Well, its been a bit since we've posted an update from London, but mainly because we've been so busy with life and ministry and settling into a routine here! Unfortunately, we did have a bit of frustration happen yesterday and would so appreciate your prayers. Just after church, while most of the congregation was still inside visiting and setting up for a church dinner to honour one of our retiring elders after many years of service to the church, one of our children was trying to be helpful, and without us knowing it, took our things out to our car for "safe keeping" while the chairs and tables were being moved around to set up for the dinner.
Apparently, they were seen putting our things in there by some nefarious characters, and within minutes our car was broken into directly in front of the church building by two "young blokes" who sped away on bicycles. This was witnessed by a couple of our Persian members who caught the getaway on video with their phones in a very kind attempt to be helpful. Shanna's purse and my bag, along with our wallets, keys, credit cards, Texas drivers licenses, and U.K. Biometric Residency Cards were all stolen.
Fortunately, within a couple of hours we were able to locate our items because my keys and wallet both had Apple AirTags on them and were able to track them with our phones. Two of our church members, who happen to be off duty members of London's Metropolotan Police Force, Ollie and Aaron, were very kind to come along with us to help locate and retrieve our items "just in case", and we were so grateful for their help. It turned out that our items had been discarded by the thieves by throwing them over a fence into an abandoned and badly overgrown Serbian Orthodox churchyard about a half mile away.
Our cash was of course missing (about £100-£200 between both of our wallets), and the thieves used one of our bankcards to purchase about £90 worth of items at a nearby "Off Licence" (what we would call a bodega or convenience store in the States) before we could freeze the cards, but other than that, nearly all of our items were retrieved including our drivers licences and residency cards. We did of course have to cancel our credit and debit cards and request new ones and the ones from the U.S. are going to be take a while to get replacements, so we are going to have some difficulty making purchases with accounts we've normally used here until new cards arrive from the U.S. We would so apreciate your prayers as we navigate life in London for a couple of weeks without a way to use our primary U.S. bank account that we typically use to pay for everyday needs here.
While this is a relatively minor frustration in the big scheme of things and all of the amazing ways we've seen the Lord at work since our arrival in London back in January, our kids were a bit shaken up by this after growing in confidence about their surroundings after traversing all over London to school and back these past several months and getting to know the culture as teens here typically do on their own with public transport and walking. Please pray for their hearts that they would not become fearful or bitter, but that they would perhaps instead develop a healthy level of caution and "situational awareness" necessary for living wisely in a major city in a different culture.
