LONDON BLOG FOUR

Happy Easter. Here in London we are in the middle of a long, cold holiday weekend -- Friday through Monday. With less than 5% who attend church on Sunday in Britain it is rather ironic that there is a public holiday at all. Since we are not “Brits” many of us have continued to work. On Good Friday we had a 30-minute service after lunch at which I read and commented on the crucifixion story of Luke's Gospel. After that quite a few of us went back to work and some went away for the weekend. About a dozen of us also worked yesterday. The kitchen staff is on holiday too, so Rosie has been doing more in the kitchen with an outside weekend chef who was hired to keep our team fed.

This morning Rosie is making her favorite rolls for dinner, so we will walk to a nearby small church this afternoon for Easter service. Tonight at six we will have our regular Sunday service with our team and others on the campus who want to join us--there is one Romanian, one Swiss, and three Russian girls here in training for translation work who have become close friends of our team. This will be an Easter emphasis and communion.
On Saturday, March 15 our group went to Portsmouth by bus to tour the old and famous naval dockyard. There are three old ships there, two that we could walk through, the other was the salvaged remains of the Mary Rose that sank in about 1545 and recovered from the channel in 1992. The partial ship is in a special building constantly being sprayed with a liquid to keep the wood from further deteriorating. The small museum also houses thousands of items that were also recovered when the Mary Rose was discovered.

We haven’t done much other exciting activity lately; just working. The project keeps moving along; slower than hoped. Renovation always takes longer, costs more and is dirtier than expected! Most of my time is spent putting on the third and final coat of joint compound on all the walls; others do the first and second coats which are not as crucial for the final finished product. There are no other experienced finishers here right now so that part falls to me--final prep before painting.

The camaraderie is very high; we have lots of fun at work, mealtimes, sometimes playing board or card games after supper. It is a great group, but we have had to say ‘goodbye’ to some wonderful people lately. This week more will leave, but there are also some returning to help out in the final stages of the work. It will be great to see them. We have just over two weeks before we leave on April 9. By that time there will be a small handful of people left who will work throughout April to complete the project. A 200-plus conference is scheduled for the first weekend in May, so they need to have full occupancy by then.

Rosie and I are well; our colds are about over; more than can be said for quite a few others on the team. Most of all we are happy and feeling fulfilled in the work, our friendships, the accommodations (shown here), etc.. We talk to our family and some friends regularly by Skype, a computer and internet program. We can call regular land line or cell phones for about two and a half cents per minute. But someone else has Skype we can only receive emails and thanks to many of you who have written.
We say again, you can anonymously leave a comment at the end of this blog or write us an email at: abner_bauman@wowway.com

Hope you have a good day and the week coming up.

With our love,

Abner and Rosie

Blog three London

It is time for more on London. We are now in our seventh week here at the Wycliffe Centre and it seems like only a short time.

Good progress is being made on the work project but it seems like time is slipping away before their first scheduled week of conference. Everybody is working hard; our biggest frustration is the lack of some much-needed tools that we keep begging the leaders to buy!
A number of us have had colds but the English weather is cooperating. Over the last two or three weeks we have had a record number of sunny days for this time of year. There is often frost on the grass in the morning but it warms up to high 40s or mid-50s. For three weekends we visited with friends in different parts of London. Not only do we see many parts of the area but it has been wonderful (a blast) to visit longtime friends in St. Albans and Luton. It was exciting to see some ruins dating back to the time of the Romans and the huge Cathedral built in honor of St. Alban, the first English martyr back in the fourth century.

Last Thursday I came down with an ear infection needing to see a doctor at a nearby medical clinic. The antibiotics and warm compressions he prescribed quickly gave me some relief. I wasn’t up and around much over the weekend, but went back to work today (Monday) feeling much improved.
On Saturday Wycliffe provided a coach to take us on a trip to Bath, the old Roman city with relics of the supposed healing baths of spring water. It was a cool, cloudy day but great to tour a bit of the old city. The two-hour drive through the countryside was very picturesque.

