Lookout for the small print.

In February the London City Mission Support Centre called the managers of catering centres in for a meeting to discuss the new regulations that will be enforced in December this year. The summary of the law is that we will have to give an account of the ingredients of our food to our customers and find a way in doing that. It is quite exasperating when you begin to think about it and it has caused some of us sleepless nights. I looked at our menu boards and thought of the possibility of writing the ingredients in very small text with a marker pen underneath each item. But the problem is what would happen when the ingredients change? I had used a DYMO when I was young and started to look for something like that - I eventually found a solution a Brother label maker that prints thermally onto removable sticking tapes! I am quite pleased at the result. Virginia and family came to London, her husband Lars was working at the winter olympics and she decided that they should come and visit us for a month. It was great fun having them here and so nice to get to know the littlest one better. They played together almost daily. There's also the pancake day party which was well attended - this year we had it in St Johns community centre - I don't think it was as good as the previous year - the café is a better venue even if it is smaller. Then towards the middle of March a team of helpers came to visit from Redeemer, New York. They helped Tom and the other volunteers distribute flyers and visit doors as well as painting some local residents interior, and redecorating the interior of Café Forever. We now have a new coat of paint and together with the new menu boards look a notch up!

Maxi visits us painting café

Dec, Jan!

Christmas Lunch

Packed service

Guess what these are!

At the end of every year a large number of people from City of Peace church go on holiday - there's a couple of public holidays and added with annual leave and weekends, you can get to far flung destinations to see relatives for a good long time. We would love to do a Christmas trip but the airlines know the market and so their prices to South Africa are way beyond a family of 4. Next year we will be 5! If you did not yet know, our 3rd child is due towards the end of July. This leaves City of Peace church rather empty from about the 18th of December until the 2nd week in January. Café Forever comes to a close around the 18th and there's a chance to do some maintenance, also the Bellingers tend to be putting in a lot of time with friends. We had a marvellous Christmas party - a total of 8 adults and 4 children - Natalie did well through her morning sickness; I tidied a number of rooms in the café and Ec2it, a small computer support team in London helped us get our system switched over to Windows 7 - I highly recommend them for price, efficiency, friendliness and quality. With the change in operating system all the staff needed to be instructed on the new software and there have been a number of teething problems. I think now we have largely ironed out the problems except for one PC that nobody knows how to fix. Without divine intervention we may have to replace it!

At the end of January we were joined by two volunteers, Emily from USA and Hannah from Jersey. They have got very involved in our work and are good support as well as being able to enjoy the craic. They have also been able to go on short trips to Ireland, Scotland etc... I think it is a good experience for them, a great opportunity to find out a bit about yourself and others.

In December a young girl visited the café. It was a surprise because I knew her, she had been coming to the café and church when she attended school next door, about 5 years ago. She would shout and swear and was very angry when she visited and often got banned. Now she has a little boy who she brought to show us. She said that she wanted to attend the Friday morning bible study with the women and added that she always felt that City of Peace was a safe place and that she could come here anytime. Awesome! According to Natalie she is at almost all of the bible studies and is getting on fine with the group!