The best thing about friends . . .

. . . is exploiting their talents :) I unashamedly coerced Samuel into giving me a haircut last night (he worked in a salon for three years in Brazil) because I finally couldn't take all long hair anymore.

Pictures here for your amusement.

Weeping with those who weep . . .

Meu irmão, Pedro, found out today that his grandmother died and is struggling with not being with his family in Brazil right now. He has been a dear friend who I have laughed much with, and it was a blessing to have the opportunity to cry with him tonight. Please keep him in your prayers today.

Brazilians in Paris

If you want to meet "meus irmos" (my brothers) Pedro and Samuel, check out this video - its only a minute and a half, but it was their "proof" that they missed me while touring Paris (this video was taken in Luxembourg Gardens). Somehow, I still don't quite believe them . . .

Lee Abbey Times: Headline News

START OF TERM BEGINS WITH MISSING STUDENTS
The Office Team (of which I am one) expected some 40 arrivals on Saturday for the start of term, but only about half of those showed up. They still kept us busy, though, and we'll probably see the rest of the students trickle in over the next few days.

BRAZILIANS CREPES DRAW RESIDENTS FROM ALL FLOORS
After having eating crepes in Paris, Pedro wanted to learn how to make them, so last night we made enough crepes for the 12-15 people who wandered into the resident's kitchen. I think Pedro (an engineering major) missed his calling - he even learned how to crack eggs with one hand!

MAKING THE STATE DEPARTMENT PROUD
I should be preparing a CV for a Public Affairs officer position at the nearest US Embassy - I've chatted with at least 15 residents from almost as many different countries in the last week and almost all inevitably comment on how friendly Americans are. So many interesting people; I've even found a French girl who is majoring in American Politics!

LAST MINUTE APPOINTMENT TO KEY POSITION
Lee Abbey will launch its own student version of the Alpha Course in two weeks. They hope to have two small groups, led by community staffers. One of the leaders realized that she would be gone for the first two weeks and so I was asked to the lead the group while she is gone, and then co-lead with her when she returns. Much prayer needed!!

SUPERNATURAL POWER DISCOVERED: IS IT EXTRATERRRESTRIAL?
Despite the fact that I consistently got 5 hours of sleep or less all last week, plus worked in 5th gear at the office getting ready for all the arrivals, God blessed me with amazing opportunities to continue to cement the friendships I'm making with residents. He is always faithful to give me a fresh word every day and give me the strength and vision to be a living witness. Even more amazingly, I am already seeing the fruit of that witness in questions that some of the residents are asking me! Thank you so much for your prayers.

Latest Jaunt

Hopped a double-decker with my friend Ji-Hye this morning and trekked over the British Museum, which everyone here raves about. We made it through the Egypt, Greece & Rome, and Money rooms in two hours, quite a feat. My favorite exhibit: the prosthetic toe from an Egyptian burial tomb :)

Check out some pics of me enjoying some history . . .

Maybe I'm an extrovert after all . . .

This is my new roommate, Lahn (some confusion about her name earlier, Koreans don't have an "r" or "l" in their language).

So, I always thought that I was an introvert. A friend once told me that regardless of how outgoing you are, introverts are people who recharge by being alone and need solitude to survive. Extroverts are recharged by being around other people. At the time I had placed myself in the former category because I never feel more refreshed then when I can get away with a book or spend some quiet time praying or just listening to music.

I'm wondering about that now. I made a decision this weekend that for this first month of term, when I sat down to eat dinner I'd always pick a table with residents. Its so easy to just congregate automatically with my staff friends.

It is ALWAYS hard initially when I'm standing with my tray seeing all the tables with people that I am comfortable with, laughing together, and deliberately choosing to sit with someone I haven't met who is off in a corner, or at a table of residents who are obviously friends chatting away. But I've done this the last three days - not only for dinner, but breakfast too.

And I can't tell you how extraordinarily blessed I have been by it. I have met and had good conversations with at least 8 different people, from all sorts of countries. I've met Sara and Delphine from France, Ali from Iraq (well, currently Dubai), Scott from the States, Anne from South Africa, Sebastiano and Santosh from Italy, etc.

