Heard Tony Campolo speak in London

So I got the opportunity to hear Tony Campolo speak in London on Friday night (28 January 2011).  He was one of a couple of speakers for the speak network.  Very incredible speaker.  He has so much passion for life and for what he believes in.  One of which is supporting "speak."  It's a group made primarily out of mid-20s/30s who are concerned with issues of peace/justice.  I've been on their mailing list for a while, but typically have other work engagements whenever they've got events going on, so this was the first I was able to attend.  Tony gave a couple of stories from his experiences in life regarding mainly "doing what you can" in an effort to raise some money for speak.  We (the crowd) even got him to keep talking after he sat down for about the amount of time he spoke to being with...he's just got a lot of passion.

Speak is a group that has a lot of passion for what it does, but not the resources.  Sounds a bit like my life right now...  A group I'd like to get involved with, but don't know for sure whether anything will pan out due to my own work/life restrictions.

If you haven't heard Tony speak before and he's coming to an area near you - go to see him, he's well worth the trip.  This guy had an incredible itinerary before speaking with us in London...over the previous 2 weeks he was on the west coast for 3 days, then the east coast for another couple of days, back to the west coast, then back to the east coast, then to the UK - day in Ireland, N.Ireland, Scotland, Wales, then London, then back to the east coast... you get the idea - constant travel, no time for adjustment... incredible to do what he does (and at his age - 75).

Busy week coming up as we have a course starting in 1 week's time, lots to do.

Summary of Details from latest LMC Newsletter

A summary of details from a London Mennonite Centre Newsletter which was sent out in January of 2011.  If you would like the PDF copy of it, just contact me and I will e-mail it to you.  I can't post it easily here -not even the text only - I tried.

Letter is from - Jeremy Thompson, Chair of the London Mennonite Trust

Sale of the LMC was completed in December of 2010 for a sum of £3,250,000.  The agreement is for up to nine months until completion.

Bridge Builders (whom I work for), as a product of the London Mennonite Centre's ministry, is going to be granted a one time gift of £105,000 as it works toward becoming an independent Charity.   This should cover expenses incurred in the first two years of operation.  London Mennonite Trustees are still hoping for a possible co-location with Bridge Builders, dependent on an adequate future location, for both parties.

LMC Trustees would like to have a portion of the completed sale for use as an investment to bring in steady income for the future Centre.  They now have under £2,000,000 to work with, including renovation, for use to purchase a new Centre.

Trustees are also in the process of interviewing a possible North American candidate to become the future Director of the Centre.  This is an on-going process and will likely take up to a year from any accepted offers before the Director will arrive.

On a lighter and happier note, a longtime staff member of the Centre was married in November of 2010.

Do let me know if you would like a copy of the PDF.

- Sam

Reboot

So I'm going to try and reboot my blog.  Basically I fell off the wagon in posting and now need to get back into it.  The last six months have been very busy and very much a roller-coaster so I won't attempt to bring everything up to date (beyond a summary), but rather start off on a new foot from today.  I'm going to try to post three different streams with each new post.  One related primarily to the work I do with Bridge Builders, one for my present "life," and one for my prayer requests.  First, a summary of the last 6 months or so...

Spring/summer 2010: 

I completed two additional Bridge Builders courses in June and July, the Church Leadership and Family Systems course, run by Richard Blackburn of the Lombard Mennonite Peace Center, and the Mediating Interpersonal Conflicts course run by Alastair, Colin, and Jo Williams (Director of BB, Assistant Director of BB, and associate trainer respectively).  I particularly enjoyed the course on family systems given the emphasis on looking at your family history through a genogram.  August was a rather quiet month work-wise since the Bridge Builders' office is more or less closed since Alastair and Colin were on holiday the whole month.

