Well Begun Is Half Done

Saturday and Sunday, 6 & 7 August 2011

The second team arrived Saturday morning on time, bolted past immigration at a gallop, and casually boarded the bus. What a miracle for two teams comprised of twenty people to have no trouble at all getting into Britain. Nothing short of a miracle. Thank you, God!

The team is comprised of team leader Lonnie Hamman, veterans Danny Tengram, Ken Roth, Tom and Donna King, and Frank Wheeler. That's a lot of veterans! Rookies include Franks wife and son, Nancy and Franklin, Larry Lewis, Chris Jones, Patrick McBride, and last but not least, our own beloved elder, Joe Williams. And that other guy who stayed over from the first team, Allen Rice.

We visited the museum of Welsh Life in St Fagans where giant amounts of acreage contains virtually every type of Welsh building from Prehistory to the Present, from an Iron Age Celtic village, a corn mill, a blacksmith, an Eighteenth Century Unitarian chapel, to a Renaissance castle, complete with elaborate gardens and lazy lilly pad covered ponds, one flowing serenely into the next. Next we visited Llandaff cathedral, established by a Celtic saint who was a younger contemporary of Kingg Arthur. It is a hazy. Mystical place lying at the bottom of a steep spiraling walkway, appearing as if by surprise. The stone on the outside is a combination of light grey, sulphur yellow, and dark lavender. Inside, there is a dreamy melancholy infusing the thirteenth century sanctuary. All in all, a soft sweet experience.

Outside, Patrick came up with the idea of a group picture in front of a large stone cross. Spiritual guy, that Patrick. He often was the guy who reminded us that we should eventually get around to praying. Good call. Then we had a quick lunch and off to the Dragon Hotel we went. We were at the hotel by 6 pm and some were asleep by then.

On Sunday, we took a taxi bus to Capel Seion where we were blessed by Dereks sermon on Jonah and by a proper Welsh tea hosted by the ladies of the chapel. Allen briefly met with the ladies of the church offering to take out all their pews in exchange for new pews from Capel Gomer. They declined, but agreed to let the team take out all the pews to the left and the right of the worship platform (and they had previously agreed to let us take out about one fourth of the back pews so we could construct a youth room there). All in all the ladies were very gracious to us as usual.

We then took the taxi bus to Swansea where we grabbed a quick lunch and trotted to Capel Gomer where we heard another great Derek Rees sermon on Jonah and were offered more tea by our beloved Gomerites. After a planning meeting where Lonnie recorded the teams brainstorming over all the possible tasks we could undertake, we left it in Lonnies hands to prioritize the tasks and assign us our roles the next day. Then off we went to the Varsity, a bright, open, vaguely American style restaurant. Then home to bed at the Dragon for an early start tomorrow.

All in all, this team seems very sweet and unusually spiritual. They seem to be thoroughly enjoying their experiences so far and are adept at rolling with the rogue waves that so often accompany good mission trips. We seem almost eager for the taxing work ahead.