Author’s Note: I stopped blogging regularly in 2020, but now in 2023, I am using Google Photos and Google Maps timeline to recreate a post about what we were up to each month!
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September 1st is the start of the Methodist year here in the UK, and September 1, 2020 was a big one for us! I officially started work as a full-time presbyter in the Newport and Lower Wye circuit of the Methodist Church in Britain. I made Joel take a “first day of school” type picture for me on our front porch. After that, my superintendent, Gordon, came to pick me up and take me to my first official staff meeting.
That evening we went for a long walk around our neighborhood and the surrounding areas. We are still in constant disbelief that we get to live in such a beautiful place! This view is up a very large hill from our first manse, about a five-minute walk.
I am continuing my practice of taking Friday as my day off, so on my first official day off from work in the UK, we went to visit Steve! He and his parents moved from England to Wales around the same time we did, and they now live about an hour down the road from us, just outside of Bridgend. So we went to go see their new house and catch up. Since the kitchen wasn’t fully unpacked yet we got a takeaway for dinner, and for some reason took our signature selfie in the shop. (I think Joel was hungry, thus the weird expression on his face!)
On Saturday, we were introduced to the lovely British tradition of a car boot sale! They don’t really do garage sales around here (maybe because lots of people don’t have garages?) but a car boot sale is essentially the same thing. Everyone drives to a location, this was a sheep field just outside of Monmouth, and sellers set up their wares outside of their car boot (aka trunk.) It was so fun to explore and hunt for treasures in such a gorgeous location. This particular sale was held every Saturday in Monmouth (except in winter) and we went fairly often!
Then on Sunday, it was my official welcome service! Normally, this would be a fairly big deal with people from all over the circuit attending. Unfortunately, Covid restrictions meant mine was much more low-key. We invited people from the churches I was going to serve only, and even then people had to make reservations so we could make sure everyone would fit within the restricted two-meter distanced seating chart. But the Chair of District, the Rev. Stephen Wigley did come, which was cool. [Fun fact: Way back when I was first exploring coming to the UK as a minister I did a couple of skype calls with him, and now he’s my boss!] I am also starting to get used to wearing a collar, at least for official functions. This isn’t something Methodist ministers do in the US, but it is here! I didn’t take any pictures of my welcome service, so here’s a selfie in my collar after the fact.
After an exciting first week, we settled into the blur of working and continuing to work on putting the house together. We were still waiting on our shipment of stuff from the US, so we didn’t have much to work with. We did bribe Steve into coming over to help hang the TV on the wall.
Largely because of Covid, I made it my goal to visit everyone in my church within my first couple months of work. Normally, I would have just settled for meeting people at the fellowship time after services, but at this time, we were doing services in person, but not fellowship. So, I started setting up garden visits with everyone. Bonus - this meant I got to meet people’s pets! Just look at this friendly chap shaking my hand!
I snapped this photo after an evening service in Trellech one Sunday - it’s a good illustration of ministry in the pandemic! I came armed every week with my tablet, hymnal, mask, and hand sanitizer.
One Thursday while I was attempting to write my sermon for the coming Sunday, we had a knock on the door. It turned out to be a neighbor and church member who offered to take us on a little trip! We all donned our masks and hopped in Mike’s car and he drove us up to Sugarloaf Mountain, about a 30-minute drive away. The weather was perfect, the views were stunning, and when Mike saw us taking a selfie he offered to take a photo for us - so here’s a rare picture of Joel and I that isn’t a selfie!
As part of my “meet everyone in the church” campaign, one church member graciously offered to host an afternoon tea outside on her patio. We were lucky that the chosen Saturday had perfectly sunny weather so we could all sit outside and be Covid-safe. Anne runs a B&B out of her home so she is an impeccable host - the food was incredible and the scones were some of the best I have ever had!
My birthday celebration was low-key this year. Steve wasn’t able to come on the actual day but he did come a few days early and we broke in our new fire pit! I have been longing for one of these since we last had our own house so it was nice to sit outside by a fire again.
The next day we had early cake! Since Covid taught us that blowing out candles on a cake is a hygiene nightmare (how had I never realised this before?!) we bought sparkler candles instead. I plopped them in a store-bought chocolate cake and voila! Birthday cake!
The day before my birthday we ended up in Gloucester for some reason…I don’t remember exactly why, but I think we might have been going to an Argos to pick up some stuff we ordered? I remember we had time to snap pictures outside of Gloucester Cathedral…but not go inside…this is the problem with writing these posts 3 years later! Anyway, here’s a cool picture of Gloucester Cathedral, where I apparently was on September 23, 2020.
On my actual birthday, I only have a sad picture of it raining outside and some Facebook screenshots of LLR Halloween leggings I was eyeing…so apparently it was not a very eventful day, lol. But I guess it’s good to remember what our garden in Monmouth looked like! This view is out the back kitchen door.
One thing that is very different about the church here is that I don’t preach in every church I serve every week. I have so many of them that it’s literally impossible! So the way it works here is that the whole circuit (18 churches, 4 ministers, lots of lay preachers) makes a preaching plan every quarter. This makes sure that every church has someone preaching/leading worship for every service. What really throws me is that they give you a lot more time off here. It was literally written into the handbook that I should take one week off within my first three months. That is unheard of in the US.
So that is a long way of saying that I had the last Sunday in September off - no services to lead. So what did I do? I attended services instead! Joel and I went to Monmouth in the morning, and then I went to one of the smaller chapels in the afternoon to support a lay preacher in training who was also a church member at Monmouth. I love the fact that I get to just attend church here sometimes - that almost never happened when I was working as a minister in the US - if I was at church, I was working!
Again because of the pandemic restrictions, we sat in the balcony and you can see some of the pews blocked off for social distancing purposes.
And that’s a wrap on September 2020! It was a busier month than it looks here - I just flipped back through my diary and had tons of things on the schedule. However, since a lot of it was individual meetings with church members I didn’t take very many pictures for privacy reasons. And that must be the lowest-key birthday I have ever had! Darn pandemic.
XOXO, Bethany