What have we been up to?

Hey all,
I thought I’d fill you all in on a few bits of stuff that we’re up to at work right now. This morning I filled in an application form to get some funding to run a holiday club over the Olympics and to run some more lunchtime clubs in primary schools and employ a schools worker…really hoping we get some of the cash as there are so many opportunities and favour to go into these things. We should hear in the beginning of May.

Next week we’re launching some youth cells for our 14-18s…exciting times! Love that our teenagers want to go deeper with God and each other.

This Friday we’re off to London for the evening (via Ben’s parents to drop off the kids!!!) for a college dinner with all the 2nd years. Looking forward to it, especially as I’ve heard about lots of people from college but not had opportunity to meet any of them yet! It’s funny that these guys have been part of Ben’s life for the last 18 months but not mine.

We’re breathing sigh of relief that Ben’s latest deadlines have passed…yesterday he did a presentation on how to improve welcome at St George’s and one of his tutors came down here to listen and assess it. Next deadline is in a month and is the last one before the next academic year – 5000 words on Galatians! Rather him than me.

Alongside my work here and getting to know people at school I’ve taken on looking after the Missional Communities UK blog, coordinating writers, themes and posting entries up each week. If you’ve not read any of the entries and you’re interested in that sort of thing then you should take a look!

On a much more trivial note, can I just say that the weather here has not been as glorious as I was expecting….I think in my head I was expecting it to be warm and sunny pretty much from march onwards. Let me tell you it’s not like that at all!!! Probably like much of the rest of the uk it has been wet wet wet this week so far and is especially horrible when you’re on the seafront with a strong wind blowing in your face as well as all that rain. I have been promised that summer in Deal is lovely though so I am hoping we get some nice weather in May (although I do appreciate that the rain is very welcome in the drought stricken south).

Signing off now, got to get clobbered up to go out and get Callum shortly followed by a trip to sainsburys as we have about 3 bananas, a lime and a lemon in the house which certainly will not fulfil 4 people’s five-a-day quota. Having leek bacon and mushroom risotto for tea then our young adults will be round this evening!

Hope you’re all having a good Wednesday!
Helen x

P.s. will try and put some more pics up soon but here is one of C&B for now!

After a long silence

So we’ve not really kept this going very well. But having had a look under the bonnet see that people still visit now and again, so perhaps we should keep writing.

We’re about 8 months into life down hear and enjoying seaside life a lot although last week we spent a great few days in Sheffield seeing friends. Was our first trip back as a family and was good times.

Spring means we’re discovering new things in our garden. Lots of birds are coming in, and we’re all getting quite keen at spotting who comes in. Much excitement recently when we were visited by a woodpecker. That big tree in the middle of the garden, it turns out, is cherry and is about to be covered in blossom.

We’ll try and keep this going. Maybe there’ll be another post soon.

End of the summer roundup

So its August bank holiday. Pretty much the end of the summer. H summed up the first half, here’s what’s happened since then.

Moving: We’ve done it! We’re coming up to our 3rd week as residents of Deal. Leaving Sheffield was sad but made lovely by lots of people. We had a goodbye bbq party which was great fun and were completely blown away by people’s generosity to us. We are now the grateful owners of a big new bbq, lots of lego and an ipad thanks to all our friends. We were also given a really cool blurb book full of pictures and messages from our Sheffield family. Thank you!

Getting down here was pretty simple, actually every detail of this move – finding a place, getting School sorted, packing up etc. seems to have been really smooth. Thank you God! We arrived late on a Wednesday evening a couple of weeks back. Were met by two lovely new friends, cups of tea and a huge box of welcome cards and goodies from the church we’re working at. We had a fun night camping out on the floor altogether and then our luggage arrived the next day. We’re almost unpacked – just one box left but lots of things haven’t found there permanent home. Our house is brilliant, we’re especially appreciating the bigger kitchen and garden and the kids seem to be settling in well.

