Friday, 13 November 2009

Autumn at Min Yr Afon

Dear Friends,

Once again our apologies that it has taken so long to write.

Well there's lots that has happened in the last month...

We were very grateful of being able to share back at St. Johns Church in Tunbridge Wells. It was wonderful to catch up with old friends and we miss you all! We would like to say a huge thank you to those of you who made donations to Hiraeth. These have enabled us to get re-roofing booked for next week, and we are looking into new heating systems. We are doing extensive research in this area as it is important that the system we install is efficient, eco-friendly, cost effective etc. but at the same time, with Clive's health needs to be easy to maintain.

We are still waiting to hear from the hospital regarding Clive's next hernia operation.

We also have the flood survey booked for next week (if we haven't sunk by then - look at the weather!!!!!) Please pray for this!

After returning from Tunbridge Wells we were able to visit our good friends, Keith and Ruth Wynne, at John Stott's place - The Hookses. And what a place! It was a welcome day off for us. The views were stunning, we enjoyed a lovely walk along the cliffs and beach. We hope to spend longer there in the future.

Tomorrow Gaynor and Menna are attending a training morning for a local schools outreach program. An interactive 'Jesus' bus is travelling around and sharing the gospel - we will know more after tomorrow!

The house is coming together. We still have so much to do but we're getting there!
We are hugely looking forward to decorating for Christmas. More importantly it will be wonderful to have Lloyd with us.

Luke is visiting with his girlfriend at the end of the month before they travel back to India. He was able to spend a long weekend with us recently, with a friend of his. They managed to do a couple of walks and helped cut logs for the fire.

It has certainly been a month of visitors! And from all four corners of the earth.

Dave and Debbie, from St.Johns, stopped by with the boys for the day. They were immensely helpful! With paint brushes in one hand and axes in the other!

We were joined by a dear, dear friend from Canada who's lovely wife recently passed away. They used to serve with us in Central Asia.

Following this some missionary friends from the Ivory Coast(again ex-PI friends!) came to visit. We haven't seen them in nearly two decades so it was great to catch up!!

Menna was also joined by her friend from Brighton last weekend. We all managed to get up Pen Y Fan (the highest peak in south Wales) and up to Castle Carreg Cennen. He took some lovely photos which we will post a link to, along with some other photos of things mentioned above.

Menna also visited her old work colleagues in Brighton during our trip down south. She got to meet her ex-bosses baby Monty who is just 11 days younger than Ffion.

Gaynors parents also visit us every couple of weeks for a few days. It's a welcome break from the house for them.

So who's next...?
Do come and stay - our 6 person caravan is available for hire and we have two doubles and one single guest bedrooms.

Come Spring we would also be grateful for anyone who can help manually. If you are interested in helping out, please do let us know.

We appreciate your prayers and support, we wouldn't be here without it.

In all the activity and house renovation, we want to keep uppermost in our minds that we want to do it for Jesus and the lovely verse from Psalm 127 v 1 : "Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain"


God Bless and Lots of love,
Clive, Gaynor, Menna and Ffion xxxx