Days 30-21

30 days: Cleaning cupboards and taking numbers

Since there are no Bible studies or Sunday services to plan and prep, I have the task of cleaning out the youth cupboards and taking inventory for the next year.  It took the whole day, but, despite the repetitiveness of counting and cleaning, I was grateful for the opportunity to go through games and crafts from the year and reflect on all that has happened.

29 days: Mailings as far as the eye can see

Before the beginning of each term, we send out a mailing with all the events and registration forms for everything.  We spend hours planning, calling, and reserving for the next term before we even start on the letters, registrations, and term cards.  Once all of this is figured out, I get to put on some music on spend the next several hours going through the database and stuffing envelopes for the Resonate, Boat, and Link youth groups.

28 days: The postbox

After all of the envelopes are stuffed and addressed, it's time to put the mailings in the post.  Now, this isn't really exciting, except for the huge sense of relief and accomplishment that comes when the last mailing is placed inside the postbox.  

However, there are fun detail about postboxes.  There's a silver plaque above the slit, which indicates the next post pick up.  The white box gives the times when the post is picked up everyday and where the closest post office is. Now the really interesting detail is at the bottom of the box, right above the black bit.  If you look there's a crown and a couple of letters.  In this case, it's a GR. (Others say EIIR) This stands for King George, presumably King George VI, Elizabeth II's father.  This means this specific postbox was installed during his reign. The initials on each postbox indicate which reign they were installed.

27 days: Bikes in London

I met up with Anastasia today to spend one last day with her in London before she heads back to Iowa.  Imagine our surprise when we get to Trafalgar Square and everything's eerily quiet.  We venture out of Charing Cross Station on our way to visit the Science Museum, and immediately notice that instead of cars and bikes, the streets are filled with thousands of bicycles.  We left the area to go to the museum, and then wandered around Hyde Park before circling back to Buckingham Palace.  Once at the palace, we watched the bicyclists and jammed out to Rhianna outside the queen's residence.  It was definitely a new, unexpected, experience for the two of us.

26 days: Peak District

I was blessed to spend some time exploring Peak District.  It's a region in the north, characterized by hills with large rocky jut-outs.  It's also rather historical, including Eyam, the plague village; Chatsworth house, the residence of the Duke of Devonshire and burial place of Kathleen Kennedy (JFK's sister); and location of Mr. Darcy's home, Pemberly. 

It's an absolutely gorgeous area, a favorite of mine, and it was also the location of our mid year retreats with YAGM.  One reason why I love this photo is because, for once, I am in front of the camera.  I have hundreds of photos from this area from all my visits, and from this year, but almost all of them involve me being behind the camera.  Piers, our friend and leader of our retreats, says he took this photo because he knew I had few with me in it.  Thank you Piers!

25 days: Tim's Man Crush Monday

My supervisor, Tim, will deny it until his face turns blue, but he has a major man crush on Bear Grylls.  In almost every talk Tim has given this year, Bear has been mentioned, and Tim has gone on record to say if he married again, or, more likely renewed his vows, he would want Bear to be his best man for the Stag Night (bachelor's party).  Tim originally bought Bear's book for his son, but, when his son didn't read it, Tim did and fell in man love.  Bear Grylls was mentioned so often that he became the fourth (figurative) youth worker in the office.

One of my most heart breaking moments this year was when Tim didn't get to meet Bear in May.  We were going as a staff to the HTB Leadership Conference at the Royal Albert Hall in London, and they were launching the new Alpha course with Bear Grylls as the figure head.  Tim, and the rest of us, believed that Bear would come to the conference to promote Alpha. The time came for Alpha's presentation, and I looked over at Tim to see his face completely lit up. (I've never seen him so excited.) Instead, the conference showed a trailer with barely a glimpse of Bear at the very end.  I looked over at Tim, and his face had completely fallen.  My hope is eventually Tim will meet his idol, Bear.

24 days:Cliff College

Cliff College is a small Bible college in Peak District, and it is where the UK YAGM spent their midyear retreats attending the Christian Life and Mission.  These were the times when we were able to come together as a group and talk about what was happening in the news at home, how we would tell our stories to loved ones, and relishing our limited time together.  We took the course with three women from Cornwall, London, and Stockholm, respectively, and spent many hours hiking the peaks with them.

23 days: Time for God

A unique aspect of UK YAGM is we don't have a country coordinator, like the other country programs.  Instead we are placed with a secondary program, called Time for God, or TfG, where we met, and worked with, other volunteers from around the country, including my roommate, Lena.  The pairing with TfG was a blessing because it allowed us to talk to others. While we were struggling with transitioning from liturgical tradition to contemporary tradition, many volunteers were struggling with the exact opposite.  It also meant that we were able to learn about different cultures, such as Hungarian folk dancing, and learned about other culture shocks, such as one volunteer being genuinely surprised at the natural color and texture of my hair, 

22 days: Garbage, Trash, Rubbish

One of the biggest differences was simple household resources.  One is that not all of the water is potable.  As I understand, it has to do with the heating systems, and many sinks have separate faucets for hot (non-potable) and cold (potable) water.  Although newer houses, remodels, additions, etc have double faucets for tradition, ascetics, or because people were taught at a young age to never drink from the hot tap.

The other difference is the way rubbish is removed from houses. Just like the US, rubbish collection is managed, and dictated by the local government.  In South Bucks, almost everything here is recycled.  Plastics, glass, paper, and metal are all recycled and are collected fortnightly.  Even food rubbish (including bones, dairy, tea bags, and cooked foods) are collected weekly to be made into compost by the council.  The huge benefit of the food rubbish is your rubbish bin doesn't leak or smell, which is good since it's only collected once every two weeks.  The downside is you have various of different bins that you can mix up.

21 days: Laundry Time

The big news at my parents place is that they have finally replaced their dryer.  This dryer was at least 20 years old, and last time I was there we were holding it together with a 2"x4" plank and a bucket of kitty litter.

While I understand my parents' excitement (this is HUGE news in our family), it made me realize how different my life is here since I haven't used a dryer in a year.  Most people I know here do not own or use a clothes dryer.  Instead I've used the drying racks you see in the photo, and you have to wait a couple days to have clean, dry laundry. (We aren't even allowed clotheslines in my parents' neighborhood.) My mom doesn't like the stiffness of air dried laundry.  The stiffness never bother me and I enjoyed the fact that it used no electricity.  Plus having laundry drying in the back garden just feels right in England.