Some of our friends here have returned to the US and Canada the past few weeks and other people have come to replace them. We hate to see people leave but they had only committed for shorter times. Rosie and I have extended our time here; yesterday I changed our flights to Chicago to April 9. We will be here for three additional weeks. Hopefully, the project will be about wrapped up by then.

Thanks again for traveling with us; pray for us as we come to mind--for good health, freedom from accidents, good relationships with the team, etc.
We wish you well; we’d enjoy hearing from you via comments at the end of the blog or by email:
abner_bauman@wowway.com
If you have Skype you can connect to us at: abrosie

Goodbye

More On London

Hi friends:
A lot of Thames River water has gone under a dozen bridges here in London since we last communicated about our travels. Rosie and I have been in England for a little over three weeks now. It has been a great time; we have enjoyed most every minute of it (well, almost every minute!).
One of the first weekends we went to Oxford by public bus. Some of us took a walking tour in the University area; quite different from our concept of a U in the US. Oxford is made up of over 35 independent residential colleges, large and small. It was a good look around (covered market, shops, etc.) before catching a bus back to the Center.
The following Saturday we all went by coach bus to Bourton-on-the-Waters and Stratford-Upon-Avon (Shakespeare country).
Both places were beautiful, mostly sunny giving us a good time walking around to see Shakespeare’s birthplace, the church were he was buried, the theaters in town and other sights, but we didn’t have time to take in a play.
This past weekend we went to London, visiting the son and daughter-in-law of a cousin of mine and their 9-month-old boy. We got a ride down with a couple who come here to work every Friday and then take couples to their home for the weekend.
On Saturday morning our friend walked us to The Tube (Underground) and from there on we were on our own in the city. From St. James Station we walked to Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Tower Bridge, the Tower of London--the big tourist sites. We walked for miles, but it was fun to see the sites again after 36 years since we were last here. From the Tower we took 3 different double-decker buses across town to within a few blocks of our friends house. On Sunday morning we walked to the nearby church with the family and then went out for a Thai dinner before coming back to the Wycliffe Center. We had a fun time together.

The work here is going well. Every day is a full one--meals, coffee breaks, devotional session, visiting with so many wonderful people. And, yes we do work too, about 7 hours a day for me on construction and about 5 for Rosie in the kitchen. Most of my time is spent putting up drywall and joint compound; and occasional sanding as a final prep for painting. Two to 4 guys work with me each day so I give some supervision of the drywall process. I am enjoying the work in spite of all the dust and mess!

Rosie and I are enjoying our time here--the friendships we have made, the camaraderie, the food, the sightseeing and the work. I’ve done the Sunday evening chapel once, and two of the morning devotions. Last night I stayed up until 1 a.m. to watch the first half of the Super Bowl game. Several guys stayed up until 3 a.m. to see the finish--they were glad they did!

Thanks for traveling with us.

Abner and Rosie

England Service Trip

Wycliffe Center - Horsleys Green, Burminghamshire, England--an hour NW of London

It is time for another blog! Our last one in May seems so long ago. We spent the better part of summer and fall 2007 at home. I was working for the church helping with a major renovation project for the children’s ministry. Between times we went to camp for two weeks (Rosie’s 28th or 29th annual cooking adventure up at UPBC), two trips to Ontario, the holidays with some of our family, and a basement family room project for a friend.

Now we are in Horsleys Green at the UK headquarters of Wycliffe Bible Translators. They recruited a group of volunteers to help in a major renovation of a housing area on the second floor of the dining hall, meeting room, coffee shop and gift shop. About forty people are here now from many parts of the USA and Canada; many of them strangers to us until arrival, but some familiar from our time in Orlando last winter.

Everyday Rosie works in the kitchen for about five hours, takes walks and visits with other women, among other things. I work upstairs on the construction site about seven hours (including two coffee breaks!). The first days I was assigned to help pouring and troweling concrete. After two days of that I was shifted to drywall work. Now I have four people who work with me putting up what seems like tons of drywall, Yesterday we started mudding (joint compound) a few bathrooms that they want painted ASAP so the plumbers can install all the fixtures.

