Week 12: Bugs and Christmas Time

I have now been here for 3 months. That leaves 22 days for me here in the UK. These last 22 days will be very busy, with Christmas activities with the school, a Christmas party for kids, a Carol Service at ECC, a trip to York, team Christmas dinner, and much more.

Looking back on this week, it seems quite long for some reason, we didn't have all of our activities this week, but we were still quite busy. Monday was the regular cleaning day of the week with its usual things to clean. Tuesday we began our mission of canvasing the entire estate with flyers about our Christmas events at the church. Tuesday was quite cold, which made things very interesting out and about the estate. Tuesday evening a woman from Wales moved into her house on the estate. She has moved specifically to work alongside the church and minister to the estate. Wednesday and Thursday I spent some time at her house painting as she is doing some interior redecorating before moving all of her things in.

Wednesday began the rounds of sickness for the team. Monday the three year old was sick, but that didn't affect the team too much as we weren't all in one place. By Wednesday, Andrew and Grace had both fallen ill with the same thing. This affected our tot's and toys play group, so we were down to 4 as opposed to our usual 6. We managed well in spite of this and then got to spend some time with Edith, our new Welsh friend and her foster daughter's partner, Dave at lunch. It is encouraging to see how God has brought so many different people to the estate. Edith made the comment of at the table, there were 6 different accents. Welsh, Northern English(Newcastle/Sunderland), Scottish, Northern Irish and a general British accent, and an American accent. This was just a tiny taste of what heaven will be, thousands of tongues, dialects and accents all worshiping and praising God for all eternity. I can't wait to hear that.

Thursday we had our Explorer's Club at the school, with a normal attendance, you can tell the children are getting antsy for Christmas and the time off school. Thursday evening felt like Christmas time back in America, as we had Chinese ("A Christmas Story" anyone? "Deck the hores wi' bows of Hory fa-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra") and put up the Morton's Christmas tree. As I do not have the memory of decorating the tree as a 3 year old, I'm sure I was somewhat similar to their three year old and putting up the tree in whatever fashion made sense to her, and was physically possible. This meant branches piled on top of one another. As soon as it was up, she began the decorating, beginning with the most fragile and expensive of ornaments. It was fun to see her do that, and think how odd it is that we instinctively know which ones those are, and find it hard to resist the impulse to touch and hold those ornaments.

Friday we helped the school put on a Christmas Fayre. Yes, Fayre. That is how they spell it here. I think it's from the old or middle English, and hasn't changed. While it was one massive chaotic event, we got to see the kids and their parents, and hand out a little booklet telling the story of the First Christmas.