Here are some of the dates and events you can plan around:  If you know the Ken Burns that I know, his wife Beth and he are coming May 8-20th so if anyone is interested in being with us and assisting in a leadership workshop come then.  They are not staying in the house so we have beds to offer.

I don’t know much about it but I’m thinking of doing the Solemn Novena at Clonard Monastery.  (www.clonard.com/novena.html).  Anyone who would like to join in a nine day prayer discipline, the dates are June 16-24th

Our Kids Outreach is August 16-20th.  60-70 neighborhood children come.  It is fun work and Barbara can use more help.

I found a meditation group.  They use a John Main talk, meditate, and have tea and craic afterwards.  It meets on Tuesdays from 1030 in a beautiful building.  They are open to visitors.  There are also other retreat centers to explore.  We are looking for people who may want to come to Northern Ireland for a long or short term mission.  Visitation of the elderly and shut-ins is our main assignment but you may have other gifts and Rev Jack is easy to work with.  The interns before us were all young adults and worked with youth each for 10 months.  McCall also takes interns at Downhill Hostel.

Since our thanksgiving newsletter, we had snow for almost a month which turned to ice.  It chilled down to -3 to +3 Celsius.  We delivered traybakes to our visitation list and received many Christmas cards.  Thanks for taking the trouble, we treasured every one.  Our first visitor from College Ave church came on January 2nd and we made a short trip to Scotland.  It looked like a Christmas card scene.  The problem with traveling in that kind of scenery is you can’t see much, or go very fast or very far.  Next time we will go south, although we heard Cork got snow too. 

Besides the Cornerstone community we learned more about Corrymeela by staying overnight.  We also discovered The Lamb of God Community which is also close by.  They host the meditation time.  All of these groups value reconciliation.  We will continue to assist with the Cross Border class at The Vine Centre.  The Shankill Ministry Fellowship meetings continue to draw a dozen or more Christian leaders in the community and we are planning a walk and rally for Easter.  Through these groups we encourage and are encouraged in our work.

We will visit California soon.  If you want a private visit please let us know so we can make time.  We will be in Los Angeles from February 10-16, then home in Berkeley until March 11th.  If anyone has a “venue” that they would like us to address a crowd we’d be glad to or if you want to plan a party we are open to that too.  We can address your mission committee, or careers group, either informally or formally.  We would like to talk about post retirement, a term I don’t like, but it conveys the concept.  We would like to have more groups of friends doing cross cultural adventures like ours and encourage people to think missionally (to be missional means to be sent into the world).

Email: wardstothers@cten.org
Phone: (028) 90 291986  From U.S. 01144.2890.291986

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