Over the spring/summer months I geared myself up for training for the Loch Ness Marathon, starting my training in mid-June.  It consisted of running *only* 3 days a week and cycling twice a week.  I really really really enjoy cycling in London.  It gives me such an adrenaline rush as well as being good cardio.  I also cycled to Brighton from London (and rode the train back) in a day with Will Newcomb, one of the other staff of the LMC.  Definitely a worthwhile experience.  I hadn't ever cycled more than about 30 miles in a single day and we did a total of 73-4 miles or something like that.

Autumn/early winter 2010:

In the autumn we ran two additional "foundation courses" (the week-long Transforming Church Conflict course), one in September, one in late October/early November in London and Cheshire, respectively.  The second course was followed by our "Training of Trainers" course, which I was a participant on last year, so my role this year was basically doing a lot of the prep work for the course, but letting Alastair and Colin get on with it since it was a very short course (3 day).

In the beginning of October I ran the Loch Ness Marathon in a time of 3 hours 27 minutes.  It really whipped me hard.  I was really really tired when I got done.  Basically I went out way way way too fast.  The general flow of the course was the first 8-9 miles being downhill, 10-16 being "undulating", 17-20 being uphill, and 21-26.2 being mostly downhill or flat.  Running down really really steep hills for the first 8-9 miles took a beating on my legs.  I screamed through the half point in under 1 hour 35 minutes, which was a personal record for a half marathon for me, but I still had another half to complete after that.  The next half started to go downhill (not literally yet) until after mile 16.  After mile 20 (the last hill) I was truly hurting.  My quads and calfs were starting to get "mini-cramps" so I periodically was trying to  stretch/loosen them out and trying to take in as much fluids as possible to postpone any further cramping. Overall, a beautiful marathon, but not one to shoot for a decent time on.  I still ran faster than my first marathon, which was on a flat course, by about 7 minutes, so I guess I have something to be proud of, even though I didn't finish the way I wanted.

In November I got the opportunity to go to Vermont and Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving due to the "Moyer grant" - a.k.a. Mom & Dad.  It was really a good trip where I got the chance to see many family and church friends.  It reminded me how long I've been gone and particularly how much some of my cousin's kids have grown.  Not seeing their kids (or them or their parents :-) ) more regularly is one of the drawbacks to being overseas.

Christmas this year consisted of multiple "family traditions" of those living or in close connection to the LMC.  Traditions included: making gingerbread houses, eating oyster stew, eating seafood quesadillas, and eating eggs benedict (my own family tradition which I altered by making half a batch as eggs benedict and the other half as eggs florentine - for 9 people).  Notice how all of our traditions revolved around food :-)

So far in 2011:   

Bridge Builders' has been very busy since the start of the year.  We've got two week-long foundation courses in early 2011, one in February in London, and one in March in Sheffield.   Although they are still a ways away, we've got a lot of prep work to do for each course, some of which is administrative, such as making course manuals, sending out a mailing, making sure people have paid, etc... and some of which is planning how we will do things differently on each course.  I've also got a lot of misc. projects going on at the moment, mostly in preparation for Bridge Builders' eventual separation from the LMC Trust to become an independent charity.

I've done a bit of planning for some holidays to take in 2011, including a trip to Rome in mid-February (17-21) and a half-marathon in the end of May in Plymouth, England (my home town's namesake).  I look forward to both, but still would like to fit in another trip somewhere between the end of March and the beginning of May.  Mulling over a few ideas, but nothing concrete yet.

I would ask for continued prayers for the London Mennonite Trustees as they work toward finding a new location for the LMC.  The Centre is now sold with completion of sale coming later in 2011.  There will be a "friends" letter from the Trustees *hopefully* by the end of January to update folks on it.  I'll try to remember to post the text of the letter here.  Until that time I can't give specifics on when the move will happen beyond that it will be after the springtime, but before 2011 ends.

I would also ask for prayers for myself as I ponder my future and what I might consider doing.  In my mind, I need to have figured out whether I want to pursue graduate school by the end of May, in order to provide adequate time for any possible letters of reference for applications due in late 2011/early 2012 for a start in the autumn of 2012.

