Waiting on hold and keeping faith

This afternoon I spent on CBS admin work in City Hall, where we are still camping out in a spare room, waiting for the new office space in 47 Charles Street to be ready for us to move in all our goods and chattels. At five, Ashley and I decided to go over and make an inspection visit as we'd done as much we could for the day. The place is supposed to be fully ready and the contractors gone by a week today. Neither of us would like to wager this will happen to plan as things stand at the moment. After all the place was meant to be ready by mid-June, but deadlines just kept slipping.

A lot more cabling work has been done since since our previous visit, and BT has switched over the telephone number to the new address, and got the broadband connection working. When we checked this was still the case, however, we found we had a phone line but no internet - probably a casualty of the number switching routine. Ashley got on to the BT helpline, and we waited three quarters of an hour before reaching a live operator. Testing, checking and re-instating the connection took another quarter of an hour. It was exactly the same the day the connection first went live - an hour to get operational, three quarters of it kept on hold. How these clever devices bind us to machine minding, just like their giant mechanical forebears of the industrial age!

On my way to catch the 61 bus home, walking down Wharton Street, I heard the sound of tom-toms, guitar and excited voices approaching me. A group of shining happy young Koreans were making their way into the pedestrian area, intent on having some fun together. One of them handed me a leaflet, grinning as he looked intently at me. He then said in halting English: "You look like Sean Connery - very nice." and laughed, as we parted. The leaflet was promoting the visit of a folk dance group from home, and a special speaker whose name I didn't recognise. 

Closer scrutiny of the leaflet revealed that the young people belong to a Korean evangelical church which meets at the Apostolic Church in Cathays Terrace, where the local community offer them hospitality. It's one of three Korean Churches in Cardiff. One has been here perhaps 20 years, the others are newer, and reflect the missionary zeal for which Korean Christians are renowned internationally. I was discussing the continuing arrival of groups of Christians in Cardiff only last week, and learned that Cardiff now has eight different churches of African origin, quite distinct from an equal number of afro-caribbean origin churches which have been here 25 years or longer.

The secular climate of modern Britain seems to have little appeal for those who come to make their home here, for whatever reason. Faith is too important  to abandon in helping them retain their identity, just as Brits discover too when they settle elsewhere in Europe.