The First Week in Wales

This is one of those cases of simply needing to write. I haven’t been terribly busy, but simply haven’t had the motivation to write.  It probably doesn’t help that each time I’ve sat down with the intention of writing about this past week, the internet hasn’t been connected, or I’ve been incredibly tired.

It’s been somewhat of a strange week. Sarah’s parents are visiting her and Bob for a few weeks, and at the beginning of last week, there were a couple students from the last school still hanging around. It’s been good to have people to tag along with when they go places, and just to have people in the house. But overall, things have been quiet here at Gyg (Geir y Gwynt). There isn’t any ministry going on because it’s the summer break, and there’s often not too much to do.

There are advantages and disadvantages of not having much to do.  On the advantage side of things, I’ve been able to get my room sorted out, and process a little from my time in Malawi. Because there’s no schedule, I’ve been able to do whatever I want during the day.  But having so much time on my hands has made it difficult to feel like I’m really at home and to really imagine what things are going to be like when ministry and school starts up again in September.  Fortunately, there’s only been one day when the loneliness hit me really hard, and I had Bob and Sarah and her parents around to rescue me.

This upcoming week will be different, because they (Bob & Sarah &co) are leaving for the Netherlands for a week.  So I may have the house to myself, but there may also be some YWAMers coming for a bit of a holiday.  I just don’t know.  Hopefully I’ll manage to keep myself occupied!

Now for some photos from the past week:

This first set is from the Eisteddfod (eye-steth-vod), which is the national festival of all things Welsh.  The last time it was held in Wrexham was in 1977, so we feel pretty privileged to be able to go to it. It always has a massive pink tent called “the pink pig” apparently.  Then there’s Mark Vening (the national director of YWAM Wales) and one of his daughters, Emily.  Lastly are some locally made harps.

This set is from a day trip to an aqueduct and the nearby town of Llangollen. You can walk across the aqueduct and even ride across on a canal boat if you wanted to.  Llangollen is a great little town-lots of tourists and touristy shops.  And a cute little graffiti dragon.  The red dragon is the symbol of Wales.

Lastly is Chester.  It’s an old walled town that was established during the Roman times.  It was called Deva then.  There’s a lot to see.  You can walk all the way around on the wall, and walk through an old Roman amphitheater.  There’s also a beautiful church that I believe was built during the Norman times (before 1000?).  We didn’t go inside because it cost quite a bit.  But there were a lot of beautiful doors in!