I just can't get over how much energy I have after my meals now. I leave feeling like I could go jog a mile or pound out a position paper. I am absolutely and totally loving the relationship-making aspect of this job. The key is that it takes intentionality. I could easily do my office job cheerfully and efficiently and still only know the residents names or never get past "Hi, how are you today?"

I'm already feeling them respond back - when I work, these students linger at the reception desk as they pass through and chat a bit if I'm not busy. They ask me just as many questions as I ask them. I found out today that Delphine is studying American Politics and she was thrilled to get to talk about foreign policy with me.

So thank you, thank you for your prayers. I am seeing miracles already in just the few days that I have taken just little baby steps out of my staff-world. Please continue to pray for these new relationships, that they would develop into numerous opportunities for me to show them true love and lead them to the Source.

Life Together

This won't be an epic, I'd just like to give you some things I'm learning about living in community (some particular to Christian community, but not all).

Its easier to be real. When you live AND work with the same people, its hard to fool them. Makes for greater accountability though.

Its harder to get perspective. Lee Abbey is a mini-world, even more so than my university was, and you can easily be sucked in to thinking that the whole world has the same problems and solutions and people as this little world does. Which is why the admin people here STRESS that you have to take your days off seriously and go out - see London, see England, spend time with a friend who doesn't live here, etc. If you don't take holiday within four months, they have a little chat with you :)

Its easier to bond with the staff than the students. The staff have a common passion (for Christ) a common purpose (to serve) and a common situation (dealing with the same responsibilities and benefits). To be honest, the diverse cultures only serves to bond us closer in what really matters. The students are not here most of the day and take much more effort to make friendships with.

Its harder to live a structured day. Being on Office team, my shift schedule changes weekly and its never predictable. I can't say that I will always have a quiet time at a certain time of day, or reserve a certain day for doing laundry. I find that several days may pass and I'll realize that I haven't taken personal time to get things done, clean my room, or spend time in personal enrichment. I have to schedule it in my life ahead of time, and stick to it when friends want to grab me to go hang out.

Its amazing to work and live in this place - to have a Christian community of support co-existing with a mission field. The balance is what is most challenging.

Oh, and I have a new roommate! Her name is Ok Ran Lee, but she goes by "Lan" (or "Ran", hard to tell with Korean accents :) She's adorable, several years older than me, but very friendly and independent. Just my kind of roommate . . .

Snapshot of Rec 3

I think this is a great time to give you a snapshot of my day, if you're interested. If not, then read something else :)

Today I had an evening shift, Rec 3 (Reception 3 - there are 2 morning shifts and 2 evening shifts which differentiate when you take your breaks). So I woke up in time to go to breakfast (they finish serving at 9, but there is no guarantee that they'll still have bacon left, so its better to go earlier) and ate with a couple residents - Ilse (who is interning at the Shakespeare Globe Theater), Niki (who is studying "make-up"), and I honestly can't remember the third girl's name. I got the community members down in three days, but the residents are killing me - so many of them look similar to me, and I don't get to interact with them as much since they are gone most of the day at school.

After breakfast, I went up to my room and cleared out all the stuff my old roommate left, taking it down to the community room for any and all to stake claim (although not after taking a few cute pieces of clothing and a nice portmanteau for myself). Then I put all my laundry away, which was hanging on racks from washing yesterday. After my room was all cleaned, I grabbed a new book (finished Sherlock Holmes' "Study in Scarlet" yesterday, today began "The Song of Troy" by Colleen McCullough) and grabbed a cup of tea to sip out in the garden while reading. Tea and coffee are served twice a day, at 10:30 and 4:00. If you're lucky, there are sometimes "biscuits" (crisp cookies) at afternoon tea.



The garden is one of my favorite places right now, since during the day it is usually quiet and COOL. London weather is a little on the warm side, ranging from 70-80 degrees depending on whether the clouds are covering the sun at the moment, but there is a nice cool breeze. Lee Abbey, however, is a good 5-10 degrees warmer with no breeze unless you're in a room with a big open window. We have been eating almost all our meals out on picnic tables in the garden because the weather is so nice.

