Spotted in Team Leader's kitchen...

Christmas Tree

We got our Christmas tree! Friday we were walking back from Camden market when we passed some trees at the Morrison's. Ten minutes later we had picked out the "tallest tree ever" according to Jodie and were walking home with it. Ray is a friend from the States who was visiting and kindly agreed to help carry it. The best part of the tree is that it came with it's own stand...it's been nailed into a slice from a larger tree trunk that serves as the base. It works great, and there were no issues of getting it straight or stable once we got it in the house. I'll admit, it's not quite the same as Ryan, who cut his own tree from a forest, but it still makes it feel like Christmas around here. Which is good, since we're having a housewarming/Christmas party this weekend.

Teacher leaving

We just got a letter from Andi's school, saying that her teacher is leaving at the end of this term. We're really sad about this. I'm sure the new teacher will be great, but we really like her current teacher. Somer has started to get to know her a little, and has been going into the class to help by reading individually with the kids. So a little uncertainty right now for Andi and her class, and a little sadness too.

Glass

I've been here for nearly three months now, and have yet to find any glassblowers working in this area. Now I'll admit, it's a pretty small pool of people - not everyone has a hot shop in their basement. But I've been surprised at how hard it is to find people working in glass here in Camden.
So yesterday I went to the market determined to find someone. I went to a stall that sells small jewelry - rings, necklaces, etc - that are made from fused glass. The attendant was not himself the artist (he said the artists only come on weekends), but he sent me to a little place called Lead and Light.
Lead and Light is off the beaten path, tucked back in an alley behind a row of houses. A cool place with more sheets of glass than I've ever seen in one place. But sadly, only a very small kiln in which to do fusing (layering pieces of glass and melting them together in the furnace). No glassblowing.
There is a glassblower who has a stall in the market, but he does most of his work in Italy because the gas for the furnaces is much cheaper there.

So...I'm still looking. If anyone happens to know anyone doing glassblowing in the Camden area, or know of a school that has a hot shop, let me know.

Oil On Canvas

My friend John plays in like 4 different bands. I recently took my other friend John along to one of his gigs. He was playing with Oil on Canvas at the Purple Turtle in Camden. When we got there it was pretty dead, and the first band to play was some pirate/sailor themed band that drew about 6 people total to watch. But, we got to hang out with John for a good part of the evening and talk about life.

One of the things we talked about was how the church used to be a big supporter/patron of music (and other forms of art as well). I would like to see that practice revived, and we talked a little about how to make that happen. Even though John isn't big on "church" or "religion" himself, he said he'd be very open to having a local church as a sort of patron, as long as they didn't try to control his music.

Any of my readers have any experience or ideas for how to pull off something like church-sponsored patronage for local bands/artists? I'm not just talking like "open band night" for the youth - am I totally ignorant of history, or did musicians used to make their living producing music for the church?

Thanksgiving

Yes, thank you Jeremy. We all know I haven't posted much lately. Let me try to catch you up on our lives.

We celebrated Thanksgiving on the appropriate day last week. John and Kathy hosted the dinner, and we had a number of our British friends over, plus a couple of other Americans. The English/Welsh contingent wanted to know why we celebrate Thanksgiving, and to our shame, non of the Americans knew why, we just knew that we all eat turkey and watch Americann football.

Now I don't know who won the real Thanskgiving day games (and I don't want to...at least not yet). But I can tell you that our Thanksgiving game was won by the Baltimore Ravens, who blocked a Titans field goal at the end of the game to hang on and win by 1.

Anyway, we had a great time. Kathy's turkey was incredible, as was Somer's pumpkin pie. There were 13 of us all crammed around the table, and it was a sweet time of being with friends. Somer's got some good pictures over on Daily Offerings.

More to update about, but that'll come in another post.

Arsenal

60,000: number of supporters chanting the name of Thierry Henry or Robin Van Persie, or screaming insults at Liverpool, or singing the praises of Arsene Wenger.
14: number of rows between us and the field.
3: number of goals Arsenal scored, compared to Liverpool's 0
2: number of hotdogs we ate
1: number of times I've been to see a football match here in England

Thanks to John for taking me, and for the pre- and post-match tea at his apartment. What a way to begin immersing myself in English culture.

