Summer is here

Summer is here at long last and we have had our first English BBQ. I say English, because we have already enjoyed BBQ’s in Portugal and Spain. Sharon and Tim arrived from Canada early June and then all ten of us headed off to Portugal for a two-week holiday. We had booked a Villa with a swimming pool on the Algarve coast and had just the best of times. We swam a lot ,went, out for days, played games and relaxed. It was perfect. The weather was good enabling us to eat outside the whole time with a good few BBQ’s although it was unusually windy.

Just a week later Rita and I were off to Spain for a North African staff conference and then some eldership meetings. Again it was such a good time catching up with friends, sharing in the meetings and giving a very good friend a worthy send off as she moves on to West Africa. That send off, of course involved a BBQ.

Sharon and Tim are still with us and we are all together at present at Ian and Louise’s in Liverpool. Tim heads back to Canada early next week for work but Sharon and the children stay till the 6th August.

So how am I doing health wise I hear you say. It was early June before the holiday that I took a real dip. The cough was worse and I lost my appetite and generally felt unwell. This led to a scan and a doctor’s visit to confirm that the tumours were still growing. This led to him suggesting I start further treatment although I was able to put it off until after the holiday. He gave me a steroid tablet to take during the holiday, which reduced the cough and increased the appetite. I am so thankful to the Lord that I felt so well during that time and was able to be fully involved.

I have now had two infusions of the latest treatment. Its not chemo and has very few side affects, the worse being a spotty face. In fact that side effect has already started. This treatment is only given to about 30% of patients who have a certain make up and was deemed to have some chance of success because it is very expensive. After test they found I fell into this category. Thank you Lord. I now visit the hospital every week for a two-hour infusion and this will continue for as long as it is effective. For some that is three months, for others it is three years. There is no telling how it will affect me. The doctor has said this is the last line of treatment but it is so good to know I am in the Lords hands.

We took a bit of a risk travelling to Spain just a day after the first treatment not really knowing how I was going to react but as you heard in the event I was fine. So presently I am feeling well, have good appetite, reasonable strength and the cough is defiantly less than it was. Rita and I have so much to be thankful for.

Please pray with us about the autumn I have a crazy idea ministry wise, which could be of God. We are listening to see what He will say to us. Well that's it for this blog.

Togg on the blog. (Testimony of Gods goodness) I have been involved in three Olympic games over the years. Not as a competitor of course but in outreach. The first was in 1984 in Los Angeles , where a colleague and I took 75 participants from the UK. It was an incredible time with 12000 from 78 nations and over the time we saw 12000 come to the Lord. At the beginning we heard that a well-respected prophet in the nation had predicted there was going to be an earthquake in the area during that time. That set everyone to prayer and the smaller teams ran 12-hour prayer chains the larger teams 24 hour. We prayed and prayed crying out to God for mercy and He heard us.

After the event an interesting statistic came out of the Los Angeles police department. During the course of a week they record approx. 40 violent deaths. Suicide, traffic accidents, muggings etc. The first week of the Olympics they recorded 0 violent deaths and it was the same for the second week. After the Olympics it went back up to 40. The police department couldn’t explain it but Christians could. There had been so much prayer the enemy had no room to operate