Friday July 16th and Saturday July 17th
Featherball is flexible. People can step in or out as needed. While playing it, everyone's personal style is revealed. You work together for a common goal, but each person gets to have a moment in the spotlight. And you feel the flow of the game as you bond deeper and deeper as a team.
Friday night we split up into two groups. One group (comprised of Craig, Allen, Doug, Paula, Nikki, Sara, Jason, and Euros) went to a Welsh-Speaking Baptist Chapel at Llwynhendy (near Llanelli) where a group of 32 youths (and a dozen adults) awaited. Jason led the youths (mainly boys) in a spirited race where they had wear a hat and keep a beach ball between their legs galloping like a pony, passing off the balloon and the cowboy hat to the next contestant. There was lots of stumbling, falling, balls dropping, and in one case, sweat pants falling down. Then, of course, featherball. Our team gave the youths one of the featherballs as a present. After pizza, Welsh cakes, and Bara Brith, Allen and Craig answered the youths’ questions about Oklahoma, America, God, and the Bible. The best questions were “How do you feel about President Barak Obama?” “Who did you vote for in the last election?” “Are denominations a sin, since Christians are supposed to agree?” “Why is God so different in the Old Testament than He is in the New Testament?” “When was the Bible put together as a complete book?” and “What is the Unforgivable Sin?” Still, the questions were not as tough as Craig fielded the night before from an eight year old girl. The evening was capped off by all the Americans (including Euros) giving their testimonies. The last and most powerful was from Doug who explained his previous life of sin and how if God can save Doug he can save anyone. There were tears in some of the adult ladies’ eyes.
The other group (comprised of Derek, Ruth, Jennifer, Lauren, Chloe, Lyn, Kelly, and Karri) went to Bethania Church in Llanelli where the previous week the team painted the Vestry. They hosted a children’s program and a youth program (giving the youths a featherball as well!). Jennifer spoke to the youths about how everyone longs to connect with other people and how not doing so can lead to isolation and depression (and how she has had struggles with this in her life in the past). Every eye was riveted upon her as she talked of how becoming a Christian means being connected to the True Vine – Jesus.
Saturday morning the administrative team (Doug, Paula, Nikki, and Sara) – who have been so amazing and essential the whole week keeping the rest of us organized and on track – went out shopping for food for the afternoon American Barbecue at Capel Gomer. Everyone met at Capel Gomer by noonish and set about their tasks. Paula, Nikki, and Sara, among others, worked preparing food in the kitchen. Doug took command of preparing the barbecue grill and with Jason’s help (and Paula’s good ideas) they got everything in battle trim. Allen obsessed over finishing the screens for the worship area, so many people (including Chloe, Lyn, Lauren, Karri, Jason, and Euros) leapt in to help him make is vision a practical reality. The screens were completed and placed in the worship center. They looked so classy, Allen said that they seemed downright Episcopalian. Meanwhile Craig and Allen brought food to Jennifer who was under the weather with a flu, while Derek and Deedee went to Joe’s to get everyone strawberry ice cream sundaes. Oh, Joes!
The barbecue was an amazing success, with perhaps 40 people coming and going throughout the afternoon. We all sang “Happy Birthday” to Doug, once in English and once in Welsh. Five unchurched people who happen to live in the neighborhood dropped by and some said they would come to worship the next day. Bryan (Ruth’s boyfriend) down from Scotland, got to counsel at least two of the men on drug dependency and got to pray for one of them, a man from Dublin. Steve, the taxi driver who came to the pub, did not make an appearance with his family, but he did put in a cameo, by waving to us as he drove by in his taxi. Jason and Lauren played cricket down the street with a sweet Muslim family who drove by at the end of the evening, asked for Lauren to come out of the church, and traded e-mail addresses with her. Wow!
After most people had left, Derek, Craig, Allen, Euros, Ruth, Bryan, Iestyn and others played featherball for a long time in the worship center. The harmony and good fellowship of the game seemed to reflect what this team has achieved this week. We didn’t know each other on Monday. Now we feel that we have always known each other. Our fatigue, lack of sleep, and overwork has somehow caused us to laugh harder, love each other more, tease each other more loudly, and respect each other more deeply.
Has it really all come to an end? Tomorrow we go to separate worship services in the morning (Ruth preaching at Waurnarlloyd and Derek preaching at Maes Canner) then to Capel Gomer in the afternoon. Then we get on the bus, saying goodbye to our Welsh friends for a brief tour of Cardiff, then on to the Bristol Holiday Inn.
Has this been the most successful Welsh mission ever? It has certainly been the most fruitful in terms of sheer evangelism to so many people. But each previous mission has been a necessary building block so that this most recent capstone can rise so high. If this team can see the harvest field more clearly it is because they stand on the shoulders of the giants who have come before them.
But what a view!
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