Quick Roundup

It's been a full week here. You already know about Monday (see previous post). Yesterday I helped a buddy from the market deliver some furniture. Then Mark and I went rock climbing at The Castle last night. My hands are raw.
I had coffee this morning with a musician from Finsbury park. And by "coffee" I mean fresh squeezed OJ. John and Kathy's stuff has arrived already and was being unpacked (and even put together!) this afternoon when Somer and I stopped in to say 'hi'.
Tomorrow I'm heading out to Ilford to meet up with Stephen, one of the guys I worked with last year, and I'll be going to the youth club and seeing all the kids from last year.
Oh, and Sunday I'm supposed to be going to a certain football match (I'll keep it quiet so I don't jinx it...more to come...)

Monday

UPDATE: It's here! The guys brought a small van that was able to pull into the covered parking under our building. They were done in half an hour. Then about 20 minutes after they left, John and Kathy showed up to help unpack. What a treat. They worked all afternoon, and by the time Somer brought the girls home the boxes were all unpacked and the trash was in the dumpster. Thank you God. Thank you for friends and teammates in London, thank you for small vans and high ceilings in the parking garage. Thank you for whoever cancelled their shipment so we could get ours.

I got a call from our shipping company yesterday, and...Our belongings are supposed to be delivered on Monday!! Yay! There was a cancellation and a slot opened up in the delivery schedule. The only hitch could be that the water company started tearing up the road in front of our house on Friday. Today they broke up the section just opposite where the delivery truck would park, leaving just one lane to get by. Not sure how it's going to work. We were technically supposed to get a permit from the council for the truck to park, but with such short notice we didn't have time. So any parking fine the truck gets, I'll have to pay...but it's worth it.

Teammates Arrive

Our team leaders have arrived today. Jodie and I went to the airport to meet them. They were really tired, but we were so excited to see them. They joined us for pizza/movie night last night before going home to crash. SOOO glad they're here.

Stephen's Baptism

It's 11:11 PM and I have just returned from a house in one of the wealthiest parts of London. Imagine, if you will, the following scenes:
A group of young people in their 20s are loitering outside a train station. They have come from all over the city - Camden Town, Enfield, the Isle of Dogs. A guy in a ski hat with multicolored spikes pulls out a bag and starts to hand out food - wraps and fruit he's salvaged from a store that was throwing them away because they had reached their sell-by date.

At the appointed time, we march 500 yds down the road to a massive house. Inside, they are met with more food - more wraps, in fact - lovingly prepared by the occupant, a young doctor-to-be. More people arrive.

The crowd moves upstairs, cramming into a surprisingly small bathroom. A warm bath has been drawn, and Stephen steps in. After some interesting body contortions and one uncomfortable incident involving the water tap, he manages to lay down. His head is gently pushed under water. The ancient words are spoken: Stephen, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

When I met Stephen, he was living in Camden Town and had already started following Jesus. I had nothing to do with him finding Jesus, or Jesus finding him. But this is why we are here in Camden. We want to see many more like Stephen, welcomed into God's family. We want to see people joining Jesus in his death and resurrection, so that they might leave behind slavery to the elemental spiritual forces, and enter into their inheritance as dearly loved children of God.

Tonight, I was given a gift. The gift of participating in a baptism, of laying my hand on a new brother and praying God's blessing on him. Of helping to welcome him into God's family. God is at work here in Camden Town. Tonight he let me see a glimpse of the road ahead.

Stephen, if you happen to find your way here, thank you so much for inviting me.

Galatians 4

Preached Sunday on the first part of Galatians 4 at Church on the Corner in Islington. Thanks for the warm welcome from everyone at the evening service - it was my first visit (we've been attending the morning service since we came to London in September). I felt like the evening went better than the morning. It's one of those funny things...I can't really explain why. I did make a rather desperate request for prayer after the morning because I was feeling a bit lifeless. I guess the Holy Spirit showed up in response, and I experienced his power at the evening meeting.
One of the most exciting parts of the passage for me was that when Paul says God has made us "heirs" - he means that in Jesus we are heirs of all of God's creation. I connected that to our view of the city, and challenged us to see the church as the rightful inheritor of the city.

Our stuff is here...sort of

It's in the country, at least. We heard from the shipping company that our stuff arrived in port on Tuesday. However, we also found out that it'll be another 3-5 weeks before it clears customs and gets delivered to us. Aaaarrgghh!

