Tea Cups and Testament

Here are some last few pictures from our wonderful week getting to know London. It has been very informational and exciting getting acclimated to our surroundings and seeing all that London has to offer. We are all so very appreciative of these last twelve days. We are all also very anxious to get started at our placements and start working with the fabulous communities we have been brought here to accompany in solidarity and servanthood. The experience has only just begun.

I also wanted to add a blurb about our experience at Westminster Abbey. We were fortunate enough to attend the Evensong worship service inside Westminster the evening we were visiting. I have been thinking a lot about how to write about the experience and don't think I can find all the right words to describe it. I will just say that we were invited into the building where we waited in the general area, or the nave, where the graves of men such as Winston Churchill, the Unknown Soldier, and Sir Isaac Newton rested. We were ushered behind the choir section to the front of the church to the main alter where weddings and coronations of Kings and Queens for centuries have taken place. It said in our bulletins that the Abbey has held successive coronations since 1066! Wow. The size of the place just made you want to fall to the ground in amazement. The detailed architecture was beyond description. We got to sit in the choir seating. Very close to the alter. I was astounded that I was sitting where hundreds of royals had probably sat before me for special events as recently as the marriage of Kate and William. The whole time during the service I felt mute. The music from the organ and guest children's choir echoed in the arches of the ceilings with haunting beauty. It was just surreal. After the service we walked around the church a bit before exiting where I saw the coronation chair encased behind glass. Good gracious it was an experience.