We had our annual Christmas open house on 5 December.  Lois Hochstetler and I had fun decorating the house all day on Friday, the day before the event.  The previous Monday we spent the day baking cookies for the open house.  The unique thing is that we had next to no Christmas decorations, so we went out and bought red and gold tree ornaments, ribbon, and a tree.  All the other decorations were obtained in the LMC garden.  We used 10 different kinds of greens.  I've never had that available to me before.  We were able to decorate on the cheap and had a wonderful result.

Merry Christmas!!!!

We had an American Thanksgiving at the Centre on Saturday.  We weren't able to have one on Thanksgiving since it's not a holiday here so we had to work.

We invited four girls from the Radical Journey team who are based in Bradford, England about a four hour drive from here.  Wayne and Lois Hochstetler came back from their travels on Wednesday so thay were able to join us as well.  Will's girlfriend from China is visiting so she is having her first American Thanksgiving.

We had all the traditional Thanksgiving food so we felt at home.  We even went on a traditional walk afterwards.

I am really doing a poor job of keeping up this blog.  The truth is, since we went to Scotland, we haven't done a lot outside of the LMC activities.  Since the Director and his family left on 2nd November, Ed and I have been busy with cleaning, filling in the cracks in the ceiling and walls, and painting and then when the painting is done we will shampoo all the carpets at the centre.
So most nights we are sore and tired and after a hot shower and a few ibuprofens, we aren't good for much else.

Today, Saturday, 21st November, we went with another couple from our church to visit one of the Christian Communities (aka Bruderhof) that live Southeast of London.  We had a tour of their compound where they make childrens play equipment for their main income.  They live in total community, sharing all things and owning nothing of their own.  They are a very friendly bunch.  This community has around 300.  Earlier this past summer we visited a smaller one in North East London of about 20.  They live very simply but unlike the Amish, they allow all the modern conveniences.  They have their own Dr's and dentists, and lawyers.  The community in London is largely made up of students studying in London and well as a sign making business.  As they are an Anabaptist community, we felt we needed to keep in better contact with them.  They have four communities in New York, one in Florida, and one is Austrailia.

Mennonite Mission Network and the LMC Trustees have selected our replacements and as soon as they get their visa's, they will be able to book their flights to London.  Hopefully they can arrive near the end of January so that we can have a two week overlap to help them orient to LMC life.  They are Darrell and Barbara Jantz from Duncan Oklahoma.  Barbara is the daughter of one of the past host couples, the Barges.

We can't quite believe how quickly our time here has gone and even though it has been a great and wonderful time we are anxious to get back to see our friends and family.

Hopefully we can get some more pictures posted of events happening here.

The annual Halloween party in the garage at the LMC.  Thanks to Tonya Graber for sending us some Halloween things to use for the party.

Guy Fawkes Day Celebration at Alexandra Palace.  We first went to the McKay's house (Alastair is the director of the Bridge Builders Programme at the Centre) for a traditional British meal of Bangers and Mash.  Then we walked to Aley Paly for the fireworks display along with 55,000 other people!

There was 25 minutes of constant finale type fireworks to recorded music.  The night weather was perfect.  A clear sky, stars were visible, cold but no breeze and being in the middle of so many people, I wasn't a bit cold.  Then a nice 20mins or more walk home.

Ed and I took the time to go to Scotland.  We thought it would be a shame to be in the UK for three years and not see Scotland.  We got in on the Autumn colours but wished we could have seen the Highlands with the heather in it's pink bloom.  Most of the Highland mountains are covered with heather and when we were there it was all brown.  Still very beautiful however. 

We flew to Glasgow on a Monday evening, spent the night there and the next morning rented a car.  We drove up through the Highlands to the Isle of Skye.  This is a small island off the West coast of northern Scotland.  This is the scenery along the way before we got to Skye.

There are plenty of Loch's (lakes) along the way to stop and look at.

We would have liked to take a ride on a steam train that was advertised but we didn't have a lot of time and we were having trouble finding the station.  Supposedly it's similar to the kind of train in the Harry Potter films.

You can go over a bridge to get to the Isle of Skye but we would have had to drive further north and we wanted to take the ferry. Here the ferry is coming in to port to pick us up.We spent the night in the town of Portree which is the capital of Skye.  This is the harbour.

The next few pictures are of our drive around the Isle of Skye.

