Monday, 18 April 2011

Spring 2011 at Min Yr Afon

Greetings to you all from what has been a pleasant spring. It’s good to know we are almost past the threat of anymore really cold weather. We lost our water on several occasions this winter, so to know there is milder weather ahead of us is quite a relief.

To look at the building here, there would seem to have been little taking place and construction wise that is true. However much has gone on in preparation. Inevitably, there has been more waiting. Waiting on building regulations, waiting to know whether we have been granted help from a local investment fund under Carmarthenshire C.C. and most of all, waiting for quotes from builders.

However we feel we are at last on the cusp of moving forward on phase one of the work. At the risk of boring the socks off you, this will include:

Harvesting more spring water and sinking a holding tank and pump. This will ensure there will always be a good flow of water when twenty people arrive off the hill all wanting showers and a hot meal.

Secondly, we have to excavate the ground floor put in a damp proof membrane, hard core concrete, an insulating layer, the under floor heating pipes and a screed top coat. The drainage goes in at this stage as well.

A friend has been more than helpful in advising us and working out costs of the very demanding specifications with regard to insulation. In fact many of the specs. in the building regs. are incomprehensible to the lay man!

We also have friends arriving from the States – via Northern Pakistan! - to help construct the dormitories up stairs, that is, if we have the go ahead from official channels.

Funds will always be a challenge. We can complete phase one but after that……………………only the Lord knows! And He does. He just asks us to trust Him and on His past dealings with us, we have absolutely no reason to doubt His provision. As fund raising in the current economic climate is not easy, it is more reliable to trust the God of the universe don’t you think?
Can I be bold and ask, that if any of you go to a Church that would like to support this project, we would really appreciate hearing from you. A kind friend printed a fund raising leaflet for us and this is available if you would like to receive some. This explains our intentions in setting up the bunkhouse and the charitable trust.

At a family level, we are all well.
Luke continues to live in Sweden, learning the language and looking forward to spring after a long snowy winter. We are hoping to see him in May, which will be great as we haven’t seen him since Christmas.

Lloyd has been offered a place in WEST (Wales Evangelical School of Theology) to study for a degree in Theology. He will really miss his friends and the church in Tunbridge Wells, however we are looking forward to him being closer to us.

Menna is loving her course at Trinity Carmarthen. This term she’s been caving, and working on the hill, she spent five days in Snowdonia rock climbing and four days on the river this last week.
She has also been chosen to assist with a party of school pupils from the British School of Paris, as they have an adventure holiday in the French Alps this summer.
We are grateful that Menna walked away unhurt from quite a serious car accident recently.

Ffion is learning new words all the time and is a busy, chatty little girl, just like her Mum! She gives the chickens a hard time as she loves picking them up and dancing around with them. They don’t seem to suffer from the experience and they lay copious numbers of eggs!
She is still very wakeful through the night.

Gay’s parents keep in reasonable health, both of them now in their nineties. We see them at least once a week and now that the really cold weather is over, we hope they will spend more time here with us.

Clive had another MRI on his brain quite recently. He’s had a tiny tumour for a while now which we have been told is nothing to be concerned about.
The doctor has told him that this tumour is very dense and they are not sure what it is, he sees a neurologist soon so we’ll know more then we expect.

Church is great, enjoying the ministry and the fellowship. After saying that we felt our time for serving in a church context was past, we are both fully involved again. Inevitable I guess!

So that’s about it. If work starts soon, we will up date the blog more regularly and send some pictures of the work in progress, ooh, that sounds good!

Please continue to pray for us. Do please send us your news, we would love to hear from you.

Much love and God bless you.

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