Cheers!

Durham & post course.

At the end of April I went up to Durham, which is in the North of England, for a standard foundation course, Transforming Church Conflict.  It was being run by Colin Patterson, the assistant director for Bridge Builders, and another co-trainer, Sandra Cobbin, and myself.  Durham was a really neat little town (seems little now compared to London, but it has a major university), but I really didn't get the chance to see much.  We were just sooooo busy.  Went up Sunday morning (started packing up at around 8:30) and didn't return until Saturday at 1 am.  LONG week.  As a team we worked very well in supporting each other, but we'll obviously have things to work on for the next time we all three work together (Oct/Nov 2010 in Foxhill).  The next time I work on a course will be with Alastair (BB Director) and Liz Holdsworth (another co-trainer) in September in London.

The next two courses I'll be a participant on in early June (Church Leadership & Family Systems) and early July (Mediating Interpersonal Conflicts).  Should be a nice change of pace for the summer, but I'm also really excited to take the courses themselves.

My parents are with me right now (I'm in Ireland) on Holiday until 10 May.  They came on 27 April and we spent the first week in London.  I'll give a short update on what we did after they leave.  I essentially had 1 day of work between the Durham course and when they arrived.  I got back early Saturday morning, had a meeting Saturday before lunch with the Trustees of the LMC (happens twice a year and was this the spring meeting), Sunday watched the London Marathon, and then had work Monday.  Tuesday I headed out to Heathrow to get my parents and we've been going non-stop since.

So I went to Greece (long post)

So I went to Greece for my first major holiday since being in London.  Not that I hadn't taken time off before now (took some time at x-mas), but this was the first time I actually travelled outside of London for more than work or a day/weekend type trip.  I travelled to Greece on 24 March and returned to London on 31 March.  I'll do my best to give a summary of what I did/what I saw, but most of this post will probably be relating to pictures I took.  If you have any questions about my trip feel free to ask.

Day 1, 24 March - travelled to Greece via EasyJet out of Gatwick airport.  Took a 50 pence bus ride from downtown London to Gatwick airport, then a shuttle to the south terminal for a roughly 4 hour flight to Athens.  Greece/Athens probably wouldn't have been my first choice for where to go in Europe beyond England, but some people who were staying at the LMC in November said if I ever wanted to come to Athens/Greece (which I did want to at some point) that they'd have an extra room for me, so I jumped on it while they still remembered me.  The family I stayed with (Heath, Mariko, and their two children aged 12 and 8) were Canadian missionaries who were working for a summer camp that was around 1.5 hours northeast of Athens on the coast, but who lived in Athens for the rest of the year.  Heath picked me up at the airport in the evening, so my first experience was primarily travelling back to their place, but getting a bite of souvlaki (basically pork) along the way.  They live in a flat in Northeast Athens in an area called Zografos.  It's around a 30 minute bus ride downtown to ANYWHERE you want to go.  Nice location, near the university.

Day 2, 25 March - so it just happened to be Greece's Independence Day, who'd have thought?  Anyways since I hadn't remembered this until I was on my plane I hadn't thought of what to do given that most places would be closed.  Heath had thought of this and invited me to come along with his family to a coastal village for the day.  Apparently all Greeks have a village they go to on Independence day where they chill out, eat, drink, walk, etc...So the place we went was called Kato Alepochori.  So I got to eat with some real Greeks, eating real authentic Greek food, and be in a real non-touristy Greek village.  Nice introduction to Greece.  We ended the day by walking down the beach.  The next photos are from that location (the one guy was building a house so we ate on his property).

