So I came up here with this fatastic intention of 'blogging away' my wonderful day, when I all of a sudden realized... I don't actually remember most of my day. Ooh, Candice! (Candice Young-Rojanschi that is [yes I did check Facebook to make sure I spelled it right, and no I did not spell it right]). You'll love this one. You know, when you get back to using computers and of course decide to read through every blog entry I've ever written on here. As you can likely tell, I'm a bit overtired tonight. Anyways, guess who was in the breakfast hall this morning! Seriously, guess. Here are some hints. 1) Famous Bible historian 2) Bishop of Durham, England 3) First name is the coolest name in the world, i.e. Nicholas, though he often goes by the initials N.T. That's right, if you said N.T. Wright, you've probably read too many books about the New Testament! - Seriously, really, really tired tonight.
The reason for that is that first of all, the day started with my group on break, until all of a sudden we were working at the car park, which is the British equivalent of a parking lot, which is the Steward's equivalent of one of the two ethereal realms. Needless to say, with approximately 800 bishops left to arrive, plus their spouses, we were a tad busy. Once I finished that shift I moved onto reception at one of the buildings, which on the fantastic side, gave me a walkie-talkie all afternoon, but on the not so fantastic side, lasted all afternoon. Anyways, that was a pretty productive afternoon. We got a number of the bishops into their rooms and everything, so they're safe and sound, and most have their luggage. Tonight there was the opening plenary. It will be one of few plenaries, but there wasn't much to be said. It was mostly a welcome and some short instructions. Tomorrow morning the Bible studies start, as does the bishops' three day retreat inside Canterbury Cathedral. They'll essentially be cloistered in there for the whole day with time to pray and to speak in small groups or wander without fear of intrusion from visitors. It's incredible, there's a huge wall around the whole cahedral grounds. It's quite impressive, and quite cool! I was struck today though by how archaic some of the language and rituals are. Archaic in a good sense. In other news, I did forget to update yesterday, but I should note that I finally met the Archbishop of Canterbury (aka. The Archbishop)! He was leaving the hall I was working in and on his way out he came over to say hi. I was quite pleased, he was very nice, but he moved on pretty quickly.
In other news, I was speaking to one of the other stewards tonight. His name's Isaac, and he's from Tanzania (by the way, today I also saw Bishop Mwachiko from Montreal's partner diocese of Masasi in Tanzania). I was speaking to Isaac about commodity prices where he comes from (Dar es Salaam) and found out some incredible things. So apparently one 10 kg bag of rice in Tanzania costs $800 USD - it can be used to feed 6 people for 6 months. An average annual salary is about just over $2000 USD. Now the annual salary figure isn't all that shocking, but $800 USD for a bag of rice, that amazed me. I was also talking to Daniel, from Myanmar, who said that in his entire diocese, there are two computers: one at the library, and one at the diocesan office. Having quite limited experience in the developing world (read: vitually no experience) this things still astound me. On the positive side though, I've been invited to Tanzania twice today!
That's all for tonight folks,
Have a blessed day, evening and etc.
Pray for us! The bishops, the stewards, the staff, volunteers, I think we'll all need it quite a bit pretty soon. Already exhaustion is starting to set in for many of the staff and stewards.
God bless you all.
:). Nick.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Hold on to Your Mitres!
(especially you Jen Otto, seeing as how you're still wearing yours)
Well, it's now 16:08, July 15, 2008, and I've officially been in the presence of the Most Rev. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. Anglifamous indeed! We began this morning with a general tying up loose ends meeting. It started with an actual visit by, once again, the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon. He came across to me as incredibly humble. I was amazed, really. You could tell as he stood up though, that he was used to speaking to groups, because once he got going, he was really a quite good speaker. He was only there for a couple minutes though. Then he left. On any other day that would have been the highlight of, well, life. Except, ten minutes later, as we were going through rotations and the like, I noticed out of the corner of my little eye a flash of brilliant white priestly collar, neatly framed by the fantastic and envious beard of His Grace, the Most Rev. Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. Wow. Missed a beat you say? More like stopped beating entirely for about a minute and three quarters! I was shocked, and stunned. I'm still a tad shocked! Anyways, he only stayed for a few minutes, and said some nice words and then left. It's a little bit of a blur at the moment, all I can remember is standing up and smiling, oh, and the beard of course! I haven't formally met him yet, but sometime soon... sometime.
