Stonehenge and Spring flowers

On our way back from Bath last week, we realised that we were close to Stonehenge. They were closing at 5pm and it was 4:50pm and cost to get inside the fence. So not wanting to spend the money, we were able to see it from the roadside. We didn't get the commentary which you get with the entrance fee however. As you may be able to see, there is a path around the stones and you are not allowed to get off the path to go up to the stones.

Spring is in full bloom in London.

Forsythia in our back garden.

Bath, England

We haven't been 'out and about' in awhile so we borrowed Will's car and headed for Bath which is less than a three hour drive to the West.

This is a shot of the Roman Baths.

This is the Bath Abbey right next to the Roman baths. This is one of the few cathedrals we've been in that they allowed us to take pictures.

A view of a central park in Bath. It was a beautiful day with the sun shinning all day and warmer temps.

This is the River Avon that runs through Bath.



It was packed out at the Pig & Fiddle.

Well either this prayer hut user is either very short or very young! Actually, the large flat that we rent out has been recently rented to a couple with two small children. Needless to say the garden sees a bit more use.

Ahhhhhh....finally warm enough to use the patio to have coffee.

As promised, I have pictures of the new people at the centre. In the previous entry I talked about Hannah Clymer who is pictured above.....

....taking it easy on a beautiful sunny day in our back garden.

And Wayne & Lois Hochstetler. I knew she was cool when she showed up with her Pike's Peak Ascent shirt on. She's climbed the peak something like 6 or more times.

I realised tonight that it's been nearly two weeks since I have added to the blog. After two years we have tried to add to this every week and sometimes have blogged twice a week. I guess that shows how busy we have been. Plus the fact that we haven't traveled anywhere!

Last week we had the volunteers from Virginia here and we got a lot of work out of them. Painting, rebuilding stone walls in the garden, a murphy bed in one of the flats we rent out was made and installed, patio furniture re oiled, all the bookshop and library books wiped down and the shelves that they live on, tools sharpened, our bathroom floor repaired, the prayer hut door realigned so that it now locks, several windows repaired.....we saved lots of money with this group.

We have added three new people to the centre. As soon as I can get them to hold still, I will put some pictures up of them.

First is Hannah Clymer who grew up in Pennsylvania, went to university at EMU, most recently was in Niger with Dr's without borders as a nurse, and is now here to take a class a the London school of hygiene and tropical disease university. She will be here until late July.

Also new to us is Wayne and Lois Hochstetler. What we know of them after one week:
Wayne comes with a background as a pastor, having served in several Mennonite Church USA congregations and as conference minister. He is an ordained pastor with skills in pastoral care, using the perspective of family systems theory. He is trained in conflict mediation. He holds an M.Div. from Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary. He has served as a consultant to pastors and congregations in areas of congregational life, purpose, vision and effectiveness.

Lois has a Master of Social Work degree and is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. She is a skilled and experienced psychotherapist with a family systems approach. She has skills in dealing with childhood abuse, relationship stress, depression, anxiety, grief and other challenges. She is experienced in individual, group and marital therapy. She has served as a retreat leader and seminar leader. She is trained in conflict mediation.

Wayne grew up in Pennsylvania, Lois was born there but at 8 moved to Alberta Canada. They met at EMC, and later married, Wayne was a science teacher until going to seminary at Elkhart. Evidently they were on an Outspokin' trip at the same time Ed was on the Outspokin' staff. They were later in La Junta, CO pastoring at Emmanuel church, then in Hutchinson, KS at Faith Mennonite for 15 years (?) before their last move to the Champagne/Urbana, IL area where Wayne served as the conference minister.

They are taking some time to settle in and get to know London a bit before they head off to parts of Africa, Asia, & Europe where they will be support to mission workers in those areas. Their small little flat was not quite ready for them when they came as we were waiting on the Virginia volunteer team to do some of that work. And like most plans, things didn't progress as fast as we had hoped. They are being champs about sleeping on an air bed until their mattress is delivered on Monday.

They are a breath of fresh air and an injection of new energy.

Tomorrow I am cooking for a seminar that the centre is having on church planting, specifically in the urban area. Hopefully, pictures of all this tomorrow???

New slideshow pictures

I changed the slideshow to a collage of 2008 pictures of London. If you've been here to visit us you just might see yourself!

Volunteers from Virginia: Partners In Mission

Our volunteers from Harrisonburg Virginia arrived early Saturday morning. You may remember that we had a small group last February from Virginia come for a week. The programme is called: Partners in Mission. They are staying at the Centre and we provide breakfast and lunch and work! Hopefully they can find some time to see London. We don't have a van anymore so Ed was able to take their luggage and one person in the car from Heathrow to the Centre. Sharon, who knows most of the group as she is from the same area, escorted them back to the Centre via the underground.

Here they are scoping out the outside of the Centre.