Many men and women are working on different phases or parts of the building project -- tearing out old walls, erecting new walls, steel work, cleanup, plumbing, electrical, design, When finished there will be 29 bedrooms with private baths. They will be used for better accommodations for Wycliffe personnel training for Bible translation; also for local conferences, training and retreats.

We are not suffering over here! The accommodations are quite adequate with a private room and across-the-hall bathroom. There is another couple and a single man in the same “flat.” The meals are very good and plentiful; and the fellowship around tables is excellent. There are so many people that we can identify with - grandchildren, missionary experience, travel, etc. The weather has been cool, cloudy, rainy and two days of some sunshine, but we are having fun and enjoying the involvement with very dedicated, sincere Christians from many different backgrounds. I wish some of you were here, but they have already turned away about forty people who volunteered (too late) for this project.

On Saturday we plan to take a bus trip to Oxford, about 20 miles up the road. We will tell you about it.

Our love to you all.

Abner and Rosie

Home Again For Now

Home again for now
It seems like a long time since we were roaming around Florida. We had a short visit to St. Augustine, FL and then up to Jekyll Island and St. Simon Island. Both are just off the coast of Brunswick, GA along the inland waterway. There is a small historic church in St. Simon where John Wesley was a minister for a few years before his “conversion experience” after which he started the Methodist Church. The graveyard is also where the author, Eugenia Price, is buried.

We continued up the coast to Savannah, GA, an historic and beautiful place. After having visited the Spanish fort in St. Augustine, it was interesting to visit the old British fort in Savannah. Both sites were significant in the early settlement days.

On our way to Charleston, SC we spent a night in Bluffton with a couple who have stayed at our house for a few weeks while we have been gone. Their son and daughter-in-law are friends of ours who live near us. It was fun to meet them; it seemed like we had known them for a long time.


If you like history and old houses then Charleston is the place for you. We spent an afternoon touring the city and walking the streets, but didn’t end up hanging around for long. Instead we headed off toward Waxhaw, NC, just south of Charlotte. It is the location of the JAARS international headquarters. JAARS is the aviation, radio and tech division of Wycliffe Bible Translators. We spent a day with some friends, Tom and Mary Beekman, who have been missionaries with JAARS since shortly after I married them 28 years ago. (Yesterday, 5/15, Tom and another pilot left Switzerland with a new airplane en route to Sentani, Papua, Indonesia. Today they expected to arrive in Egypt, tomorrow Oman, then on to India Malaysia, Bali, and Sentani.)

Easter was a special day for us; not only the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus, but also being with friends, the Barbers, at their new church. The family was at Arlington for seven significant years before moving back to the Charlotte area to start a new church. It was a pleasure to be at their Easter service and also to spend the afternoon with their extended family. Oh, the joy of Christian fellowship!


We also visited other friends in various parts of North Carolina; one fellow we hadn’t had any contact with since he left our team in Singapore in 1962 to come home and get married. The two-hour lunch with him was special, as were some other unexpected connections with longtime acquaintances. From North Carolina we went through the Appalachian Mountains to Tennessee on a snowy afternoon; fortunately the snow melted on the road but we couldn’t see any of the countryside, which they say is beautiful!

For five days we parked at a Christian camp where I helped in their construction of a new chapel. They hope to have it ready for the summer camping season. We have known the couple who started the camp over thirty years ago; they have been after us to come and help at the camp, so it was fun to give them some time on the building project. Then we went an hour north to the Nashville area to visit some friends from Arlington. We spent Saturday night and Sunday with them and then headed home to Illinois.


After ten days at home we went to Kirksville, MO to be with our granddaughter, Shaina, for her graduation from Truman State University. Our son, Keith, and his wife came up from Albuquerque, NM for the graduation, so it was a fun family time. Shaina has many wonderful friends at TSU; some of them have been up at our house before, so it was a great time of celebration with all of them and some of their parents.

Last week Rosie worked at the flower shop for a few days in prep for Mother’s Day. I have been helping in some renovation work at the church, so we keep enjoying ourselves and making ourselves useful! On Friday we plan to fly out to California for two weddings. Rosie’s great-niece is getting married this Saturday, and the following week Rosie’s sister, Anne, will be married to a man whose wife died several weeks after her husband died last year. They are both in their eighties, lonely after losing their spouses, and were good friends as couples for many years. They will be married in a courtyard at a restaurant in a very brief ceremony which I will conduct. It should be a fun day!

