Happy Musings – Wales Mission July 2010

Sunday, July 11, 2010

The last day of church camp is always filled with such high emotion. You have lived a week of 24 hour days with people you didn’t know well before, but now you can’t imagine living without for a single day for the rest of your life. You don’t want it to end. You relive the funny, precious moments in conversations with each other and every second was priceless. On this mission that experience is magnified by the immense respect we all have for everyone because of the way God has skilled and gifted them in the ministries they have practiced here.

At breakfast this morning Allen mentioned to the little group of four he was sitting with that he could name any American or Welsh person who served with us this week, and the response would be for everyone to think of that person, their character, their sacrifice or service, and their personality and then for everyone to gently reply “Ahhh” in misty-eyed adoration. Then Allen actually trotted out a few names. After each name, the four at the table gazed into their memories with sweet smiles on their faces and whispered “Ahhh!”

Saturday was a day for finishing things up. One group (Tom, Deedee, Shannon, and Ruth) went to Capel Seion. Tom did some electrical work, while Deedee and Shannon painted the Vestry bathroom, suffocating the whole time in mold, paint fumes, and carpet glue which the carpet layers sprayed in front of the bathroom door, trapping the hapless women inside. The women wisely used the exterior paint on the bathroom walls, thus sealing the remnant of mold away from people trying to breathe air as they use the toilet.

The other group (Lonnie, Danny, Euros, Donna, Allen, and Jennifer, and Aled) spent our only day devoted to working at Capel Gomer. Danny, Lonnie, and Euros patched the roof trying to stop a leak in the upper room’s skylight. Donna, Allen, Jennifer, and Aled spent the day buying supplies to build four screens two meters tall and two meters wide draped with light grayish-black polyester fabric. By the end of the day, the structures had been completed, but the curtains had not been completed. Something for next week’s group to accomplish.

Saturday night we got Chinese takeout and met in the upper room of Capel Gomer at the dinner table. We talked animatedly and laughed uproarously, especially at the revelation that Lonnie had taken a paint rag with tar on it that he had used on the roof and thrown it in a grimy mop bucket – which happened to have Euros’s jeans and shirt soaking in it! Lonnie laughed so hard that his face turned the plum color of the wall behind him. Allen suggested Danny was a chameleon. It was a wonderful time, capping off a week of teasing the goofy, overcaffeinated monkey of a man -- the delightful Euros.—especially by Danny, Tom, and Donna.

Sunday morning, we all went our various ways until 2:30 p.m. when we met at Capel Gomer. In the morning, Lonnie and Derek went to Capel Seion and enjoyed the exuberant reactions of the congregation there to their newly remodeled church. Lonnie especially enjoyed the responses of the children and youth – who we intended to be primary beneficiaries of our efforts. Tom and Donna went to the Swansea Museum where they saw a mummy. Allen, Deedee, and Jennifer accompanied Shannon to the Mumbles where she finally got to do a bit of light shopping for the first time this trip.

At Capel Gomer, the team met with the Welsh congregation, perhaps a dozen strong. We heard a delightful and encouraging sermon by our old friend Mark, the Life Secretary of the Welsh Baptist Union. It was on the topic of how fatigue, failure, and fear can lead to discouragement, but meeting with Jesus in our daily lives can revivify us again! Derek led us in a Communion ceremony which was a symbol of the unity we all felt with God and with each other. But perhaps the sweetest moments were those singing hymns. Each hymn has a bilingual translation so that the Americans sang in English and the Welsh sang in Welsh at the same time. It was so beautiful that some of us teared up a bit.

By 4:00 p.m. the service was over and we all took photos, said goodbye, and struggled to tear ourselves away from our Welsh guests. We went back to the Dragon Hotel, boarded the bus, and waved goodbye to Derek at the curbside. Later on the highway, we saw him pass us – he apparently was going to Cardiff to celebrate his mum’s birthday.

We picked up Allen and Deedee’s daughter, Deah Rice, and two of her housemates (Jess and Nicola -- all three live in Cardiff) and toured Cardiff Bay, eating at “Salt” restaurant while the final game of the World Cup (Spain VS Netherlands) blared over the speakers. We tried to get caramel apple pie with custard at “the Cottage,” but they no longer carry that menu item, (much the chagrin of about eight Americans I know). We dropped Euros, Deedee, Deah, Jess, and Nicola off at various points in Cardiff and drove to Bristol and the Holiday Inn Airport hotel at about 11:00 p.m.

Long day. Long Week. Great team. Another team arrives tomorrow, but they will be great in a different way. It is a melancholy feeling parting company with such good friends. Church camp is over. But the memories will remain forever. To say nothing of what God has accomplished among us.

What in the world would have happened if this team had not come to prepare the way for the next team? I thank God that was not part of His Plan.