Tuesday December 15th, 2009
OK so the joke goes something like this: There are these 16 Americans in the middle of the big city of Swansea, Wales, see, and they are each carrying these padded chairs on their heads walking along like in a parade. So a Welsh couple walks by and says to them (Pick One):
a) Three chairs for the Americans: Hip Hip Hooray!
b) Gotta have a sit as you are taking a walk, do ya?
c) Raiding a furniture store is it? Can you get me a sofa?
d) Taking the chair of your department out on the town, then?
e) All of the above.
It is a joke, but it really happened today. And the answer is e) -- at some point, someone said variations of all these jokes as we walked through the cold, dank streets late on a dark gray cloudy afternoon. How did we get into this comic mess?
Well it all starts with tomorrow. At 9:00 a.m. Derek's two bosses, Peter and Mark, the leaders of the Welsh Baptist Union (the equivalent of the President and Vice President of the Southern Baptist Convention), are scheduled to meet with Derek and our team at Capel Gomer to assess how the Construction Mission is going. If all goes well, we hope they will give Derek permission for us to remove the pews and continue the remarkable transformation of the Worship Center. In preparation for tomorrow, we all want the Worship Center to look its best. It is not finished yet, but in two working days, the Deacon Box has been removed, the side pews have been stored away, the pulpit dismantled, and a brand new stage has been added from wall to wall. All the original oak facade has been recrafted so that it looks like it was always this way. The walls and floors have been cleaned and polished, and new padded chairs of a contemporary fashion have been placed where the first few pews stood only two days ago.
Our hope is that when the leaders enter, they will be overwhelmed by the craftsmanship, but even more by the vision of a church with the flexibility to meet the needs of people where they live.
So back to the chair parade. A few of the men stopped at intersections and sat down waiting for the light to change -- mainly for comedy's sake. We wondered if this would start a new Welsh tradition where every walker carries his own chair upon his back. Each of the chair paraders used his own techniques to transport the chairs. Stephen Wilson used the "Bullwinkle Moose" technique wearing the chair as a hat with the legs pointing skyward like two pairs of steel antlers. Allen balanced four chair backs on his own back like a quadruple-plated armadillo. Most of the others (including Joshua McCaleb, Brady Juengel, Jonathon Roth, Bryan Brewster, Aaron Peterson, Gavin Hart, Ethan Shuler, Tommy Weathers, Blake Ranney, Michael Cross, Buddy Hatchell, and Tim King) wore the chairs like titanium-spiked shoulder ribbons. Randy Juengel followed the parade flashing his camera like a papparazzi while Kelly Ranney provided running commentary -- running, that is across the street dodging cars as they sped by.
Aristotle defined "Comedy" as "that which ends happily." No matter what the Welsh Baptist leaders decide, this mission seems destined to end happily. The evening ended that way with all of us dining and laughing at the Varsity Pub, and giant room of flashy American culture, including a tacky spinning disco ball in the shape of one of a child's jacks. We were even joined for dinner by members Derek's church, Iestin, Elain, Erian, and Llinos. We bathed in the glow of light-hearted fellowship and of jobs well done.
And what jobs! The whole team reveres the Worship Center craftsmanship of Lonnie Hamman's heros: Aaron Peterson, Bryan Brewster, Danny Tengram, Tommy Weather, Buddy Hatchell. Their stage is so elegantly designed that the new sections flow seamlessly into the old without a flaw. Upstairs, the team of Kory Millard and Tim King quietly built another stage -- a small portable one for more intimate events. Jonathan Roth dangled on the top of a fifteen foot ladder scraping and painting for so long that he lost the feeling in his fingers. Brady Juengel actually shed blood in his pursuit of glory, leaving bright drops on the stair steps yesterday. Tom King transformed dull '50s style ceiling orbs into bright stylish 21st Century showpieces. Stephen Wilson began building the walled gardens of Babylon on the church frontage and Buddy Hatchell perhaps trumped them all -- by receiving an actual plaque of honor from the Swansea firefighter fraternity -- the very distinction they give to their most esteemed colleagues as they retire. It was a beautiful plague engraved Welsh dragons battling infernal flames. Almost as cool, they let him play with their remote controlled emergency extension ladders. What a sweet lifetime highlight for Buddy. What a happy ending of the day!
Aristotle would be proud!
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