Day Five (March 19, 2009)

Day Five, March 19th, began with the team meeting at 10:00 a.m. and debriefing about what happened yesterday. Our time of worship and teaching followed. Troy taught us the 4th part of the series: after Plowing, Sowing, and Reaping, comes "Vintaging." Our team did not seem as fatigued today.

Everyone except Deedee went to a Kurdish Restaurant and had a meal that was both great and large. Then we went our various ways to our chosen fields.

The City Road Team (Allen, Deedee, Jonathon, and Zack) went three different ways. Deedee skipped lunch with the team and met again with her ladies in the Tredegarville Church. Her Zimbabwe friend was so happy to see her that she hugged Deedee and wept. Deedee seems to have formed one of the deepest, most intimate friendships so far. Deedee was helping to move around some chairs and did not get to say farewell to her friend as she left which grieves Deedee, since they are not scheduled to meet again.
Jonathon, Zack, and Allen hung out with the international mix of young men in the church basement who meet every Tuesday and Thursday from 1:00 to 4:00 to play pool and ping pong. Jonathon and Zack spent time with a young man (from Africa, I think -- Nigeria?) at the piano. Jonathon also got to talk with some men waiting to play pool. Then they left and went back to the park on the far north of the City Road district. To their surprise, no one was there -- anywhere --on the park benches.
Allen stayed, trying to develop deeper relationships with several new Muslim friends from many different countries whom he has met in the Tredegarville Church basement -- guys he calls his "Basement Boys." His goal was to get them to talk about Islam and, hopefully, Christianity. In order to do so, he felt he had to at least try to play some ping pong with them, which he had avoided like the plague the first day. Allen has played ping pong once since the 1960's. These guys play for several hours twice a week. Allen gave it a try and was able to win the first game (thus controlling the table), and he came close to beating his first challenger in the second game. This qualified him to continue talking with some of the men. He was delighted to talk with one young man named Malik from the Sudan (who sounded exactly like Will Smith) about the political and religious troubles in Darfur. Even better, he got to talk to Hussein, the young Somali who had seemed a bit antagonistic toward Christianity two days earlier, and to whom Allen had explained the God and Human nature of Jesus Christ. Allen borrowed a technique Troy taught us and asked Hussein to explain Islam. Along the way, he also got Hussein to explain Jesus's role in the Koran. This caused a discussion, mainly articulated by Hussein with occasional tips from Allen, on how Christians view Jesus -- that he was God who died on the cross and rose again from the dead. Just when Allen was about to explore the Plan of Salvation with more clarity, Hussein was interrupted and left with the interrupter for a smoke break. Allen was deeply frustrated how close he came to really planting the seed of the gospel, but had to remind himself that he is only here to do what God specifically wants him to do -- no more, no less. Still, Allen (at an emotional level) remains greedy of Hussein's soul and of all the "Basement Boys." He wishes he had more time with them -- like every day!

The University Group (Dustin, Jessica, Jaime, and Nate) went back to the Welsh pub they had such success at previously. This time, there was no real connection with the patrons there. They did, however, connect with the waiter who they suspect they were there to minister to. Dustin thanked the man and gave him his first ever tip, even though he has worked at the place for quite awhile. The man was amazed and touched. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Later, the group linked up at a pub with Eva, a Polish lady that they had met at the university a day or two earlier. Jaime and Jessica stayed quite awhile with her. Meanwhile, Dustin and Nate hurried back to the Etap Hotel for the evening's debriefing.

Forming a Friendship with Rhiwbina Baptist Church
After the debriefing, Allen, Dustin, Deedee, Troy, and later, Jaime, met with an elder from Rhiwbina Baptist Church with whom Troy, Dustin, and Allen had met in December. His name is Alan and he brought with him his lovely wife. None of the other elders could make the meeting, which is sad, but Allen was somewhat relieved because he feels a deep friendship for Alan (even though they have just met twice before) and with Alan being the only representative from his elder board, the meeting quickly became a light-hearted, relaxed, "just us friends" kind of event.
The Welsh Alan again offered for the American Allen to preach and Dustin to lead the worship service, either on Sunday June 28th or Sunday July 5th -- to be determined later. The Welsh Alan also asked the American Alan to speak with perhaps 30 Welsh churchmen about Henderson Hills' experience of growing from 300-400 to 3000 attendance in only about 16 years. The American Allen wants the Welsh Alan and the other Welsh elders to discuss with him and Dustin their largely successful (and by American standards remarkable) experiences in church planting. This could help HHBC in fostering its Stillwater campus.
All in all, the time with the Welsh Elder Alan was encouraging and delightful as always. His lovely wife was even more of a marvel, because of her heroism and faith in battling through some difficult times at present, and because of her stunning testimony about how she and Alan came to the faith.

So What is Coming Up for Tomorrow? The University team gets to meet with Devon, their Malaysian friend who is taking tomorrow off from work and will host them on a tour all day. Allen is going to be looking for his "Basement Boys" at the nearby Tertiary College where some of them go to school. Jonathon and Zack are probably going meet again with their African shop owner who they have gotten so close to that they have helped him move his merchadise to a storage area behind his shop as a random act of kindness. Zack is also going to give a lecture to the local chapter of the British equivalent of our ROTC on the topic or Aerospace as a university major and a career. And many of us may join a local ministry which hands out 6000 bottles of water to people who are leaving clubs, bars, and pubs late at night. They might need the hydration -- if you know what I mean -- but the ministry provides an opportunity to explain the random act of kindness in the context of Christian Agape Love.

So where do we stand in general as we are coming to the end of our mission here in Cardiff? I think for many of the team the more relevant question is this: How soon can we come back?

Allen