I pretty much lazed around, chatting now and then with community members, until lunch. Lunch is exclusively for community on the weekdays - board for residents includes only dinner and breakfast on weekdays. Three of the four teams (House, Kitchen, and Maintenance) can stop working for our hour lunch, but the Office team has to leave at least one person behind to cover the reception desk, so we take turns . The team has between 8-10 people on it, so you don't have to miss community lunch often.

Lunch is promptly at 1:00. We eat for half an hour, after which one of the Admin people -- David and Mary (Warden and his wife), Chris Barry (Head of Personnel), or Helen (Head of Accommodation Office where I work) -- give "notices" or announcements. They list off the people that are in charge of certain duties for the next day, including: leading morning prayers, leading music at prayers, DPR (duty person who is called in case of emergency), running coffee bar, House Team On-Call, and finally, night duty.

Side note - I had night duty two nights ago. Consists of carrying around a mobile phone and master key around with you from 10:30pm to 8:00am and handling any emergencies that come up, which tend to be people who have locked themselves out of there room. Sure enough, I had a lockout at 1:00am.

Back to lunch. After notices, lunch is pretty much over. Normally everyone would go back to work at 1:30 or 2:00 depending on their shift, but this week is "rest week," which means our morning prayers are at 2:00 instead of 7:30am, so we get "a bit of a lie-in."

"Prayers" are really just a short worship service. Community members (all of them - volunteers and administration) take it in turn to lead a service in which we usually sing a couple songs, read a bible passage, and hear a short homily on the passage, followed by intercessions. Sounds slightly daunting, but its very structured. They go through books exposition-style, so your passage is already chosen for you, and already in context. And Lee Abbey has both a thick song-book of almost all the worship songs you can think of (everything from old hymns to very contemporary choruses) as well as a compilation of liturgical services that have prayers and congregational reading. You have quite a bit of flexibility in how you put it all together. At the end, you pray for specific needs: one or two present community members, a past community member (from the last year), a specific population of the resident community (like 1st Floor residents or Language students), and finally, a prayer request from the large Lee Abbey Community. Prayers are in the little chapel (seats about 35) and attendance is mandatory for those who are working that day.

After prayers, I had a few minutes to change into my office uniform (I promise a picture of that will be forthcoming) and report to work. And evening shift is usually filled with residents coming through at meal time and stopping at the desk to check their mail, get meal passes, report maintenance problems, inform us the vending machine is out of Fanta, or check out table tennis bats. If we're lucky, we get one of our other reports or projects finished before we close 7 hours later (the morning shift tends to be quieter and so easier to complete office paperwork).

I'm picking up the office tasks very quickly, and I feel very confident dealing with residents. I my old Info Desk supervisor, Linda Yochum, much credit for this. Most of the skills I used for that job have transferred nicely to this one.

The absolute best part about working the reception desk is that you eventually get to meet ALL the residents. I see their name in print 10-12 times before they even show up as we book their stay in the computer, send them correspondence to iron out details, compile welcome packets with important information, create their files, collect their room deposits, make their meal cards, and collect their mail. Then they actually show up! It really helps me to remember their names if I've seen it a lot before I meet them.

I get an hour break for dinner, and then another 20 minute break at 9pm before finally closing the desk at 10:30. Then my evening depends on what I need to get done or who pursuades me to hang out with them - sometimes I watch movies with community members, sometimes call home, sometimes check my mail, and sometimes just collapse into bed. Tonight, I checked in with Rachel to see how her first marriage counseling class went (she has been here 11 months and is engaged to a past community member who is working an hour away from London), checked in on a member of the Office Team (Lizete) who has been sick, and then had to call night duty because I realized that I left my keys in the Reception Office :) I called my goombah back in the States, then decided to post this blog before my eyes crossed permanently and caused me to invert all the words.

So, there's a not-so-short, but hopefully vivid picture of a typical day at Lee Abbey. The morning shift days usually give me more time to mix with the residents, as I can go to the coffee bar and chat with people or go out on the town with the girls I've made friends with, but otherwise don't substantially change my day.

Goodbye to you . . .