The rest of the summer we will be around home most of the time. Rosie will do flowers for some proms, graduations, and weddings at the shop. They are always glad for some extra help at the peak times. I will do some work at the church and we will go to family camp again at the end of July and early August. In the meantime we will see our younger grand children a time or two, take them camping for a weekend, help Eric put a new roof on a small duplex, etc.

We hope you have a good summer: enjoy the outdoors, visit with families, vacation, etc. If you want to tell us what you are up to you can click on “Comments” at the end of this blog and give us some news. We would love to hear from you.

God be with you; grace to you,

Roaming Around Florida

For two weeks we have roamed around the south tip of Florida. From Orlando we drove to Key Largo, the first Key south of Miami. We had the pleasure of staying at some friends’ condo for five days overlooking the ocean. It was warm and beautiful. One day we drove to Key West, the last Key in the 90-mile chain of islands connected by 42 bridges, one being seven miles long. It was fun to see although not all that attractive or appealing to us. Another day we went on a boat ride four miles out to a coral reef. The waves were about four feet that day so both of us didn’t feel too well after looking through the glass-bottom boat for about 30 minutes. But it was a good tour.

Each morning they served a complimentary continental breakfast at the cafe, then we would try to do some walking, before enjoying the pool. One day it rained most of the time so we stayed in the condo most of the time; a good chance to read and relax. We explored the area some, enjoyed a delicious seafood sandwich one evening, and found a good ice cream shop.

After we checked out of the condo we went to Flamingo, the south tip of the Everglades National Park. We stayed there two nights, walked some trails, took a boat tour up a canal into a large bay, enjoyed the ranger programs each night; saw lots of alligators and birds. The Everglades were not quite what we had expected but it was fun.


From there we went up the Gulf coast; drove through Marco Island, up to Fort Myers. We stayed one night with some friends in Sarasota, then joined friends vacationing at an RV resort in Dunedin, north of St. Petersburg, for two days. It was fun to be together, especially since they have camped there before and knew the area very well. They showed us the best sights, including sunsets over the Gulf.


Yesterday we came back to Wycliffe in Orlando to pick up our mail. I worked on the building project again for a day and a half. Tomorrow morning we say goodbye to our new friends here and head up to St. Augustine for a day, then up to Savannah, GA for a few days to see the historic city and visit some friends too.

We have enjoyed the six weeks in Florida, especially the 80 degree weather, sunshine, evening breezes and getting to meet many lovely people. Hopefully, it won’t get too cold as we go north.
Hope you are doing well and enjoying the springtime.

By clicking the ‘comment’ button you can let us know you read this and tell a bit of what you are up to.

God bless!

Finished At Wycliffe

Believe it or not, we have been in Orlando (at Wycliffe Bible Translators) for four and a half weeks. It has been a fun experience.

The weather has been beautiful -- most days in the high 70s or low 80s with lots of blue sky and sunshine. Several nights were in the 40s, but that isn’t hard to take when it warms up so quickly as the sun comes out.

I (Abner) have been working on the new building every day, four or five days a week. My work has been varied; some on the outside of the new building, some in the inside. Usually I have worked with two or three other guys, some very skilled, others more like helpers.

We have fabricated and installed metal boxes and soffits, put up mesh and plastic expansion joints for the stucco exterior, cut and welded window mullions, and lots of other smaller stuff. It has been very enjoyable and they have assured me that I would be welcome to come back on the job anytime.

Rosie has been working in a variety of jobs -- answering phones, working at a thrift shop, purging old clinic files, sorting stamps, washing dishes in the Cafe, helping serve lunch to a kids group, etc. Two weeks ago she fell and hurt her wrist/hand so she has been limited recently on what she can do. The swelling has diminished and it is feeling much better, though not completely healed.