This is Inverness castle.  We drove from Skye through the Highlands to the city of Inverness.  Our hotel was on the river Ness across from this castle.This is Loch Ness at the north end.  We drove along the East side of this beautiful lake that in some places is as deep as 750 feet.  We saw no sign of 'Nessie' as they refer to the Loch Ness monster.Some beautiful areas to take walks on the way between Inverness and Edinburgh.Edinburgh....a beautiful city.Edinburgh castle.  Edinburgh is pronounced Edinbura. Weird.

We stopped at a distillery and took a tour and learned how single malt whiskey is made.  There were distillerys all over the place!

On Saturday, 17 October, our church had a work day at one of the members gardens.  Ed and I from the LMC participated and drove over, parking in front of her house.  There is a church directly across from her house with this sign.  I was a bit confused as to what type of church they are.  In case you can't read the sign it says: Trinity Aftrican Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Hmmmmm.

Here I am standing about halfway down the garden.  As most London gardens go, it is narrow.  Usually they are often very small but Leslie has a fairly long garden for London standards.  She by far has done more to her garden in the way of plantings as most of the other next to hers were bare of anything 'pretty'.  You can see Ed in the background going out of the gate on the side of the house.I am standing in the second half of the garden looking to the rear of the garden.  This is Jane, another church member of Wood Green Mennonite Church.  She is an animal enthuseist and before she would allow Ed to start the fire to the brush pile, she wanted to rake through it to make sure there were no hedge hogs that had burrowed into it during the last year that the pile had been collecting.  I was half hoping for one to come out as I've never seen a hedge hog and was quite curious.

And now the 'tea' break.  At least when working with the church group, if we don't have a 'tea' break nearly every two hours, some can't function as well.  I'm all for it!This apple tree is actually the neighbors but hangs over onto Leslies garden.  The neighbor said to take any that we wanted.Leslie thought she would try to take advantage of all the smoke that the newer, greener prunings were providing to try to smoke a salmon.

Back in August, Ed and I were invited to a child dedication at one of the Christian Communities, formerly know as the Bruderhoff, in East London.  Ed became aquainted with some of the young men there when we were needing a new LMC sign in the front of our Centre.  This community has a sign business.  It's a community where they live together and share all the duties of cooking, cleaning, earning money, etc.  There are several other communities in England.  Most of them are North Americans and have come from the States where there are other Christian Communities.  We were warmly welcomed and had a very nice time.

There are several neighbors that also joined them in this celebration.

Helping our neighbor move from Isle of Wight to London

This is the I.O.W ferry. Its about two miles over to the island. There was a bus, a number of trucks and 30 or 40 cars on it when we went over. First class!

Lots and lots of impressive boats.

This is the view of the inlet at Freshwater. That white cow was so pregnant she was 4 feet wide!

Stunning view!

They say Isle of Wight has a distinctly English flavor that may be 20 years behind the rest of the country. Looking at this fellow, I'm thinking maybe more like WWI time frame.

Gordon is our neighbor. I went with him to I.O.W. to bring back their family belongings from a flat they had rented for a few years. We had a good and productive day - plus I got to see another part of this amazing country. Behind Gordon is the site of an old fort set on the cliff to protect this part of the Isle of Whight. Most of the fort is long gone but there are several gates and, what looks like, an escape tunnel coming out of the wall above the sea.

Jimmy Hendricks is memorialized here on IOW. It was only three days after he played at the famous annual IOW concert that he died. Seems Brits respect talent - regardless of a persons qualities (or lack there-of) you will get respect in Britian if you are talented.

Striking a pose - (well, not so striking actually)

This yacht had a cabin cruiser for a dingy and a 20+ foot sailboat ON BOARD!

Lord Alfred Tennyson memorial on the top of the cliff overlooking the sea near the town of Freshwater on Isle of Wight. The word is that he fought Queen Victoria's desire to make him a lord for a long time - but finally relented later in life. His poems (many if course): Charge of the Light Brigade, Crossing the Bar. He was un-usually Christian - for a poet.        http://tennysonpoetry.home.att.net/

Leaving I.O.W. ferry port there is a good view of the The George (the Victorian equivelent of the the Crown Plaza). I was told this THE GEORGE is owned by a member of a successful rock band. I can't help but think it might be important to make that first canon shot count or be able to reload REALLY fast!