Where has the last month gone

We are settling into K.L. really well and are close to having the flat the way we want it. Its warm, cosy and a great place to relax after a busy day. We feel very blessed.
This past month has seen us in Brighton and Liverpool. We were in Brighton to spend time with my mum and while down there I spoke at the churches Friday luncheon club and had the joy of speaking at the Sunday morning service. Earlier that week I had spoken for three days on the DTS at Kings Lodge on relationships. I so enjoyed that, because it was the first time I had spoken on a school since I was diagnosed with cancer.


Then last weekend we were in Liverpool for the funeral of Ian’s father Fred. He was a Baptist minister most of his life, a great teacher who had touched the lives of many and it was no surprise the church was packed to standing room only for the thanksgiving service. He is now enjoying his reward. His wife Pat, Ian and his sister Chris are very much in our thoughts and prayers at this time.








The man box











Rita hard at work.








In just under two weeks we are off to Spain where I will be speaking on the DTS and both Rita and I will be meeting with four others to talk through this new role we have taken on as elders for the region. It will be our first face to face meeting with the others, discussing what our role should be. We really look forward to it and to some warm weather!

On the health front I am feeling really well. I had a CT scan last week and have just come back from seeing the oncologist. The good news is the cancer has not travelled to any other part of my body, but the tumour in the lung and bowel have continued to grow though not aggressively. He is recommending radiotherapy which will shrink the tumours some and should deal with the constant cough I have for a time and then see where we go from there. A pre CT scan has now been arranged next Monday at Coventry and the radiotherapy which is for five consecutive days will happen when I get back from Spain. As he made clear again today there is no cure he is just trying to prolong quality of life for as long as possible. We are looking to Dr Jesus for the cure. Thanks so much for continued prayer.

So that's it for this month. Thanks again for all your prayer. They are making a huge difference in our lives.

Togg on the Blogg.

I want to confess something, I’m not a great animal lover so when the girls asked for gerbils I was not impressed and the answer was no. Well, as children do, they kept on about wanting gerbils and they began to wear me down. When they asked again for the umpteen time, I suddenly had the inspiration I needed. I said "why don’t you pray for them and if God answers your prayers then fine". What a great cop out and I felt really pleased with myself.

A day or so later there was a knock on our door and it was a school teacher friend of ours. He said we have two gerbils in our class that we need to move on, Would your girls like them. Well you can imagine how excited they were but I was screaming inside nooooo.

The story doesn’t end there because one day the gerbils got out of the cage and one of then had eaten some mouse poison that we had put down to deal with the problem. I was first aware of the problem when Sharon came running down the stairs saying daddy, daddy the gerbil is dying. I tried to be sympathetic but inside I was saying one down, one to go. When we got upstairs sure enough the gerbil was on its back and about to die. I don’t know what got into me, but I said to Sharon why don’t you pray to Jesus and ask Him to make the gerbil better. She did just that and we lifted it up and put it back in the cage. When I came back about 20 minutes later I couldn’t believe my eyes. There was this jolly gerbil running around as right as rain.

I learnt a number of things from that experience, one being God listens to the prayers of children and both Eliana and Asher have prayed for me over the last few months asking Jesus to make me better. Wow that's powerful.