After that, the real work started! Our group spent two hours this morning receiving bishops and carrying luggage. We then went on call and so I got to tape up signs that had already been taped up yesterday. Apparently the tape wasn't sticking very well or something. Now I'm here, and since I go back to work in 40 minutes (at 5:00) and am on duty until 11, I figured I should jot down my thoughts while they're still (smoewhat) coherent.
In other very important news. Bishop Barry has arrived safe and sound! For all those of you wondering, he pulled in this morning, just before lunch, and so I got to eat lunch with him, which was quite exciting. It's always good to see a familiar face from home, and it's even better when that familiar face is your bishop! He looked well, but tired, and he said his flight went well, so hurrah and thank God for that. Well, if there's anything else overwhelmingly exciting, I'll edit this post.
Oh, P.S. - Have I mentioned how many people there are here who are on the ordination track!? Stewards that is. Of course. I would say a great majority of the stewards are planning on being ordained, and a couple already have been! We have at Least two priests and one deacon in the group I believe. It's quite an exciting group to be a part of!
God bless you all,
Thanks again for reading the Blog!
Over and out,
Nick.
Well, it's now 16:08, July 15, 2008, and I've officially been in the presence of the Most Rev. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. Anglifamous indeed! We began this morning with a general tying up loose ends meeting. It started with an actual visit by, once again, the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon. He came across to me as incredibly humble. I was amazed, really. You could tell as he stood up though, that he was used to speaking to groups, because once he got going, he was really a quite good speaker. He was only there for a couple minutes though. Then he left. On any other day that would have been the highlight of, well, life. Except, ten minutes later, as we were going through rotations and the like, I noticed out of the corner of my little eye a flash of brilliant white priestly collar, neatly framed by the fantastic and envious beard of His Grace, the Most Rev. Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. Wow. Missed a beat you say? More like stopped beating entirely for about a minute and three quarters! I was shocked, and stunned. I'm still a tad shocked! Anyways, he only stayed for a few minutes, and said some nice words and then left. It's a little bit of a blur at the moment, all I can remember is standing up and smiling, oh, and the beard of course! I haven't formally met him yet, but sometime soon... sometime.
After that, the real work started! Our group spent two hours this morning receiving bishops and carrying luggage. We then went on call and so I got to tape up signs that had already been taped up yesterday. Apparently the tape wasn't sticking very well or something. Now I'm here, and since I go back to work in 40 minutes (at 5:00) and am on duty until 11, I figured I should jot down my thoughts while they're still (smoewhat) coherent.
In other very important news. Bishop Barry has arrived safe and sound! For all those of you wondering, he pulled in this morning, just before lunch, and so I got to eat lunch with him, which was quite exciting. It's always good to see a familiar face from home, and it's even better when that familiar face is your bishop! He looked well, but tired, and he said his flight went well, so hurrah and thank God for that. Well, if there's anything else overwhelmingly exciting, I'll edit this post.
Oh, P.S. - Have I mentioned how many people there are here who are on the ordination track!? Stewards that is. Of course. I would say a great majority of the stewards are planning on being ordained, and a couple already have been! We have at Least two priests and one deacon in the group I believe. It's quite an exciting group to be a part of!
God bless you all,
Thanks again for reading the Blog!
Over and out,
Nick.
Monday, July 14, 2008
The Mother Church
Wow, so today was a tad bit overwhelming.
First of all, we began the day in the Big Top, and let me just say, the Big Top is a REALLY BIG Top! Imagine a tent. Now imagine that tent fit 1600 chairs on bleachers with three stages and stage room in back. Basically picture a two pronged circus tent and you can imagine what's gone up for the plenary sessions. Of course, there will be very few plenary sessions. Archbishop Rowan has made it so that this Lambeth will have no resolutions, and so few plenaries will be taking place. Instead, there will be daily Bible studies, Indaba groups (smaller discussion groups) and self select sessions in the afternoons. It will be quite impressive. The job of the stewards in the Big Top will be to usher people in and out and to take care of the communion lines.
At lunch time today, I just happened to find myself sitting at the same table as the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon. You know, no biggie, just the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon at my lunch table... an every day occurence really. Nothing at all. (For those of you wondering, the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon is the General Secretary of the entire Anglican communion. You know, the one who ate lunch at my table this afternoon!) :). That was probably the first excitement of the day.
