Members of One Body

June 11, 2012 -- Days 3 & 4 -- Members of One Body Sunday we had a full Welsh breakfast at the Rossett Hall Hotel (built in 1750), and went to church.  Rhun picked Allen up early and they went to one of Rhun's three churches -- this one in a coal village called Rhos.  Allen spoke to the congregation in broken Welsh, introducing himself and his purpose in Wales, and then Rhun preached in Welsh.  Then Rhun took Allen to Pen Y Bryn Chapel joining the rest of the team, where Rhun preached essentially the same sermon, this time in both Welsh and English. The sweet people of Pen Y Bryn served us lunch in the Vestry /Fellowship Hall and afterwards Rhun led us into the chapel area where he outlined his very  busy and wide- ranging mission scheme.  The American Mission Team was then comprised of Elizabeth (chief administrator), Jenonne, Andie, and Allen.  Then Rhun led Lonnie and the rest of the Construction Team (Joe, Larry, and David) On a tour of the church building which was in surprisingly good physical condition compared to our previous experiences at Gomer and Seion.  Lonnie was delighted the baptistry worked well despite not having been used since 1982 or so.  The two areas the team decided to focus upon were outside and inside the church entryway, and a large room above the vestry which Rhun wants to turn into a youth room.  jenonne spent part of the day with local relatives. Not close relatives, though. It was her sister-in-law's mother and sister. The Mathiesons took off with a Sweet young Welsh couple, Paddy and Elaine, and wwatched England and France battle to a tie in European football / soccer. Eventually, we all went to bed with visions of good hard work dancing in our heads. Monday.  The construction team went to the hardware store for scrapers and began assaulting the clumps of crumbling paint on the church's exterior since the weather was unusually and providentially rain free.  Larry laddered his way into a mini-courtyard guarded by columns of sharpened jail-like iron steel bars and distinguished himself by not leaving the site all day, working through lunch, dinner, and even bathroom breaks.  Joe mounted a tall ladder and began scraping high up, while others began scraping and eventually painting.  Lonnie hacksawed his way through a lock into the basement to open up storage possibilities.  The mission team organized gifts and explanatory cards about the chapel and walked around handing out the gifts to twenty or so local businesses.  The gifts were little paper cups with a Pen Y Bryn logo attached in which were packets containing coffee, tea, and biscuits.  The the team assaulted the youth room, boxing up ancient books, clearing debris, and moving old pews and tables to the middle of the room.  It was dirty work.  Spider webs were everywhere, and a spider even decided to drop down the inside of Allen's shirt.  In the afternoon an auction company showed up with a van and the two teams moved all the pews to the street where the van took them away.  The team even let the van take away an ancient foot-pump organ even though Rhun was gone and they didn't quite have permission to do so.  That is how the Americans roll. Fortunately, Rhun was pleased upon his return. In the afternoon Derek Rees and Euros Ap Hwyel arrived from Swansea and joined the team.  Derek, Elizabeth, and Allen went shopping for groceries and supplies for the week.  Later, everyone went out to a lovely pub called Plas Coch for dinner and then went back to the chapel to meet with a number of Welsh  friends and Rhun showed us a DVD on the Welsh revival of 1904.  A sweet, deepspiritual conversation followed and you could almost physically feel the bonding between the Okies and the Welsh.  we went back lot the hotel where we later learned that Jennifer Mansour had missed her connecting flight in Atlanta and would be delayed until Wednesday.  Still, Allen went to bed thinking about how immensely proud he was of every member of the Okie team, how they were each exhibiting their spiritual gifts and shining as they visually and palpably did the work of Christ in their every endeavor.  He also exulted in how their was already no distinction between Welsh and Okie.  We were, after all, members of one body.