 

The family I stayed with in Athens

Day 3, 26 March - So the night I flew in I told Markio and Heath of my rough travel plans for being in Athens and then travelling to North/Central Greece to visit an area called Meteora (pronounced 'Metera').  They had been there before and recommended looking at hotels in a village called Kastriki, which was next to the village where the train/bus would take me, Kalambaka.  So I found a cheap hotel in Kastriki (30 euros a night) and booked in since they felt I'd have no problem getting a train ticket on Friday for Saturday.  Well when I went to the little train office I got introduced to Greeks customer service, which in my experience was basically nothing.  After waiting 30 minutes in line I went to book a train to Kalambak..."all full" was the response.  Ok..so can I get a return ticket?..."all full, Sat, Sun, Mon, Tues, Wed"...Ok...where can I get a bus ticket than?.."I don't know"...where can I find out where to get a bus ticket?..."I don't know"... From that exchange I went to the MAIN train station hoping perhaps only a limited number of tickets were sold..nope, same responses, but I was at least able to book a return ticket & a nice lady behind me in line directed me to an information centre where I got directions to the bus station...so travel to the bus station and booked a bus ticket there.  In all my sequence of events for booking my trip north was 1)book hotel, 2) book return from ticket, 3) book travel to location ticket, kinda backwards, but whatever, it worked.  A couple of pictures around Athens.

Theatre of Dionysos

Theatre of Dionysos

Theatre of Dionysos

Odeion of Herodes Atticus

Odeion of Herodes Atticus

Odeion of Herodes Atticus

Yup that's the Parthenon

The rest of the day I spent visiting the Parthenon & sites around it.  I pretty much was able to walk just about anywhere in downtown Athens.  Later in the day I hiked up the other prominent hill in Athens which has a church at top of it.  Pretty view/hike...not too long though only around 1 hr up.

[at this point I decided to just put photos on facebook because it was faster - add me as a friend if you aren't a friend already]

Day 4, 27 March - I travelled up to Kalambaka by bus in the morning / early afternoon leaving Athens at 8:30ish and getting to Trikila around 12:50, then a bus from there to Kalambaka at 1, in Kalambaka at 2 and walked to Kastriki/my hotel by 2:45/3pm...spent the rest of the evening planning my next day's hike, getting some food, and relaxing.  The route up was pretty much right up the coast for the first half of the trip and then cut inland across some mountains and than a lot of flatland.

Day 5, 28 March - Had breakfast (all included in price) of 3 pieces of bread/butter/jam, a piece of cake, a cut up apple, two pieces of meat & cheese, and a large coffee...I ate it all since I knew I would need the energy.  In all I figured I hiked at least 20 miles...up and down up and down and all over...visited all 7 monasteries, although I only went inside 3 of them given that 1 was never open to the public and with winter hours I just didn't have the time to see them all.  A VERY exhausting but fun day.  Pictures from all over in and out and around the monasteries of Meteora.  A guidebook said I would have hiked 20km if I visited 6 of them...and I visited 7...plus I missed turns/trails and did SOOooo much extra hiking it's not even funny.  Pretty much moving nonstop from when I got up until sunset.  The pictures don't really do the area any justice at all.

Day 6, 29 March - Planned to check out of my hotel at 11:30, but the guy at the desk told me I could stay until 12:30/1 at no extra cost.  So I went for a little hike up past a church next to the town up toward one of the monoliths.  The route I took wasn't really well travelled so I didn't see anyone else, and then it got more than a little sketchy.  If you have ANY fear of heights it wouldn't have been a good idea.  The pictures I took don't give ANY real idea of how scary it was.  Wind, plus being alone, plus being really really high up...one part took me three tries to finally go up it because I turned around twice deciding I didn't want to have to attempt to come down anymore.  I finally got to one topish area, but didn't go the final distance b/c the rock was all covered in moss and my starting spot was kind of a round dome that didn't really feel safe to climb up because if I fell at that point it nothing would have stopped me (not that other areas were better, but this just felt worse).  Still amazing to be up that high.