We took two Fridays off; one to go to the Kennedy Space Center (about 45 miles east), and one to go to North Palm Beach for a weekend to visit friends.
The KSC was very enjoyable, seeing the launch pads, exhibits of all the space travel, rockets and engines, IMAX movies of landing on the moon and the International Space Station. One astronaut (in person) described some of his space travel, including a trip to the ISS. The next space shuttle was on the launch pad to lift of in mid-March, but a severe hailstorm did some damage to the fuel tank so it had to be moved back into the “shop.” It would have been fun to see a liftoff while were were down here, but it has been rescheduled to mid-April.

We had a relaxing visit with Kevin and Eloise Dyer in North Palm Beach. It was great to reminisce, eat Indian curry, look out over the inland waterway with its many boats, shop a bit, and spend some time in prayer together. It was a refreshing time.

As the days have gone by we have met many very nice people, some that we have known in the past, or who know people that we know, etc. It is a small world, especially among Christians with whom we share so much in common. We have had several visits with Dave and Linda Marcy (from ACC) who have been on staff with Wycliffe for over 25 years. Last evening we had dinner together at the famous Dixie Crossroads in Titusville.

Today we visited the Holy Land Experience, a Christian exhibit center not far from Disney World. It is a mock Jerusalem with walls, gates, a marketplace, the temple court, a scriptorium, Golgotha, and the garden tomb. There were several stages where they did musicals, enacted a wedding in Cana, Jesus talking to people, healing the sick, movies explaining the biblical message, etc. All well done, and worth the hefty price tag!

Tomorrow morning we plan to leave for Key Largo and the Keys for a week. We will be staying in some friends’ condo right on the beach. That should be fun; no schedules to keep, no work to do, just relax and enjoy! We are looking forward to the experience.

We would love to hear from you; you can make comments at the end of the blog or send us an email: abner_bauman@wowway.com.

The Lord be with you,

Abner & Rosie

Florida Bound 2007

Hi friends:

Welcome to our travel blog. There aren’t any snow-capped mountains in Florida so the pictures won’t be as dramatic as the Alaska trip last year, but thanks for tracking with us.

We left home (Prospect Heights) on February 5 on the morning it was minus 10 degrees F. It was a beautiful traveling day and by evening it was in the 40s in Evansville, Indiana; a very pleasant improvement. We stayed with friends who were at Arliington Countryside Church (ACC) 25 years ago and now retired from missionary work. It was fun to see them and to see their daughter’s family (3 grandkids) who were the magnet bringing our friends to the Evansville area.

The next day we drove through to northern Atlanta, GA to visit more ACC friends. After two nights we drove a short distance to friends with whom we went to Emmaus Bible School in the late 50s. This was the first time we had seen them on their turf. After two nights with them we moved across town for two nights with more ACC friends. We had a great time catching up on family news.

On Monday and Tuesday we drove the rest of the way to Orlando and got settled in a campsite a few miles from Wycliffe Bible Translators (WBT) USA headquarters. On Wednesday morning we went through a brief orientation, had a photo ID hung around our necks, were given our work assignments for the afternoon and met some long-time acquaintances from Illinois and California. A man who Rosie hasn’t seen since she was 15, introduced himself and said he knows who she is! Rosie has some recollections of him.
Rosie is a floater--she gets assignments on a daily basis and I am working on the new building that Wycliffe Associates are building adjacent to the WBT’s headquarters. The Wycliffe Associates is a volunteer organization that helps WBT. Over 100 volunteers are here right now helping on the building and other projects. The Wycliffe RV park is full with 60 RVs but this morning we were able to move to the park; it is much more convenient to be here and it will help us get better acquainted with many people here.
The Wycliffe Associates have an activities center where we meet each morning for devotions, have our mid-morning and afternoon coffee breaks, Sunday evening worship, Tuesday potluck suppers, and have internet access to get our emails via a wireless router in the ceiling. There is a free laundromat across the drive in the RV park. So, you can see we aren't hurting at all--lots of conveniences and no snow, no freezing temps; just sunshine and the honking of the many sand cranes,

Maybe you could be a Wycliffe Associate volunteer too sometime.

Our love and best wishes to you,
Abner & Rosie