So, I've said three goodbyes in the last two days.

Two were for Joanna and Karolina, from Hungary, who I did not get to know at all because they were on holiday all this last week.

The third was to my roommate, Galyna, from Ukraine. We spent hardly 2 hours put together this last week, but the time we did spent together told us that we would have been very close and our goodbye was as sad as if we had known each other a month.

San Kyun, a South Korean, fixed a goodbye dinner for Galyna on Friday, and then a goodbye dinner for the two Hungarians on Saturday. I got to crash both, although I didn't eat at the first one. Clockwise, starting at 6:00: Vicky, Samuel, Gill, Kyeung Ah, Alice, Me in my office uniform, Yeon Bin, and Andriy.

DOW = Day on the Town

I had the rather fortunate circumstance of getting my first DOW (Day off work) on a Saturday. This only happens every month or so because our day off rotates. Anyway, my day off was also my sponsor's (Vicky) day off, so we decided to go see London together. Vicky coerced two other CMs (community members) to go with us, Pedro and Yeon Bin (mentioned previously as Young Bean - I just recently saw his name in print :). Yeon Bin is a great tour guide, and we left Lee Abbey at about 10am to be tourists (You can also check out the pictures I took as you read - if you are really interested, check again in a couple days because I'm going to add some from Vicky's camera too).

Portabello
First, we took the tube to Notting Hill and spent two hours meandering through Portabello Road Market. On Saturdays, the street is closed and everyone moves their little cart shops out. I couldn't help but sing the song about Portabello Rd from "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" in my head the whole time, but no one here has seen the movie. I picked up some London postcards as well as some dried fruit while my friends bought some fresh produce. I snatched a crepe from one of the street vendors for lunch, much to the amusement of my campanions - they waited until later to grab a meal at Burger King, but I found my meal very satisfying. The highlights of Portabello Rd were: the living statue at the entrance that only moved to tip his head at anyone who put change in his bucket; Pedro's great deal for cherries, "One pound for one pound"; the little hidden vendors that sold antique books (first editions Dickens and early publications of my favorite Austens, Eliots, and lots of poetry); the produce-selling husband and wife that tried to outshout the other "6 peaches for a pound"; and the French-Caribbean artist that we chatted with for about 15 minutes on whether the two blue elephants in his picture were fighting or dancing.

Buckingham Palace and Picadilly Circus
Because we were so late in leaving Portabello, we didn't get to Buckingham Palace until quarter past 2, so we missed changing of the guard. But we did get several pictures and I'm sure I'll make it back there later. We walked down the "pink" road (according to Yeon Bin - Vicky still argues that it's red) to Picadilly Circus. I found that there are several places named "Circus" and I think they really mean Circle. Picadilly Circus is where 5 roads intersect with a fountain in the middle. But it is certainly like a circus in that everywhere you look is motion, people, and advertisements. On one of the street landings (London streets are very organized - there are little landings in the middle so that you can cross half the street when the flow of traffic has stopped on one side, then wait until the other direction clears) a man had strapped a speaker/microphone to his stomach and was sitting in a chair preaching to the intersection. We stopped here at Burger King to eat lunch. I know my friends only ate there because they had coupons for it, but I wouldn't recommend it - the place was hot and dirty, which has not been by experience in most other places in London.

Trafalgar Square
After eating, we walking 10 min to the National Gallery and Trafalgar Square. I figured that the National Gallery needed its own day, so I just took pictures of the building and the square. I unfortunately met the Square pigeons in a rather unpleasant way when one dropped a present on my shoulder. But I have wonderful friends who helped me clean up :) A street landing off of Trafalgar Square gave a beautiful distance view of Big Ben.

Embankment
From Trafalgar Square we journey down to the Thames and walked along the river. From the bank, we could see the London Eye (basically a gigantic, slow Ferris wheel from which you can see all London. Was built for the Millenium) and several of the bridges. As we walked along the bank, we stopped at Embankment Gardens and rested a bit, then saw a WW2 memorial. Finally we ended at Westminster and Big Ben, where I had visited two nights before. Since it was dinner time, we decided to head back to Lee Abbey and come back in the evening to see Tower Bridge at night.

