Tuesday June 30, 2009
Today was designed as a transition between connecting with Welsh culture through “tourism” and connecting with the Welsh people in the mission field tomorrow. We all stayed up late last night bonding in various ways. Everyone but Allen went to a disorienting and somewhat disturbing movie, while Allen went to the Etap Hotel to write yesterday’s blog entry and to take care of some fiscal matters for the team. Jerry and Gavin took a midnight walk down toward Cardiff Bay. Others had long talks in their rooms. No one went to bed before midnight and a few of the younger more adventurous types went to bed at 4:00 a.m. (by which I mean Gavin ).
The good news is that the team had been told to sleep in a bit. We breakfasted at 9:00 a.m. and walked to Cardiff Bay by about 10:00. Cardiff Bay has undergone perhaps the most remarkable renovation and renaissance in Europe. It has been transformed from a rotting, dingy wood-plank dockyard to a grand crescent of soaring modernist hotels, museums, shops, and restaurants all done in a nautical theme, with roofs that curl back like sails round bellied with the wind.
We slipped past a gate that was probably supposed to be locked and ventured to the end of a wooden dock, peering out into the broad bay which is the lifeblood of the Cardiff heart. We meandered the fashionable shopping district, briefly venturing into this shop or that, and we concluded our wanderings by visiting a Cardiff Port Museum and a Norwegian Chapel. We ate Asian cuisine for lunch at “Wagamama” a restaurant Shannon promised would be amazing. She more than kept her promise. Brian opened our meal in a prayer of sweetness and grace for the second time this trip.
Discussion at our meals has become the best part of the mission so far. Allen usually asks a question everyone is to answer, and the answering process becomes a broad window opening out into personal reflection and group discovery. Today the question was, “What individual person, place, or thing in Wales has been the most relevant to you so far?” The idea was to get us to synthesize and crystallize our collective experiences before we began the mission proper. For Brian, it was the rich spiritual tradition and the undeniable sense of “holy ground” at Tintern Abbey. For Nikki, it was the warm spiritual encounter with Malcolm and Jackie at St. Fagan’s Outdoor Museum of Welsh Life. And “Lush,” the scented soap shop. For Shannon, “Lush” and other girlie shopping experiences was more about a personal connection she had made with the shopkeepers. One lady had even hugged her. Another lady touched Jordan Deah’s face in an act of friendly intimacy. A general consensus was that it was the Welsh people that had made the deepest, most enduring impression so far. Except perhaps for the impact we were making upon each other, especially around the dining table.
After lunch, Allen and Gavin bought books teaching them the Welsh language and continued tutoring each other as they walked. Brian even joined in the language lessons. As we turned back toward the Etap Hotel, Jerry led us to a delightful park running parallel to our course and we walked its paths for awhile, meditating upon its gardens and the city’s propensity for surprisingly likeable postmodern art (which for many of us is an art form which seems usually incoherent and pretentious). Of particular power was a the iron face of a statue-of liberty like lady whose face was half-buried on the beach. She was a memorial to the merchant sailors who had died in various wars at sea. Her metal edges were decorated with crosses and tokens of remembrance, like the fence-line surrounding the Murrah Bombing. Jordan Deah noted that her gently rusting insides were rusty wet with rain water the color of blood.
Arriving at the Etap when we did was another divine appointment. From the minute we entered the hotel, it wasn’t four minutes until Dustin and Troy arrived from different directions. Dustin had arrived about two hours earlier than expected because his transportation links (of planes, trains and automobiles – i.e. busses) lined up perfectly like a solar eclipse. He came down from his room, having just finished a much needed but brief nap. Troy Blankenship, or Baptist Missionary partner on the ground here in Cardiff, came in doing nine things at once, as he always does with more grace than most people can do one thing. The 100 college-age Okies had arrived from across the pond in two waves, and one of the busses had broken down. After he finished correcting the mini-crisis, he took the time to meet each of our team members and give us the broad outline of our schedule for tomorrow and the rest of the week.
After Troy left, we went back to Cardiff City Centre, gawking and shopping since this was our last opportunity to see the town for this tour. Allen and Dustin parted ways with the rest of the team who all went to “Lush,” the now legendary scented soap and general foofoo shop. Well, Jerry somehow avoided the shop. Wise man. Then the whole team went to the City Road district, a kind of “Epcot Center” of a street where every shop and café is richly international – Libyan, Lebanese, Ethiopian, Egyptian, Arabian, Albanian, Vietnamese, Sudanese, and so on seemingly forever . They went to an Indian Restaurant and the topic of conversation was “The ideal FLOCK/Sunday School Class that would meet my needs.” The twenty-something singles (Brian, Shannon, and Nikki) mentioned how after the beloved, able, and shepardly Jamie Howell goes away to Wales in September, they long for a more mature married couple to lead their FLOCK so that the men of the class could have a shepherd that was a man and the women could receive nurturing and counsel from a woman. They also wished the church could somehow make the singles ministry at Henderson Hills a the standard of excellence among other metro churches.
Allen and Dustin went to Rhiwbina Baptist Church to chat with their Elders (and Troy) about their ideas concerning Church Growth (a topic the Elders had specifically asked them to discuss). After a sweeping two hour discussion, Allen and Dustin left with a sense that we had forged a strong partnership with a sister church and with brothers in Christ. They filled us with pizza and hospitality, and we parted with hugs and a sense of exhilaration. The Elders decided to make Allen’s forthcoming Sunday night meeting with thirty or so church leaders into a church-wide event where anyone can come who cares to come. Their reasoning for extending the invitation to all was a wry “Allen is not the heretic we thought he might be.” Allen simply responded that “Clearly, you haven’t gotten to know me well enough yet.”
Tomorrow is the beginning of our hitting the mission field. After a training session, we are to go on a train to Swansea City Centre and help a young twenty-something pastor help establish a new Welsh-speaking church he is just starting up. We are so excited we can’t see straight. Well, that may also be caused by the haze of “Lush” scented soap continually wafting through the air like a force field around our team.
Tomorrow the real adventure begins. Stay tuned to this channel!
Allen
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