Cheeeese Gromit!

England is nice... but I think I’m gaining weight. Lol. I had my first Wensleydale cheese tonight. Karina and I are in Elpakutype mode... (that’s ‘I’ll pack... You type...’) So, Karina’s packing and I’m typing. It’s now been two weeks since we have arrived here in England. Blair has already bought a Welsh flag. Lol, I’m expecting him to wear it like a cape and start dancing in the streets soon. We’re going to be going to a town tomorrow that’s very close to Wales and he is simply itching with anticipation.

Our first week here, we hit the ground running. We had missed our original flight out of Rwanda and so Karina and I were running around trying to get everything sorted out so we could leave. Eventually it all worked out and we got on the plane, and then we flew to Ethiopia and stayed in the airport overnight before flying to London. *whew* We did RE classes (religious education) from a ‘Christian’ perspective in a few schools. It kept us really busy and we had a great time with the kids. I forgot to mention that the first town we were in was Walsall, and I was there 2 years ago. As such, some of the kids at the school we spent more time in remembered me. It was great! We did a lot of dramas, music, and illusions and testimonies. It felt like a blur most of the time just because we were involved in a lot of things. When we had to leave it felt like we had just got there. We spent Valentine’s Day there and Karina and I got our names made out of wire... along with a lot of hearts... It’s hard to explain it... There was this guy on the street who takes a piece of wire and with some needle-nosed pliers makes a stand with names and designs or whatever kind of thing is going on. Anyways, it was really neat. :)

So, time moved on and we had to say goodbye to all of our friends in Walsall as they dropped us off in Clay Cross. This week we did kind of a DVBS with the kids. Every day we played games, did crafts, dramas, puppets and other things to a space theme. It felt like Star Trek most days. The items we did focused around the journey of Peter throughout the gospels... Fisherman to Disciple to Denying Jesus to Prison for Preaching... He had quite the journey. Mark and Cheryl Sorell from Calgary came to see how we’re doing as a team (they’re our directors). It was a really great week too. I was able to wake up every day excited to see the kids and to hang out with Simon and company. I was on team STARS... lol... I think we came in last on the point system, but we had a lot of fun playing games and learning.

At the end of the week, 4 of the kids from the winning team, ‘The Rockets’ got to cream pie 4 leaders of their choice. Haha, it was a blast. Each day our team members acted out parts of a story about a family that was beamed into space. Karina’s puppet Grandma Ida played Grandma Ida Watt, Dylan played Rick Watt (a typical video game crazed kid who doesn’t want to grow up), Amy played Wendy Watt (the annoying but smart sister), Joanna played Mummy Watt (she loved cleaning things...and one time while she was cleaning the teleporter, she was beamed to an enemy ship because the kids were playing with buttons), and the adorable robot/computer was played by yours truely... Me! I got to wear a tin foil covered box on my head. It was great fun, and we were starting to catch on to our roles when we were done at the end of the week. We had so much fun with the kids. Oh, and we got to wind it all up at the end with Tabitha’s birthday party. We had a lot of cake and I remember there being a really big card for her. She had a good day I think :D.

For our day off, the church rented a big tourist bus and between the church members and our team we easily filled up the bus and then went to the city of York. Turns out York comes from Yorwik... which comes from Jorvik... which is obviously of Viking origin. York, way back in the day was a Roman garrison and then it became a town, and was conquered for a while by the Vikings and I think a while by the Normans too. Everyone fought over it for a while. Apparently, Emperor Constantine the Great was proclaimed Emperor in York. (look for his statue in one of these pictures...) Anyways, the week we happened to go to York is VIKING week! As such there were a lot more people than normal, shops were all open, and there was so much so see and do. All the guys on my team, other than myself, went and got war wound paint on their faces. And before that the 4 of us guys got our pictures taken in Viking outfits. (Mine is the Beowulf outfit and apparently the helmet I wore was one of the 8 actual helmets from the recent Beowulf movie... Who knew? ^_^ ). It was a great day to take in some new sights and catch up on some history. We eventually came back here and had a good morning and evening service at the church. And now here I am digesting my cheese and crackers.

There are a good number of stories of kids that we have been helping to impact, but my prayer is that it won’t really be our team who encourages or changes people, but that Jesus would be doing that. We can only be here a week at a time, but Jesus will be sticking around long before and after we’ve come. Keep praying that we’ll be able to stay on our feet.

This last week I’ve had a bad head cold. I didn’t actually do very much singing or talking like I normally would. I think I’m just about over it now. I’ve stopped coughing and now I’ve just got a runny nose. I know our whole team must be a bit tired. On that note Karina and I are actually really bushed. We’re going to be (after this coming busy week) going to be taking leave from the team for a bit to let them grow and function on their own for a bit. During that time I’m really going to be trying to get some rest up since I’ve been pretty much toasted since getting ready to leave Rwanda.

Pray that the team will keep going and that they’d be able to really function well without Karina and I there and that they’d be able to help each other grow.
Well, I need to be hitting the hay right away here. Have a great one and sorry it took so long to let you all know what we’ve been up to. We haven’t forgotten about any of you. We just didn’t have a massive amount of time to say ‘hi’. Have a great one!

Grace and Peace