Christmas can be a very challenging time for lonely people, it is the one time in the year when families get together and if you have no family and no real friends you can be isolated for about a week. It was great to hear about the various houses connected to City of Peace and how some of these people were accommodated. In the middle of January I had one visitor over for lunch who said that for the past number of years he has felt very lonely but this year he knows he has some friends.
The Café has been transformed by the new door - it has a shaft of light that blazes it's way across the room from about 12 am until closing time. Previously the room was like a cul-de-sac but now it feels like it has some sort of flow, even if it is due to the cold, only visual! We began by sanding the counter - Carol having a go on the belt sander. It took us a week to get the dust tidied up from the brickwork and then we had to do some painting and cabling and transferring of heaters but now it is up and running and we are so thankful!
We also had an amazing Christmas time - Natalie's mum came to visit and poured out gifts on the children as expected. We ate a wonderful lunch together with some local friends and everyone brought some contribution. We had a fantastic visit to a family who have moved to Tunbridge Wells. We met them in our first sessions of prenatal classes before Hannah was born and both of our children went to St Lukes for 3 years before they moved. They provided lunch at their house where Devrim's dad spent the majority of the time looking after Ella, who she loved (he doesn't speak a shred of English!) In the evening we all went to see 'Peter Pan' the pantomime. I think we may have established a tradition - it was great fun and worth doing again. We also had a nice visit by Virginia, Lars, Maxime and Amelia and went ice skating with them.
But even when the café is closed the work continues. Carol told me how one of our friends who started visiting us 2 years ago, and has now become more permanent, Linda, has taken to educating another aged visitor in literacy. Carol had previously visited the lady and provided her with an audio bible on an mp3 player. She told Carol how wonderful it was to hear the bible and how she would love to read it. Carol knew that Linda is a teacher and put the two together. Apparently they are having a wonderful time.
Now the back garden needs work - it is a mess, different layers of concrete, paving and earth. In order for it to be useful this summer we need to get it landscaped. I hope by the time I get the next post written in this blog we will have some sort of process underway.