This afternoon was somewhat slower. We had a CPR/First aid course... in an hour and a half! It was really just CPR, and obviously not very in depth. I feel it's probably a good thing I'm still First Aid certified from last year...
Tonight we mosied on down to Canterbury Cathedral where we were given a closed tour of the church. The mother church of the Anglican communion, with the doors locked! It was awesome, (and I mean that in the somewhat archaic, awe inspiring, oh-my-gosh-I-just-walked-past-the-chair-of-St-Augustine sort of way). While there, I managed to actually walk past the chair of St Augustine, see the spot where Thomas Becket was murdered, see the tomb of Anselm of Canterbury, see the shrine of Thomas Becket and best of all, find a trap door in the ceiling of the tower!!! Apparently through it there's a giant hamster wheel for humans which they used in the construction of the towerto haul up bricks!
Anyways, after that we went out to a pub for our last night before the Bishops really arrive and played a good game of Scrabble! I had a nice South African fair-trade Shiraz to accompany the game, and subsequently lost. I'd just like to say though, that we were doing really really well until the other team won! (Apparently over here, when one team finishes their letters, the number of points you have on your tray goes to the winning team! What hope do you have!? Luiz and I had a 'z' left over)
Well, that's about all for tonight. I'm sure things will be getting significantly more exciting in the next few days! Pray for us all! (Seriously :)) And pray the bishops get here safe. I think the current count has gone down to about 640 unfortunately. I'm not quite sure why yet. I'll be checking. Apparently the numbers have been fluctuating quite a bit.
Love and blessings to you all,
Nick.
P.S. - For all those of you who may know the Rt. Rev. Ralph Spence, there is now an appreciation society for him on Facebook! Find it on my profile if you're interested!
First of all, we began the day in the Big Top, and let me just say, the Big Top is a REALLY BIG Top! Imagine a tent. Now imagine that tent fit 1600 chairs on bleachers with three stages and stage room in back. Basically picture a two pronged circus tent and you can imagine what's gone up for the plenary sessions. Of course, there will be very few plenary sessions. Archbishop Rowan has made it so that this Lambeth will have no resolutions, and so few plenaries will be taking place. Instead, there will be daily Bible studies, Indaba groups (smaller discussion groups) and self select sessions in the afternoons. It will be quite impressive. The job of the stewards in the Big Top will be to usher people in and out and to take care of the communion lines.
At lunch time today, I just happened to find myself sitting at the same table as the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon. You know, no biggie, just the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon at my lunch table... an every day occurence really. Nothing at all. (For those of you wondering, the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon is the General Secretary of the entire Anglican communion. You know, the one who ate lunch at my table this afternoon!) :). That was probably the first excitement of the day.
This afternoon was somewhat slower. We had a CPR/First aid course... in an hour and a half! It was really just CPR, and obviously not very in depth. I feel it's probably a good thing I'm still First Aid certified from last year...
Tonight we mosied on down to Canterbury Cathedral where we were given a closed tour of the church. The mother church of the Anglican communion, with the doors locked! It was awesome, (and I mean that in the somewhat archaic, awe inspiring, oh-my-gosh-I-just-walked-past-the-chair-of-St-Augustine sort of way). While there, I managed to actually walk past the chair of St Augustine, see the spot where Thomas Becket was murdered, see the tomb of Anselm of Canterbury, see the shrine of Thomas Becket and best of all, find a trap door in the ceiling of the tower!!! Apparently through it there's a giant hamster wheel for humans which they used in the construction of the towerto haul up bricks!
Anyways, after that we went out to a pub for our last night before the Bishops really arrive and played a good game of Scrabble! I had a nice South African fair-trade Shiraz to accompany the game, and subsequently lost. I'd just like to say though, that we were doing really really well until the other team won! (Apparently over here, when one team finishes their letters, the number of points you have on your tray goes to the winning team! What hope do you have!? Luiz and I had a 'z' left over)
Well, that's about all for tonight. I'm sure things will be getting significantly more exciting in the next few days! Pray for us all! (Seriously :)) And pray the bishops get here safe. I think the current count has gone down to about 640 unfortunately. I'm not quite sure why yet. I'll be checking. Apparently the numbers have been fluctuating quite a bit.
Love and blessings to you all,
Nick.
