Chelmsford, England

Wow, what a trip these past few days have been! I've been in Chelmsford, Essex working with Meadgate Church on our first leg of our outreach and it has been a blast. Here are a few highlights:

• Last week we were involved with the holiday kid's club where about 30 kids came for Bible stories, games, snacks and of course our now-famous DTS acting troupe. It was exhausting, but oh, so fun to get to know some great kids!
  
• We planned, organized, and led a kid's club for 11 to 13 year olds, featuring Silly Olympics. The best part was getting the kids to spray whipping cream on some of our leaders' faces and trying to toss What's-Its (Cheetos) onto their faces. I believe the Brazilian team won by just a few What's-Its
  
• Driking 16 cups of tea with my host family over 8 days and enjoying our conversations about the U.S., the U.K., politics, the NHS, education, Christianity, theology...
• Driving around the countryside with my host family, seeing a rat scurrying down the road and then driving through a 20-foot long, 1-foot deep ford. Good times!
• Eating Indian food by candelight and a dozen roses with DTS students and church leaders. It's fun to turn passing jokes and comments into reality!
  
• Having coffee with some older folks and talking about their childhood memories of WWII (turns out Chelmsford was bombed frequently because there were factories the Germans wanted to destroy)
• Hanging out at the pub with the youth group and discovering that they--the English-- have 8 different sauces in packets (french mustard, english mustard, ketchup, barbeque sauce, brown sauce, salad cream, tartar sauce, and vinegar) compared to our, uh, ketchup and mustard packets
• Reading English newspapers and enjoying the quirkiness of British journalism
• Stopping into Starbuks and getting a strange, errie sense of just how globalized our world has become (on a similar note, they did accept my gift card from the U.S. and I got to enjoy some filted coffee for once)

We're here for just a few more days and the we're on our way to Blackpool, apparently the Wisconsin Dells or Branson, MO of northern England. I'm expecting more of the great things that we've already experienced so stay tuned for more highlights!

Cheers!