Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Castlewellan, Here We Come!


Castlewellan Christian Center, site of Castlewellan Great Banquets, 1 and 2, November, 2014
It's been about a year since I last posted to the blog. My own life has been kind of routine with the exception of a great trip to Cuba last April! I was invited to speak to a women's conference in Holguin. That trip was a delight! After the conference, I with 3 travel mates, visited another eight Friends' Churches in the eastern part of Cuba. We were warmly received at each one and had lovely visits in spite of our lack of Spanish and most Cubans lack of English.

Routine is good sometimes and working at the church, participating in Bible study and having half a day every week with Berkeley is a good way to spend my time these days.

I will soon (25 days) be traveling to Northern Ireland with a team of over fifty men and women from several communities. We will be going to serve on the first Great Banquet in NI. It will be held at Castlewellan Christian Center. There is a castle which accommodates 80 or more. The guests have been invited and the teams have been preparing. The excitement is building!

I plan to blog about our trip, our impressions of Northern Ireland and some of our experiences before and after the weekends. I will not share about the actual Great Banquet events. The men's weekend will be Nov. 13-16 and the women's, Nov. 20-23. The teams will be arriving and departing at various times. Some folks are going for one week, some for two. I will leave Nov. 10 and return Nov. 25. The travel itself will be quite an adventure! Ted and Jean Merrill have arranged for a bus to take those of us traveling on the 10th from Howard County to O'Hare Airport in Chicago. So the fun will begin in the church parking lot! We would ask your prayers for safe travel and for all those details to work out so that everyone arrives on schedule with all the baggage! We'll have lots of "banquet stuff" as well as our own personal items.
The dining room at the castle
 The photos are especially for those who will be going on team but have never been to Castlewellan. The "survey" team of six women were there last September. I went a week ahead of the "survey" team and stayed at Castlewellan visiting dear friend, Deirdre Graham.
Baking crumble for dessert for a large group last year at the castle. David, a cook, standing in the background. 














View from the dining room. Small lake at the castle.


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