My mom, 4th of July and meat

For everyone that asked, it was great having my mom over here and it broke my heart to let her go. She did great on the plane over and was quite a trooper with all the walking we did here. She loved fish & chips, the Birmingham rag market ( an indoor textile market) and taking pictures of the countryside. She was less enthused about the London tube - the subway - which was packed when we were on it. We did the tourist thing and took one of those tours on a double decker bus with a live commentator around London. Everyone in Betel loved her and gave her lots of hugs and those double cheek kisses where you blow kisses in the air while pressing your cheek against the other person's cheek. She thought that was funny. She is supposed to come back next year with my brother and sister-in-law again.

4th of July. They don't do it here. Some of them are downright snotty about it. We have to work. However, that will not stop all of us Americans working in Betel in Birmingham from congregating on the 5th. We will grill hot dogs and burgers and sing patriotic songs very loudly.
In lieu of fireworks, which are not on sale here at this time of year, we will drop mentos into bottles of diet cola and watch them spew, hopefully we can synchronize them with the song "I'm proud to be an American"! Please pray that our neighbors will not call the police.

Meat, glorious meat!!!! We have had very little meat for the last couple of weeks in donations. So we have been going mostly vegetarian, which is good for us. Oh, but tonight, Scott brought home chicken, bacon and chicken tenders. Praise God! There is also lots of lovely strawberries and a melon that is so good that you will go home and slap yo mama!!