Thankful Thursdays

I promise this is going to be a quick, brief post today. Alllll my apologizes but we are getting up before 4am for our flight to Dublin - & it's already past 11 here! Long day but I can do it with God's strength! I'm here to continue my "Thursdays are for Thankfulness" post series. So here goes nothing. Here are the things I'm thankful for this week.

1. I am thankful for new friends. Hillsong London has these amazing outreach nights on Thursday nights. I just found out about them this week & decided to head my way over. They rent out the top floor of a really popular club in Soho. They have drinks & food but the main purpose of the event is for you to mingle. Through this mingling they hope you find someone you like & find a way to get involved with small groups or what they call "connect groups." So I walked in, not knowing a single soul, and met this sweet girl Jolly. She is studying here & is originally from East Africa. She dealt with homesickness during her first year but felt it got better once she got involved at Hillsong. She graciously invited me to get together next week & join her connect group. Yay for new friends & especially those who truly understand what you are going through.

2. Speaking of friends, one of my brother's best friends was visiting London this week. He is here for about 2.5 weeks & was in London visiting his family. Him & his uncle were gracious enough to take me to lunch today & then we wandered around the North bank of the Thames. It was great to see someone from home & so awesome to get to know his uncle. I look forward to spending more time with this family during the remainder of my time here, as they are about a 45 minute train ride from my house. But I'd be blessed to spend a day with them, for sure. The uncle's faith was incredible & truly uplifting after what I had been going through this week. He described how he came to know the faith & the peace he felt... as soon as he described it, I was about to cry because that is what I had just experienced too! God works... he knows when we really need someone. && today I got 2 people to encourage me!

3. I am grateful for the ability to do weekend trips while I am here. Although they may be stressful sometimes & require early mornings, how blessed am I to be able to so easily visit other beautiful countries? Tomorrow morning (aka 5 hours from now) we are headed to Dublin until early Sunday morning. How cool is that?

Well friends, I am off to bed but ever so thankful. For everything. Also, I'm so thankful for all of your prayers. I know a great majority of you reading lift me up in prayer daily. Words cannot describe how grateful I am for your support & all of your kind words when I need them. I only hope you find my blog to be an encouragement to you as well. Be blessed on this Thursday!