United Methodist Annual Conference #3

El Paso has a special place in my heart as it is the home of my daughter and her family. Annual conference delegates heard a report from the Lydia Patterson Institute which provides a high school education near the border for needy students. Of the 72 graduating seniors this spring, 70 are going on to college. The following information is from a CNN report on Lydia Patterson Insititue May 20, 2009

Since Mexican border towns became battlefields in the drug war, American towns like El Paso have become refuges for middle- and upper-class Mexicans.
For students at Lydia Patterson, who live in Juarez and cross the bridge each weekday, the small, United Methodist preparatory school has become a safe haven in the months since drug-related violence in Juarez has intensified.Our students are exceptional, and I always tell them I respect them and I admire their courage because they're living through this horrible time," says the school's president, Socorro Brito de Anda.

About 70 percent of the institute's 459 students live in Juarez. Some are American citizens with Mexican parents; others are Mexican citizens who carry a student visa to any one of three U.S.-Mexico border checkpoints in El Paso that serve tens of thousands of students, white-collar workers and day laborers each day.

Annual Methodist Conference #2: Mozambique

I hear little about Africa and it's problems here in the middle of the U.S., but I am aware that the problems are overwhelming. Carol Kreamer, Mozambique Initiative Coordinator, reported that more than 700 United Methodist congregations, groups, and individuals in Missouri have covenant partnerships
in this country. Despite barriers of geography, language, culture and economics, good things happen. Not only are churches and individuals supported in the faith, but humanitarian projects such as safe water, malaria prevention and leadership development improve daily living.

One pastor shared this meaningful benediction: "Grace is a gift from God to me on its way to someone else."

Missouri United Methodist Annual Conference

According to Bishop Robert Schase, the extraordinary generosity of the Missouri annual conference in 2009 is humbling; Missouri is one of three or four conferences in the entire USA that can say that 86.3 % of congregations gave money for all their church apportionments. Church apportionments cover maintenance and running of camps, retirement and health care for pastors, missions, and partnerships with numerous organizations. To name a few: "Nothing but Nets" for the prevention of malaria, colleges and universities, educational events for young people, the Mozambique initiative to improve the quality of life in that country.

Attendance in the conference increased by 500 in 2008 and local church budgets have increased 10.6%.

In spite of the emphasis on numbers, delegates to the conference were encouraged to return to their local churches with the message . . ."It is not about taking care of me, it is about taking care of others."

Back to the wild green jungle!

After the carefully tended, symetrical gardens of England, it is a shock to return
to the wild green jungle of home. Our flowers are beautiful, but it is all so out of control. But good to be back to what someone described as "the easy charm of Missouri"!

Tea?

How I wonder, just what is a "champayne cream tea with Frank Sinatra recorded music and a tea dance"? Saw a poster advertising this in a village north of London.

"The United Kingdom and the United States of America: two countries
divided by a common language."

Exploring London

I went to have coffee at a flat nearby with the mother of one of Susanne's friends. Doreen and I share a love of books and writing. After visiting for awhile, we took a bus down Oxford Street to find Charing Cross Road. . .site of a famous book by American author Helen Hanff , "84 Charing Cross Road." 84 is now a pizza place, but on the outside wall is an identifying plaque about the 1970 book, a New York City-London conversation about books.
Charing Cross Road was once a "book village" with shop after shop of old and new book stores. Presently there is a Borders, Blackwell's (a big British chain), many restaurants and a few antiquarian book stores. We browsed through old books then went for tea in the undercroft of the National Portrait Gallery. Doreen told me about being evacuated from London as a child during the WWII Blitz. I was deeply touched by stories of sleeping in the tube stations at night
and listening for Doodlebugs, unmanned aerial bombs which made a buzzing noise--if they suddenly became silent, you ran for cover because it was going to explode right where you were standing. To make a day of it, we visited a wholesale jewelry shop on our return home!

Rushton Hall

On the way to pick up my son-in-law, Jens, at the Kittering train station, Susanne drove the rental car into a small village, Rushton, in North Hamptonshire.    We were looking for a place to have coffee as we were early for the train.   Saw a lane marked "Rushton Hall Hotel and Spa" and found a huge manor house and estate with immaculate grounds.   We were shown into the great room, 

a lounge furnished with overstuffed chairs and sofas in a number of seating areas, a fire in the huge fireplace and oil portraits on the walls.  It was breathtakingly beautiful and I stood there with my mouth open, gawking  until Susanne whispered to me, "Stop acting so rural."   Humorous, since that is what I used to say to the girls when they were children and we went to Kansas City.

After we finished our coffee lattes, we drove a short distance and saw Triangle Lodge, a small building with triangular rooms and windows.    Sir Thomas Tresham, of Rushton Hall, also built this curious little house for the keeper of his rabbit warren, a money-making proposition in medieval times.   On one estate, a fifteen acre fenced rabbit warren produced 29,000 rabbits a year which were sold for meat and skins.   Rabbits brought from three to ten pounds per hundred depending on their size and coloring.  

We retrieved Jens and went on for a quiet country week-end at Peacock Cottage behind the National Trust Property ruins of Kirby Hall.