P.S. - For all those of you who may know the Rt. Rev. Ralph Spence, there is now an appreciation society for him on Facebook! Find it on my profile if you're interested!
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Habemus Dominum!
A quick note from home... I can now officially (read: finally!) say that St. George's Church in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue has a new priest! Well, we will in the Fall at least. A successful committee I dare say was struck back in... November, I think, maybe. Anyhow, after many gruelling, hooorrible months (just kidding, it was actually pretty quick, and a rather good experience, sometimes even fun!), we've today announced the Rev. Dr. Neil Mancor as our new rector. Congratulations! I think it's safe to say we're all pretty excited to have him join us in the parish.
Canterbury Cathedral today was quite impressive. A group of us went down for the morning Eucharist, and guess who we found, yet ANOTHER former Canadian bishop, this time in the procession, the Rt. Rev. Victoria Matthews (now of Christ Church, New Zealand)! This place seems to be a hot bed of partying for the Canadian ex-bishopric! We love them all, and I think people are quite pleased to have Bishop Ralph and Carol here with us. So far they've been with the stewards every day and for virtually every activity, which has been pretty neat. We have our own bishop!
The rest of today went by rather quickly. We layed down plastic lego/megabloc/puzzle square things all over the grass so that it doesn't get torn up by the thousands of shoes treading over it. At current guesses, there are going to be around 2500 people at this conference, that's like, 5000 feet! Speaking of large numbers, today was the second day in a row in which we had Evensong with the chaplains :). I would say that's a new record as to how many days I've been around both monks and nuns, but I guess there was that Taize weekend thingie back last year. Still, I quite enjoyed it, and fully intend to rectify that personal record someday. FULLY. :). Matthew, I have another idea I think you'll love, or laugh at, probably the latter... Definitely the latter.
Well, on that somewhat cryptic note, I shall leave you all for tonight! Tomorrow is our last full day of training... then the bishops come! At last. I feel like I've finished an entire conference already, and we've yet to begin. Well, onwards and upwards!
Adieu,
Nick.
Canterbury Cathedral today was quite impressive. A group of us went down for the morning Eucharist, and guess who we found, yet ANOTHER former Canadian bishop, this time in the procession, the Rt. Rev. Victoria Matthews (now of Christ Church, New Zealand)! This place seems to be a hot bed of partying for the Canadian ex-bishopric! We love them all, and I think people are quite pleased to have Bishop Ralph and Carol here with us. So far they've been with the stewards every day and for virtually every activity, which has been pretty neat. We have our own bishop!
The rest of today went by rather quickly. We layed down plastic lego/megabloc/puzzle square things all over the grass so that it doesn't get torn up by the thousands of shoes treading over it. At current guesses, there are going to be around 2500 people at this conference, that's like, 5000 feet! Speaking of large numbers, today was the second day in a row in which we had Evensong with the chaplains :). I would say that's a new record as to how many days I've been around both monks and nuns, but I guess there was that Taize weekend thingie back last year. Still, I quite enjoyed it, and fully intend to rectify that personal record someday. FULLY. :). Matthew, I have another idea I think you'll love, or laugh at, probably the latter... Definitely the latter.
Well, on that somewhat cryptic note, I shall leave you all for tonight! Tomorrow is our last full day of training... then the bishops come! At last. I feel like I've finished an entire conference already, and we've yet to begin. Well, onwards and upwards!
Adieu,
Nick.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Oh no!
L'ordinateur, est mort!
It's official, my computer is no longer... :(. Fortunately, there's an all night computer lab just upstairs of me! How fantastic.
I have to say, put a whole bunch of young, interested Anglicans together in the same room for a eucharist and they sound really, really good! Add in twenty Religious and it's incerdible! I've never seen high Anglicans look so Pentecostal before :p, but it was quite exciting. We had two worship services today, and tomorrow we'll be joining the monks and nuns for everning prayer. While here, they'll of course continue to pray the daily office. They're an amazing group serving as the chaplaincy team, and at least one is from Canada! They can sing like no group I've ever heard and their joy is evident and infectious.
Today's training was pretty basic. We were told where the information desk is and were told how to lift heavy things... apparently you're NOT supposed to lift with your knees! Keep that in mind. :).
Tomorrow morning I head off to Canterbury Cathedral for mass. I saw the inside for the first time ever today! If I'm to get there on time though, I should probably be off!
I'll talk to you all soon. Hope all's well.
