Day five in New York

 I apologize for not posting last night but this cold is slowing me down some.

Yesterday (Tues) began with Chapel done by the young people and it was awesome. there was singing, clapping, dancing etc as well as thought provoking scripture. The centre of all our worship services is a door, just a door and frame, sitting in the altar space, sometimes open and sometimes shut.
There was a briefing by the Commission to NGOs at 8:45 and something unheard of until now happened. The Chair of the Commission actually attended the briefing and presented "us" with a hard copy of compilation draft #2. Usually we are scrambling to get a copy of the compilation text and he just handed it to us. I already had an electronic copy about 10 pm Mon evening but what he did changes the tone of the event into a very cooperative atmosphere - it is not "them" in the closed chamber and "us" outside the building trying to figure out what is going on.

After the briefing I journeyed to second ave to the Episcopal church Centre to hear Leymah Gbowee speak. She is one of the two Liberian women who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year and she is an amazing speaker. I thought that I had recorded her speech on m y phone but I cannot find it so maybe it did not work, Two quotes from her talk are "Let us do what we profess" and "Good work is bright light and it attracts lots of shadows".

After a quick lunch I headed off to "meet the Canadians" which means meeting the Canadian negotiating team in the UN building itself. They are very good about meeting whoever shows up every day at 1 pm.
However it is a big hike and I guess all the exercise I worked on during the winter is no where near enough. They have moved the entrance to the UN buildings from 45th street to 47th street. So I set out at 12:30 to head over from 44th to 47th, through the entrance and security, through the building to the outside and back to the other building and then all the way across that building, near 42nd.  The meeting was good and we heard about the current negotiations as well as a couple of seminars which the Canadians were pushing. I was fortunate enough to negotiate an exit onto 42nd street so that I only had to walk back to 44th street to go to my room and have a nap.

As chair of the advocacy committee, I chaired the "debrief" Tues. At the debrief as many as can, meet and talk about our day and what is happening tomorrow. We meet at 6 pm at the Episcopal center.  I think that it went well.

After the debrief, the Canadian Anglicans had dinner together at "Patsy's" an italian restaurant. We are not often together all in one place so this was fun. Ellen's husband Tim and daughter joined us as did honorary Canadians Joan and Ross Fraser and Lynaia Main. Good food and a fun time.Delicious calamari.
At dinner I asked everyone to write down the one thing that he or she felt that a Canadian Anglican should say to the Canadian Ambassador. An interestingly diverse set of answers.

 We did not get back until about 10 pm so I did my email and played a few games and crashed.
Productive day. Wish I was not so tired.

Blessings Judy