Really Good Conversations

Thursday 4 May

Returning to work yesterday after a day off wasn't so bad, especially as I got to read in church yesterday morning--it was fantastic! I felt so. . .valued.

The guests this week are mostly from Holland (we heard their football fight song of "Hup, Holland, Hup!" as they danced around in bright orange at the guest concert last night), the Netherlands, Canada, and the U.S. (two of whom are from Roanoke!). Another couple are from Florida, and the husband is a Presbyterian minister (PCUSA) and helped me along with some encouragements about seminary.

The guest concert had some great stuff in it--the folks with the adults-with-developmental-disabilities group did some really great Celtic music with guitars, violin, drums, and tin whistle; a large contingent of the Canada group calling themselves "Maple Syrup" sung some folk songs; and other just invited us to sing along with Beatles lyrics.

Worship was amazing last night--besides singing "Halle, Halle, Halle" at one point, near the end we did a rousing traditional Israeli song called "Hevenu Shalom Alechem" (meaning "May peace be with us"), which had perhaps fifty of us running about in the aisles, joining hands as we spontaneously danced and sang. Definitely one of those times when you can fell the spirit of God pulsing in your veins and breathing new air in your lungs.

At the pub, I tried some Ember, which is a lager (I'm so not a drinking person, so I'm cautiously sampling things here and there), took a sip of Hans's Guinness and promptly cringed, and enjoyed getting to know two of the new vollies, Birgitte and Katie. Both of them are quite nice. Birgitte is from Denmark and is a Lutheran--yay!--and wants to study social sciences at Uni, hopefully in the fall. Katie is a friend of Amanda's from school in New Brunswick, Canada, and I'm anticipating finding out more soon.

other highlights from the day:

-conversation with a guest named Johann, a retired Lutheran minister from Canada who spend 8 years in Liberia

-handing out and getting hungs from Matty, who loves Weird Al songs

-Scrabble, good conversations with Zoe and Markus (both in Abbey Housekeeping with me), Steve, Matty again, and Kate and Amanda

I must've done a lot of talking today to have had this many good conversations, eh? (Oh, the Canadians are getting to my speech!)