Blessings,
Nick.
It's official, my computer is no longer... :(. Fortunately, there's an all night computer lab just upstairs of me! How fantastic.
I have to say, put a whole bunch of young, interested Anglicans together in the same room for a eucharist and they sound really, really good! Add in twenty Religious and it's incerdible! I've never seen high Anglicans look so Pentecostal before :p, but it was quite exciting. We had two worship services today, and tomorrow we'll be joining the monks and nuns for everning prayer. While here, they'll of course continue to pray the daily office. They're an amazing group serving as the chaplaincy team, and at least one is from Canada! They can sing like no group I've ever heard and their joy is evident and infectious.
Today's training was pretty basic. We were told where the information desk is and were told how to lift heavy things... apparently you're NOT supposed to lift with your knees! Keep that in mind. :).
Tomorrow morning I head off to Canterbury Cathedral for mass. I saw the inside for the first time ever today! If I'm to get there on time though, I should probably be off!
I'll talk to you all soon. Hope all's well.
Blessings,
Nick.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Day the Second!
Hi everyone :)
Well, today was day two of training. About ten of us started off with an informal American BCP service, for Morning Prayer. I enjoyed it quite a bit! Then again, I don’t remember a Morning Prayer service I ever really disliked. I’m getting to see all sorts of opinions in regards to worship, but there are so many Anglo-Catholics of whatever political persuasion here, it’s fantastic! Part of me still enjoys the earnestness of the churches I knew growing up, but the high liturgies are so exciting :).
Well, the rest of today was spent going over the programme, learning the campus, learning to use the walkie-talkies, speaking about cross-cultural differences, and tackling the infamous “dealing with difficult bishops”. They were all exciting, but the walkie-talkies especially were really neat! They even have the ear buds :p. Just kidding. The rest, I’m sure will come into quite good use I’m sure. What I found especially interesting was trying to pinpoint those ever so subtle differences between
Things here will be getting interesting soon. I’m starting to learn my way around campus and into town, which is somewhat of a hike, but it’s a great town. The marketplace will be going up relatively soon too I believe. Jen Otto, youth coordinator extraordinaire, that means the mitres will be going on sale soon <=:)! My quest to pick up an accent is slowly developing, but I try to hide it. Hopefully when I get back home it’ll be perfected to a tee!
Anyways, hope everyone is quite well. Have a super Friday!
Best,
Nick.
Nick is alive!... and awake at 3:00am
Where to start? This one could take a while...
Well, in super fast mode, I left home sometime Monday after supper. I got to the airport at
Through the magical time zone differences, I ended up in
The next day (yesterday) I got up to a real English breakfast. Apparently deep fried crispy toast is pretty popular here, as are pork rinds – I must say, I kind of sense the early stages of a heart attack coming on, but one that’s well worth it, of course. Try everything once, eh? We had a nice jaunt into town after that where I saw... yes, Canterbury Cathedral!!! Woo hoo! It’s massive, and I haven’t seen inside it yet because they were holding graduation ceremonies, but it was exquisite from the outside (all except the Starbucks in the outer gate – no one was pleased about that one).
In the afternoon I received my high visibility jacket, which is really a high visibility vest, but still looks pretty darn cool! We also got to hear what we’d be covering this week in the training sessions. More on that as we go through it. We also got to meet some of the staff. We ended yesterday night with evening prayer led by our one and only Bishop Ralph Spence!
In short, this place is just about heaven. Prayer beads and religious symbols abound! We’ve even found two religious drinks already, one’s called a Bishop’s Finger, and the other one has a crosier on it! Brilliant. The town of
Alright, computer problems. Forgive my tardy updating, but I’ve had a series of delays. I arrived here and my wireless card was all bent out of shape, which turned out to be somewhat of a blessing in disguise. Once I could croon and woo my computer into actually turning on (which takes a lot these days, I tried for one hour, gave up and then tried again for 15 minutes when I got up at 2:30 am) I had to take my wireless card out in order to stop a huge blue menacing and utterly inescapable error screen from popping up. That’s been coming up off and on for about two years now. I think that’s solved, though, and tomorrow I plan to get an Ethernet cable from the front desk. If you’re reading this, it probably worked! Hopefully things will become more regular now. Alright, more later!
Blessings all.
*UPDATE* - Success! I have access! Not wireless, but it'll do :).
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