a quick glimpse of the hilly, historic, beautiful Edinburgh

the early morning view from our window, today in Edinburgh.
i hate seagulls, but have never seen baby ones and I thought they were cute!

our hotel was in a great location, right in the middle of the beautiful Royal Mile


Edinburgh Castle, the great fortress...I have piles of pics that I will have to blog later. It blew me away!

the Central Library

the Royal Mile again

St. Giles Cathedral, where the fascinating John Knox preached and is buried next to (more on that later maybe!) and below, the Grassmarket...where many Christians were executed for their faith.

There were 18,000 Covenanters martyred for their faith in Christ. I took a wonderful tour called the Spiritual History of the Royal Mile by the guy in the robe. He wrote a small book which I bought...and I found it online if you want to read it. http://www.theroyalmile.org.uk/index.html Here is an excerpt about the Covenanters:

"King Charles II declared private gatherings (‘Conventicles’) of Christians unlawful and began persecuting the Church. From 1670 onwards any minister caught preaching in these gatherings would be executed. Thus began the ‘Killing Times’ in which over 18,000 Covenanters perished, over a hundred of them being executed here in Edinburgh. Some of them were executed for taking an armed stand for freedom of speech; most were murdered for simply practising their faith.

Many are the tales of the Covenanters. It was a brave but sad period of Scottish history. Often a Christian’s only crime was to be at a prayer meeting or to be found with a Bible; regularly the soldiers shot them on the spot for these unlawful things. James White was caught at a prayer meeting near Kilmarnock and the soldiers shot him, then the Captain cut off his head with an axe and used his head as a makeshift ‘football’ on the grass."

ok, that was quite graphic and completely horrific but such is the tragic history! Of course, what happened here in those days had a direct impact on the freedom we enjoy today in North America, so we owe much to those precious souls who were faithful to God's word and were willing to fight for the faith, even to be martyred.

Today many of the churches in Edinburgh were not being used as churches, and of the remaining churches likely not many are still faithful. Some church buildings are now being used to sell freaky ghost tours and "tour of the dead" type things of the underground. Very spiritual, and very ungodly. I was really saddened by it, and thats why I was so happy to stumble upon this dear man from the Edinburgh City Mission giving this tour, complete with a gospel message. I praise God for him, and will try to remember to pray for his work there.

On to more pleasant things...

We are married 10 years this summer, you know. :)

Edinburgh was fascinating. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there. Poor Kev spent most of the time in meetings yesterday, but we did enjoy some time over dinners and walking the Royal Mile. This morning we took a flight to London and he spent the afternoon in meetings here (day 2 of 3 days of business done!) while I toured about. There are so many beautiful things to explore and I am thankful for the opportunity! But I realized fairly early on that as beautiful as this world is, and as enchanting the cities of the old world are...nothing compares with the joy of being a mother and the beauty of my children's faces. No matter how many great things Kev & I will leave unseen and historic cities we will leave unexplored, next week I won't care at all and I will be just aching to have them in my arms!

Whether or not they will want to come to me or if they would rather continue this great life they are living with Oma....well, that remains to be seen. They sure don't seem to miss us yet!!

We hope to be busy touring London tomorrow. Have a great night!!