They arrived in time for some coffee, breakfast rolls and some time to move into their rooms. At 1pm we had a light lunch......Then off to work. They wanted to try and stay awake and not succomb to the lure of sleeping.

They all offered to go right to work. It helped to keep them going and awake. Here Clara is cleaning off shelves and dusting books. This old Victorian house gets dusty so quickly.

The guys went right to work scraping paint off the windows.

In the evening we had an evening talk with Ron Sider speaking, international peace and justice advocate and writer from North America. We began the evening with a meal that I catered at 6:30 PM followed by Ron presenting his thoughts on “Does nonviolent demonstration really work?” We had 32 people in attendance. This was outside of our usual Cross-Currents programme. Ed & Sue (lead Elder at our Church) knew that Ron was in the UK for a conference and approached him about speaking at the Centre. We had a full room as you can see.

The meal before the talk. It was set up to be a discussion topic and there was some good discussion.

Sloane Square & Battersea Park walks

Close to Sloane Square was a small market selling lots of baked goods, sweets, some veg, and generally lots of other things ready to eat. Ed is munching away on a Jamacian pattie.

The is a walkway between the Royal Hospital where veterans of the army reside and Ranelagh Gardens.

Walking through the gardens of The Royal Hospital.

Snowdrops in bloom in Ranelagh Gardens which is the home of the annual Chelsea Flower Show in May.

The disused Battersea Power Station. We crossed that bridge to get to Battersea Park. Battersea Park is one of only two parks in London not administered by the Royal Parks Authority. Battersea has an informal feel and some wonderful views of the river and the city.

Crocus blooming in Battersea Park.

We took a break beside one of the ponds to eat our lunch and watch the ducks and swans.

Caught in flight.

Albert Bridge crossing the Thames.

At the end of our walking, we got on the tube and visited Will Newcomb who lives and works at The Centre. He is the bookshop manager and IT person. Notice he has in his right ear his phone. He had a hip replacement on Friday and as I write this note on the following Tuesday, he has just come home, walking on his own with the aid of crutches. Amazing.

A walk in East London

We made our way to Tottenham Hale Bus/Tube station where we started the walk. This advertisement on the side of the bus is a response to ads that were put on city buses a number of months ago that atheists put up saying: "There probably is no God, so stop worrying and enjoy life."

This is Sue and Peter Haslehurst. Sue is our lead Elder at Wood Green Mennonite church. Peter is the one who organised the walk.

After about two miles into the walk, we stopped at a rowing clubhouse for a coffee/tea break.

A view from the balcony of the rowing club house.

Break is over and it's time to carry on.

The sun started to come out which really makes for such a big change!

We walked by the construction area for the 2012 Olympics. We couldn't see too much as they had a lot of it barricaded.

Enjoying the view.

Just when we were ready to stop for lunch, the sun came out and it felt a little warmer.

Behind where we were eating was a place called three mill island. These were buildings where they made gin. The cones have something to do where the hops (sp) was dried.

After the second bit of the walk we ended up in an area called Lime House where this really nice harbour is and very nice apartment buildings.

Ed is looking over some of the narrow boats. (Canal boats) It appears that most of the ones we saw were where people were living.

Some more apartment buildings around the harbour.

And here are most of us at the end of the walk.

International Peace Award Winner at LMC

It continues to amaze me that we have such great opportunities to meet amazing people here at the LMC! Today I met the current winner of Community of Christ's International Peace Award winner. She joins an impressive list of others who made significant contributions toward peace throughout the world like Jane Goodall and two Mennonites - John Paul Lederach and Howard Zehr. (click on the title above to see the complete list of previous award winners)

I was not told her real name to protect her personal security, but she is a medical doctor from Darfur. She is the daughter of a Sudanese farmer who was passionate about the right of women to get education. Her story is exceedingly grim, with all the possible horrible things that happened to the people of Darfur. Though her childhood was a happy one, early on, it turned into a complete nightmare when civil war and corruption overtook the country. She continued to treat her patients until she finally had to flee for her life. She received asylum here in the UK a few years ago and has written a book about her experiences which will be released soon. Her compassion for her people is palpable. I found her to be an impressive woman in every way. EAS

Slideshow

I've added a new "gadget" on the upper right of this blog page. It's a slideshow application where I can pull a folder of pictures from Picasa. The one running at this time is from our trip to Slovenia in September with Weldon & Jenney Martens.

Leaving the LMC

Dora-Marie Goulet and Emilie Bourdages have left us this January. Here is Dora-Marie at her last church service. Notice that everyone is wearing their coats and jackets. It's seriously cold in our church....even most of the summer! My nose was so cold last Sunday.
Emilie (the one in glasses) has gone back to Montreal. Ed, Sharon, and I took her out for a meal a few days before she left. We let her choose the place to eat. This is a Moroccan restaurant in Crouch End which is just a 10 minute walk from where we live.
This is part of Ed's meal.
This is mine. It came with this cute little top on it, looked a little like a chiminea pot.