14C some sun peaking through.
Got some paper organized and "desk cleaning". Bowled in MacLeans in pm, then out to friends for dinner. Nice evening.

  They stayed in the area until Saturday afternoon, they visited the church which was very old but made no attempt to find the current pastor. The war seemed to have missed Headingly entirely so it reminded both of the parents of the small town they had grown up in the south of England. Within the first hour of their arrival their minds were made up, this is where they would wait out the coming months or years until they could return once again to China.

Chapter 7.

  They went back to the Inn in London Saturday afternoon, they attended church on Sunday and innovatively Doctor Pearce had each member of his family elaborate through out his narration of their missionary work, the bombing of their hospital, their escape from China and the comfortable years of their medical and spiritual work in British Columbia.

  In a meeting later with the Bishop, he gave their acceptance of the offer of the stewardship of the Headingly church.

  “We are looking forward to the respite you offered but we have been traveling for so long, we have decided to simply go to Headingly, attend services and become acquainted with the people of the area. I would like to have time to visit with my predecessor and hopefully enlist his support in the future. Also school time for the children is not too far away and I would like them to get as settled as possible before classes begin.”

  The Bishop nodded as the Doctor spoke and said with a slight smile, “Splendid idea! I will telephone Reverend Smythe and let him know you are coming. He will, I’m sure, be able to provide you with some guidance in getting yourself settled. There is a manse but you will have a short wait until he has vacated.”

  Later, Doctor Pearce said to his wife, “I do believe that the Bishop had this all planned out. As it is now we are spending our vacation funds on establishing ourselves in our new home.”

  Mrs. Pearce nodded, “Now, now he couldn’t have known which position we would take. You are much too suspicious. Oh how I’ll be glad to settle down again and get the children back into a routine.

  By the time the outgoing minister had left and the move to the manse was complete they had all settled in quite well. For Jean and Mary it was almost as if they had lived their whole lives in England. For John and Margaret it was not so easy, they both missed the freedom and expanses of British Columbia. John in particular found it the most difficult and when school started in the fall he found it even more difficult to fit into an “English Schoolboy” life and routine. Thanks to his mother’s discipline and insistence that grades must be kept up he did very well scholastically although part of that could be laid to his becoming less gregarious than he had been.

  He did respond well to the opportunity to be involved in organized sports and soon excelled in rugby and cricket. He tried out for football but found he wasn’t fast enough to excel.