pretty good opinion of ourselves, though we’re not snobby about it the way New England and California can sometimes be. My mother always says that the greatest contribution the Midwest has given to America is sense: both common sense and a sense of humor.
May 2nd, 2006 at 9:40 pm
Oh, yeah, and we’re also the only state in the US to have an Official State Rock Song. Yes, that’s right, not only do we have a State Song (beautiful Ohio, which nobody actually knows the words to), but we have a State Rock Song. And everybody knows it, and we sing it loud and clear at the games of our beloved Ohio State University Football Team. It’s called “Hang on, Sloopy.” It was originally recorded by The McCoys, a band from Dayton, Ohio. It topped the charts in 1965 and was written about a girl named Dorothy Sloop of Steubenville, Ohio. And we like it. Just as much as we like the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. We just really like our Rock.
May 3rd, 2006 at 9:32 am
Thanks Mel! Appreciate the detail. Always ways nice to get a feel for where someone lives. What do you do on the job front by the way? (Hope you don’t mind the questions?!)
May 3rd, 2006 at 1:31 pm
I don’t mind.
I work for a non-profit organization serving the residents of an under-resourced neighborhood in the city, called Over The Rhine (because it was originally built and populated by Germans; big-time German heritage in Cincinnati, although pretty much all the German stock has moved out to the burbs now). OTR is now pretty much the center of violence, poverty, and drug activities in Cincinnati.
I, personally, am a glorified secretary/bookkeeper. Oh, and I also pass out sandwiches to poor people down at the food pantry we run. I am over-qualified for the position in some ways, but I am learning the ropes, figuring out how the non-profit world works, so that down the road I can do other things for non-profits, preferably ones that do development work in other parts of the world. The two areas I’m most interested in are children and microbusiness development. I know, I know, they’re petty much opposites.
Every two months I get completely restless and want to run away from home, to Africa, India, Brazil, oh, anywhere with lots of poor people to help. Someday, a year or two down the road, when I’ve learned all there is for me to learn from this job, I will! I like developing countries. They’re so interesting.
May 3rd, 2006 at 2:10 pm
It sounds like a really amazing project to be involved in, Mel. It’s great that you’re working there and serving in that way.
I always love coming accross people with a passion for the developing world. We intend to set up a charitable arm of Mosaic Sheffield that is focussed on supporting, equipping, and resourcing people and organisations in poorer parts of the world. I have a HUGE heart for Africa in particular and am longing for more doors to open up so that I do more there.
May 3rd, 2006 at 10:44 pm
Funny you should say Africa… feel like I’ve been having the entire continent thrown at my head over the past two weeks.