Grandparents and Paris: So we got in, got unpacked, and left! Helen and I are 10 years old this year so to celebrate our anniversary decided to spend a couple of days together in Paris. The kids stayed with their grandparents (first time with that set – all went well and they loved it although C did have 1 tooth less when we came back) and we set off. It was our first visit to Paris and we loved it! We fitted a lot int0 2 days though. Highlights for me were: seeing the Eiffel tower go all sparkly as we sailed past on a boat cruise; eating lots of great french food in little bistros and cafes, looking at Monet and Van Gogh paintings in the Musee d’Orsay and, of course, lots of lovely time with my beautiful wife. After a few extra days with the grandparents/parents/in laws we’re back here.

So now it feels like its time to start to get established here. The cat comes back and the sofa arrives tomorrow. Work starts at the end of this week. School (and nursery we hope) start next. We’re getting a proper introduction at church on Sunday. So its time to go for it. We’re excited about that and looking forward to the commencement of “real life” in this place. That last few weeks have been a blur of (mostly) goodness and have felt like a slightly strange holiday, that’s been good but we’re both looking forward to getting going with what we came here for. And no, that’s not just to be near the sea.

So good summer, lots of fun and pretty strange – and now here we are. Lets get going!

Oh, and my parents are back in England. They had been away for the last 5 months or so with YWAM (had a great time, probably will go back sometime) but are home. Hooray. There are mobile pics of Paris and also Deal on Helen and my FBs and also on my flickr. Better proper photos will come here pretty soon.

Finally – a few people support us through prayer. We send them a weekly-ish prayer text and facebook message telling them what’s going on, they pray for us. If you’d like to get those messages let me know. Thanks.

things are coming along nicely

Well, we’ve just returned from a lovely holiday in the north of Portugal with my family.  It was lovely Goldilocks weather, not too hot, not too cold but just right.  We realised we really should have learnt just a little Portugese before we went though as the part of the country we were in didn’t have many English tourists it seems as many of the waiters/shop assistants didn’t speak any or very little English.  We managed to get by though, mainly by looking words up and going for it with grand arm gestures and a lot of pointing!  It did take us 3 attempts to get Callum an apple juice in a cafe though – one time the waiter came out very proudly with this beautifully presented cut-up apple!!!  Poor Callum was nearly in tears though!  We managed to get there in the end – phew!

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On our return we spent a couple of days with my parents in Surrey (fitting in a B&H trip to a Lamb gig at Somerset House in London – splendid!)  We then popped down to Deal to visit Callum’s school and our new house.  It was great to hear that Callum was 7th of 7 on the list of applications to the school but that the Head had 7 places – thank you God!  Was lovely to see our new house too having only seen photos of it before and to meet the owners.  We spent a while going round with a tape measure working out where to put all our furniture.

The 2 things I’m most looking forward to in the house?  Well that would be the dishwasher, and the garden which is much larger than our current one!  The log-burning stove will I’m sure feature a lot in the winter too

 

So things seem to be working out well for us.  The movers come here to pack up our stuff on Wednesday 17th and we will open the door to them at 9am on Thurs 18th for them to move all our treasured possessions into our new house.  There’s lots to sort out before then although I have just placed our order for a phone line so hopefully we won’t be without phone/broadband/tv for too long after we move in!

Moving

One of the main reasons for this new blog is that we are about to embark on a new family adventure.

Over the summer we shall be leaving Sheffield and moving to Deal in Kent to work for St George’s,  a great church there.  We will both be working for the church part-time, while I finish my vicar-school training at St Mellitus in London.  Our job will be to oversee all their work with people under 30,  that’s kids,  youth and young adults and about 200 people in all.  We’ll also be getting involved with their missional communities as well as all the usual church-leadery things.

Of course we’re really sad to be leaving Sheffield,  we’ve spent a big chunk of our lives here and love the place.  We’re especially sad about leaving St Thomas’ Philadelphia and all the brilliant friends that we have made there.  As we look back over the last 13 years we’ve been there we can see that God has done loads on us and through us and we’re very grateful.

We’re also super-excited about this move.  The job and opportunities feel just right for us,  and the people we met when we visited made us feel very welcome!  It helps too that Deal is a beautiful seaside town.

We’re looking for a house to rent there right now,  so don’t have a definite date for moving yet.  Hopefully some time in August.

If you are a pray-er please do be doing that for us – there’s an awful lot to do before we get there, particularly finding a house and getting a school place for our boy.  Thanks!

Hello world!