Tower Bridge and St. Paul's
Tower Bridge is really quite spectacular at night, a fact that the souvenir shops have caught on to because almost every postcard with Tower Bridge on it shows it at night. Yeon Bin, Vicky, and I walked along the river and saw London Bridge (which is not the bridge in the song - Tower Bridge is. London Bridge is a very modern, simple bridge that only looks special at night because it is lit up with pink/red lights) as well as Shakespeare's Globe Theater from across the Thames. We then visited St. Paul's, which was really quite breathtaking with an almost full moon over it. Finally, we walked across Millenium Bridge, which is a pedestrian only bridge across the Thames, and saw the Globe Theater up close. I've already made a mental note to go see a performance before the season ends in October.

I slept very well last night :) It was really wonderful to get out and be a tourist for a day and start aquainting myself with London. And it paid off today - while waiting at a bus stop after church, a lady approached me and said in a very thick Latino accent, "Portabello?" and I just so happened to know exactly where I was and where to point to Portabello because I had been there yesterday! I felt like a true Londoner . . .

Word of the Day

So, some news and some reflection.

Last night, I went down to the river with two friends (they tell me here that all the great places down at the river are best seen when its dark, and I quite agree). Check out the pictures I took, but view them with grace as my camera isn't the best for night pictures and I didn't have a tripod.

I have now worked for 4 days at the reception desk, and I can actually help people when they come to the desk or call on the phone!! I hate feeling helpless, especially when they are so busy. I have found that the reception desk is also a wonderful job because it is in the center of the flow of people here; I see people coming and going for meals, check their mail for them, answers their questions, and greet them when they go in and out of the building. I see the name of new arrivals six-eight times before actually meeting them and it does wonders for helping me remember what to call them.

I have been making friends with some of the residents and enjoying the variety and flavor there. I will name three specifically that I have conversed with the most - Ilse from Holland, Pournima from the US, and Josue from Burmuda (pronounced Jus-way). I have already made friends with all three, and am so looking forward to deepening those friendships over the next six months (the first two are only here until March). As far as I can tell, none are Christians, but I have already had the opportunity to at least bring up the subject of faith with the two girls. Please pray for more opportunity on my part to share my joy with them.

I am officially settled in - I got my library card today :) I will have to adjust to the British system though, the only free materials to borrow are books; CDs, DVDs, VHS, books on tape, etc, all cost between 40p and £2. Reservations (holds) are also charged. And I recognized very few books while browsing through the fiction, so I'll have to make several trips just to get to know the place.

I'm one of those nerdy people who gets a word and definition emailed to them everyday. Today, the word was "miscible" which means "Capable of being mixed together." It's used most often in chemistry, but you know I was thinking about this concept in relation to the community I belong to.

Our world really doesn't seem to testify to the facts that people of different countries and cultures are "capable of being mixed together." We have only our long history of violence and war upon war to testify to the fact that we don't like to mix. We like to say with our "elements" - those most like we are, those who make us feel comfortable, normal, and included.

As much as I am feeling a member of a large family, I am already finding that there are some brothers and sisters that I am more drawn to than others. I could easily pick out the four or five that I feel most comfortable with, that I most enjoy spending time with, and develop deep friendships with them while maintaining a warm and polite, but somewhat shallow and closed relationship with the rest. I haven't yet found the people who will really get on my nerves, but I'm sure that day is quickly approaching.

This has been on my heart all day, and I keep coming back to something I read for school several years ago. Its from Bonhoeffer's LIFE TOGETHER. Bear with me, this is really great stuff:

". . . a Christian comes to others only through Jesus Christ. . . Human love is directed to the other person for his own sake, spiritual love loves him for Christ's sake. Therefore, human love seeks direct contact with the other person; it loves him not as a free person but as one whom it binds to itself. It wants to gain, to capture by every means; it uses force. It desires to be irresistible, to rule . . . Because spiritual love does not desire but rather serves, it loves an enemy as a brother. It originates neither in the brother nor in the enemy but in Christ and his Word. Human love can never understand spiritual love, for spiritual love is from above; it is something completely strange, new, and incomprehensible to all earthly love."