Drawing Studio

On Saturday afternoon, Andi and I walked next door to Arlington House. They were hosting an open drawing studio. Professional artists joined homeless residents of Arlington house and members of the community in creating a room full of drawings. Tables, walls, and even the floor were covered in paper. Markers, pencils, charcoal, and paints were scattered around the room. Andi had a great time doing butterflies (where you fold a sheet of paper in half to creat mirror images of the paint). We learned from one of the guys that you can then use the 'butterfly' to create multiple prints on the wall if you use enough paint. Really cool. Andi had no problem getting right in there and drawing. But I found it very difficult. I couldn't think of what to do, and I kind of froze up. It was like I wanted to put something down, but every idea I had just seemed stupid. I like the freedom children have to express themselves.

MySpace

So I finally did it. I didn't really want to. Maybe it's 'cuz I'm getting older and stuck in my ways, and I feel overwhelmed every time I go to it. But I have resisted joining MySpace. But now I have friends in the states as well as friends here who use it to keep in touch.
So today I joined MySpace. I promptly discovered that although Tim and I have known each other for 20 years, I am not his friend. At least not according to MySpace. I also learned that I only have one friend, and his name is Tom. I visited Tom's page to learn about my only friend. My only friend Tom has 122 million other friends. Now I'm really jealous of my only friend Tom. I think I don't want to be Tom's friend anymore as he makes me feel inadequate with his 122 million friends. So even though I've known him for 20 years, I'm going to invite Tim to be my friend. If he wants to be my friend, maybe he'll replace Tom as my only friend. Tim only has 46 friends...I'm not too jealous of him.

Meditation

Last Thursday I went to a "Silent Meditation" at a church in the area. I don't know why, but I expected the meditation would somehow revolve around a piece of scripture or some Christian theme, or something. To my surprise, it was more of a Zen Buddhist mediation, complete with brass gong on the altar and instructions to empty our minds. I stayed on even though it wasn't what I had expected because I had already made a scene once when I came in (I was...ahem...late). So I focused my thoughts on Jesus and sat silently for 20 minutes while all the muscles in my back tightened up and I got a searing pain in my right shoulder. At one point, I opened my eyes because I wanted to look at a cross...but I couldn't even find one in the church building. I should mention that it was a really good exercise for me, I haven't sat that still or been that silent, focussing only on Jesus, for quite a while. The experience highlited for me the hunger for spiritual experience in Camden, along with the void of Christ-centered spirituality.

Finished Table

Some of you had asked about the table now that it has glass on it, so here it is. I thought about clearing it off, but the glory of the glass is that it allows us to USE the table, so I thought I'd show it in use. The wooden chairs are the old pub chairs we were given last weekend.

Gallery

As yet Unknown art gallery in Camden's Stables Market is a great little place, tucked away in the catacombs of the market. I met the owner Ryan last week while helping a friend unload new furniture stock for his shop. Today I stuck my head in to check out the gallery. He's got an impressive collection of pieces on display at the moment, mostly paintings and photographs - some from artists I've seen before, but most from people I'd never heard of. The thing I love the most is Ryan's desire to help new artists get established. When I stopped in, he was working on a painting representing the takeover of religion by pop-culture. Hopefully he'll put it up on his site when it's finished.

Weekend Update

This has been a lazy weekend. After family movie night on friday evening, I met up with some friends again at the Spread Eagle. Saturday Andi and I walked up to the park to meet a friend, and while there we also saw a family from her weekly football training. Saturday afternoon Johnny and Becky had us over for ribeye on the grill! OH BABY.
Today was laying back and watching a really tight Ravens game - week three against the Browns. Thanks Andrew for recording it for us. You don't know how much we look forward to getting your packages.
Oh, and we now have a dinning room table and CHAIRS! The glass top arrived for the table on Friday so we could start using the table, and today my friend Mark dropped off some old chairs that were left over from when his church used to be a pub. Thanks bud!

Arlington House

On Friday I stopped by Arlington House, the men's hostel right next door to our building. They have a room set up for the public to come in and learn about the history of the building...and it's fascinating. At one time it was the largest hostel for men in the UK, providing housing for over 1000 people. Over time the number of beds have been reduced and the rooms enlarged. Read about the history of Arlington House and its connection to Irish immigrants here. Novas Group currently runs the hostel, and you can read about their plans to redevelop the building and reconnect to the community here.