After my descent I went back toward the monasteries and hiked around on some monoliths there too...Did some climbing I probably wouldn't have down the day before due to the sketchy nature of it as well, but after what I had just done it didn't seem so bad...plus plenty of other tourists could have seen me fall and could have called for help if something actually happened...pictures again don't do any justice.

I checked out of my hotel around 1 and walked back to Kalambaka for a 5:30 pm train ride.  Spent the afternoon relaxing in town, got something to eat, and read a bit about the history of Greece from a guidebook I brought.  In case you can tell from the picture of the cross that's up on the monolith...that's the view from Kalambaka, I had just been on the other side of it earlier that day.

Travelled back to Athens on a nice long 5 hour train ride.  The train went through the mountains which was pretty until it got dark.  Once in Athens I rode the metro and the bus back to the family's home.

Day 7, 30 March - I got up a little later given that this trip was suppose to be a holiday.  Went downtown and walked through the botanical gardens and walked around the outside of the olympic stadium.  I wish it had been open for visitors, but it's been years since they let people inside.  Thought it would have been kinda neat to be in a stadium that old and majestic.  Visited the national cemetery, got lost a coupel fo times, but eventually made it out.  Thought about visiting another museum, but decided against it since it was closing at 3 so I went back to the house for a couple of hours.  Took a short hike (1.5 hours up?) into the nearby mountains looking for a view of the city for a sunset.  Once the sun went down I flew back down the hill (15 minutes?) and walked back through the university and local neighbourhood in the early hours of the evening.

Day 8, 31 March - Took my bags to Heath's other job downtown at the beginning of the day and then walked to the Parthenon again.  Visited the museum Greece built for the Parthenon itself and as an effort to try and get the British Museum to give back all of the Greek Parthenon statues etc... that were taken back in the day.  There's a lot of mouldings that had the initials (B.M.) meaning the original was at the British Museum.  After seeing both collections I'd say the B.M. versions are in a LOT better shape.  Probably because they were taken off the Parthenon around a half a century or three-quarters of a century before Greece tried to salvage stuff.  Not to say they should keep it b/c there IS a very nice museum in Athens now, but it does look rather nice in the B.M....I don't think they'll give it up easily.

Took a final walk through the Agora, then went to the Temple of Zeus.  Unbelievable coincidence there...while up in Meteora I had met a Canadian girl who was just travelling around Europe and was stopping in Greece to pick up her sister.  She was staying in Kalambaka and we happened to run into each other on the same trail that turned into a dead end.  Her sister was in Athens and she said she'd be there a couple of weeks before going around the rest of Europe until finishing in London.  Well at the Temple of Zeus guess who I run into?  Yup that's right, the ONLY person I met while in Meteora who wasn't from Greece/Europe in a city of 5 million in Athens.  I've been in London since September and I've seen someone I know on the streets randomly ONCE and that was in a local area, let alone a busy downtown one.  So yea, if she happens to find me in London it'll mean something.  So then it was about time I headed back downtown to see Heath's work & get my bags to head to the airport.  Went to the airport at around 4 pm for a 7 pm flight.  Got to the airport by 5:20ish and my gate by 5:45, but then saw they had changed my flight time (but not until I had passed through security!!!) from 7 pm to 8:50...meaning I wasn't sure if I'd make it home easily due to transportation in London shutting down after midnight.

Landed by 10:20...went as fast as possible through Gatwick airport, through customs, then waited for a 50 pence bus back to London (had pre-booked before I left) and left Gatwick at 11:10..got to my stop on the outskirts of London at 12:10.  Caught the 2nd to last tube two stops and then switched to another line  (the original route I wanted wasn't available to central London anymore), and ran from platform to platform catching the LAST train on that line to the Northern line (my line home).  Switched to the northern line, but my branch wasn't running on that side of it (there are two sides/routes of the northern line that over lap at two spots), so I switched at camden town and ran yet again to catch the last train on the branch I wanted home..walked in the LMC at 1 am.  Certainly got the adrenaline running for the last portion of my trip home.

Whew I think that's it!!