That is weighty enough to chew on, but Bonhoeffer gets even more direct:

"Because Christ stands between me and others, I dare not desire direct fellowship with them. As only Christ can speak to me in such a way that I may be saved, so others, too, can be saved only by Christ himself. This means that I must release the other person from every attempt of mine to regulate, coerce, and dominate him with my love . . . Human love constructs its own image of the other person, of what he is and what he should become. . . Spiritual love recognizes the true image of the other person which he has received from Jesus Christ."

I hate admitting it, but I am used to loving people in human love. I'm used to using subtle manipulation to "regulate, coerce, and dominate" those I love to love me back, to show me preference, to be what I need them to be for me, me, me. Its not the kind of love that saves, builds, restores, but the kind of love that tears and destroys and requires healing. I don't know if it is because I have moved to such a unique community and am looking so purposely and intently at how I am building the foundations of these friendships, but more than ever before in my life I want to love this dear people THROUGH the person of Christ rather than through my flesh.

My new friends!!!

Check out some of my new friends - Samuel, Rachel, and Pedro from Brazil (from left to right in the first picture) plus Kyeuong Ah in the second picture. We're hanging out after a long day in the "community room" - a kind of staff lounge with a kitchen, small library, collection of board games, and an internet access computer.

Be anxious about nothing . . .

This month is a peculiar time for Lee Abbey - the summer holidays are ending, and the "transit" residents will be leaving as students start arriving who will be staying for 1, 2, or 3 terms (similar to the quarter system). As our community gears up for the beginning of term on Sept 23, we have decided to get together every Monday night this month to pray especially for outreach this Autumn term. I'd like to pass along the events we are bringing to our Great Provider so that if you feel so led, you can join us in petition:

1. The Alpha Course for students (once a week for the term)

2. Worship Night (Nov 2 - last term many residents attended this event put on by community members and heard about Christ)

3. Taize Prayer Service (a French style of worship that involves meditation on passages of scripture, singing simple songs, periods of silence, etc.)

4. Social Outings (great opportunity to build relationships with residents)

5. Opportunities for relationship-building (at the Coffee Bar, meal times, lounge area, in our areas of work).

Thank you for joining us in presenting our requests to God with Thanksgiving - we are so privileged to be tools in the hand of a Mighty God!

Churched-up

Its so hard to try to keep this blog updated, my first few days here are so packed! So, I may have to take it in pieces and not get to everything at once. I think this post will just be about Sunday.

I worked my very first shift on Sunday morning in the kitchen. On Sundays, all community members work three hours because our residents (and us!) like to eat :). But that makes the kitchen team short, so members of other teams will work kitchen shifts. Which is what I did, breakfast shift. The day before, everyone told me that it was unfortunate that my first shift would be Sunday morning kitchen, but I really didn't mind it at all. I liked getting to see everyone come in for breakfast, but what I didn't like was how hot it was to work behind the food serving bar (heated underneath and overhead by lamps). I worked mostly with Samuel, a Brazilian who has been here several months.

Samuel had previously invited me to go to church with him, and he was going to two different services that day. I was really excited to see churches in London, so I decided to go to both as well. Maria Alice (another Brazilian who arrived the day after I did) and Leandro (who has been here two weeks) came with us. We left ten minutes after my shift ended (good thing I can change fast) and walked about 20 minutes away to Holy Trinity Brompton, or as everyone else calls it, HTB.

I absolutely LOVED the service there - it wasn't really large, about 200-250 people at the service I attended (I think there are 5 services though), and it was in a beautiful building (top picture). What I loved most was the heart of the place - the service was brimming with enthusiasm, reverence, and an atmosphere of comfortability that I can only explain as the feeling one gets when one is visiting a large family that all get along together. I was impressed with the service, which balanced traditional liturgy and historical legacy with contemporary music and fresh approaches to modern-day life. Their announcements placed a huge emphasis on prayer meetings throughout the week with focuses on their church community as well as their outreach to London. And the message that Sunday was on John 15:1-17, and was really excellent (you can download it here). All in all, I left so refreshed by that body!!

After lunch and a rest, the four of us hit the tube (after a confusing bout with Alice and I trying to use our Oyster cards correctly) and journeyed up the Picadilly Line to Tottenham Court Road and the Dominion Theater where we attended the evening service for Hillsong London. VERY different from HTB in style and method - the service was very heavy on media and audio/visual worship. The congregation was almost all 20s and 30s. But I do have to say that they had just as much passion and enthusiasm for Christ and His church there, and the guest speaker who gave the message was also very excellent. It was really a great place to crash a service, but I felt that I would prefer HTB as a local body to plug into. However, I still plan to go visit lots of other churches with other community members so that I can experience the diversity of ways that Christians in London worship together.

At the end of the day, I was so refreshed. The small taste I got of travelling around the city and seeing new people and places was like getting a sample at Costco of a really good dessert that you pull off the shelf with the anticipation of getting home to eat it after dinner. The best part of the day was deepening my relationships with my fellow community members who traveled around with me. I already feel like the people here are my brothers and sisters in heart and that this is my home.

First Impressions

First, I get to say that I'm finally posting from London!!! Whoo-hoo!!

This post might be shorter than I'd like, because my hands are sore from playing volleyball yesterday and are protesting loudly :)

Okay, down to business. This place is really nothing like my mind pictured, but its fabulous nonetheless. Let's see if I can paint a good picture for you:

First, on the outside Lee Abbey kind of looks like the rows of townhouses you see in San Francisco, except they all look the same. It takes up two addresses, 57 and 67 Lexham Gardens. All of the buildings around here are old and beautiful, lots of wrought iron curlicues, crown molding, and all the quaint architecture extras you'd
expect. No stucco in sight!!!

The inside is really a lot like an old dormitory. The ground floor has several large rooms for dining, lounging, and playing games. There is a beautiful "garden room" painted green, full of couches and tables with an exit to the backyard garden. The dining room is long and narrow, with about 20 light blond tables and chairs to seat 6 each. A set of skylights and the the large windows at the end looking out on the backyard make it a wonderfully light and beautiful place to eat and chat.

My room is on the second floor (yes! I'm going to get my super-calves back!) and my roommate, Galyna from Ukraine, is unfortunately leaving Sept 10th. Half the people I've met here are leaving within a month or two. Another quarter have been here for about half a year, and then a nice little bunch are fairly new themselves (plus, they are expecting more people in the next few weeks to replace the ones leaving).

I'm doing fairly well trying to remember (and pronounce) everyone's name, but I'll make a list so that you get a flavor for the incredible diversity of the community members (the term they use to describe the voluntary staff people like me):Lizete and Allan from South Africa; Samuel, Maria, and Pedro from Brazil; Martina and Martin from Slovakia; Astrid from Denmark (who immediately told me that she loved how loud I spoke since she wouldn't be the only one getting shushed by the Warden's wife Mary); Andre and Galyna from Ukraine; Beni, Gabol, Victor, Vili, and Anna from Hungary; Antra from Latvia; Vicky from Taiwain, Kyung Ha and San Kyoong from S. Korea; Pedro from Argentina; Fani from Greece; and Emmanuel from Sierra Leone. And I haven't even met everyone yet!

Here are some preliminary pictures - I haven't gotten any of the common rooms yet, but I will soon.

Yesterday, my roommate and my sponsor (a community member from your team that shows you how life here works) gave me a tour of the place, I ate lunch with them, and then unpacked. Samuel from Brazil (until I get them all memorized I keep calling them by
their name AND country in my mind) invited me to "play volleyball" with a couple people after that, so we walked down to Holland Park with Andre from Ukraine and Young Bean (I swear, that's how it's pronounced - I need to ask him to spell it for me sometime) from S. Korea. There was no net, so we just practiced hitting the volleyball around and I didn't disgrace our country TOO badly, although the bruises on my arm testify to my severely undeveloped skill in hitting the ball in the right place. That kept me awake long enough to make it through to dinner, after which I crashed into bed (at 7:15) and slept until the alarm went off at 7 this morning. I love sleep!!!

So, my hands say enough typing - more on my thoughts and impressions to come.