Christmas 2012

Very dear Friends,

This blog is well overdue to say the least but it comes in time to say...

A Very Happy Christmas

We’ve tried not to send many cards out this year and we hope you will accept this heart felt greeting

Where to start? Perhaps family first this time.

We saw Luke in October which was wonderful as we hadn’t see him since last Christmas. He’s well and looking forward to taking up snow boarding this winter in Stockholm, this shouldn’t be a problem as he said they woke up to two foot of snow last week! We’ll next see him in February when we celebrate his grandfather’s 92nd birthday.

Luke and Lloyd in Stockholm

Menna is too busy. She’s in the third year of her degree course in Outdoor Education, she’s working part time in Cotswolds outdoor shop and raising Ffion. We don’t see quite as much of her now as she is living in Carmarthen with two girls on the same course. She’s off to Ben Nevis in January on a winter skills course with work, lucky girl.

Menna camping up Cadair Idris

We see a lot of Ffion as we help Menna when we are needed. She’s a busy, talkative three year old. In the summer she obsessed about worms and slugs and still loves walking in the woods lifting old logs to look at any creepy crawlies.

Ffion waiting for Santa Claus

Lloyd is in his second year at WEST (Wales Evangelical School of Theology). He’s enjoying the course very much and is the missionary and prayer sec. He has preached in a few small Churches and is off to Korea in January for a month, on a placement to a Church of 90 000 members! A very different experience.

Lloyd preaching

Gay’s parents are both in their nineties now. Her mum is well and continues to be such a source of joy and laughter. However life is increasingly hard for her as she copes with the ravages of Gay’s Dad’s alzheimers. What a cruel disease it is, in an otherwise fairly healthy man. Having said this, he still prays like an angel. We shall enjoy having them with us over the holidays.

Clive and Gay are enjoying life back in Wales. Our little Church is slowly growing and we are blessed by the preaching of our pastor. Clive is an elder and Gay as usual, is involved with the children and youth work. 

Health wise, Clive is doing okay just a few more seizures, so he’s waiting on an MRI scan. Fortunately they continue to occur at night so his driving license should be safe. It would be pretty awful losing it living where we do.

I guess we both feel we’d like a short break having not really had a holiday for about seven years. It may be a while before we do as we’d both like to see the bunkhouse function for a full year and then we may think of a break. Of course there are also the animals to think about. We love having the sheep about the place, the chickens keep us well stocked in eggs and our big hairy brown dog Dylan is super company. 

And what of the bunkhouse? Well, as most of you will know we finally opened in the summer (so called) of this year. God was so faithful to us over the three years of the project and the result is a very simple but beautiful building. We have been blessed with just the right number of visitors over the past six months and received very positive feedback. Our prayer is that it will be well used to the glory of God. Much prayer went into the development and it is our aim that it will be sustained by prayer to see people come into a relationship with the living God.

If you haven’t visited the website, you’ll find it at www.hiraethbunkhouse.com

Christmas in the Bunkhouse

We’d love to see you, or why not come as a house group or with some of your young people if you work with them.

Thank you for standing with us through the years. Some of you for thirty or more years. We are forever in your debt.

                A VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND A BLESSED 2013

                          Clive, Gay, Luke, Menna, Lloyd and Ffion

IT'S FINISHED!

Dear Friends,

IT’S DONE! FINISHED! COMPLETE!

 How we thank our Heavenly Father. Isn’t this wonderful? We really want to thank you for your part in seeing this vision become a reality. We’ve already had the first full group through this weekend as a tester and everything went really well. We finished the final clean just half an hour before the group arrived!

So much has happened since our last blog. Friends came from St.Johns, T.Wells to help with the painting and make the curtains.The builders returned to the work, the wet rooms were completed, they look wonderful and function well. The floors were tiled and a good friend left Tunbridge wells 3am. one Monday morning and started work here at 8.30am. Pete Hillier worked so hard for two days to lay a beautiful floor upstairs. IKEA gave us a discount on the bunks, mattresses etc and were very helpful indeed on the day of purchase. Special old friends arrived to assemble the bunks and carry out more painting.

A small team came from All Saints Church, Crowborough and worked hard for two days, strimming, mowing, painting and laying a path in a difficult area.

Last to be installed was the kitchen. We were given a beautiful piece of granite and a butler sink and the kitchen was built around that really. It’s lovely and coped well cooking for 32 people this weekend. To be perfectly honest, we can’t quite believe we’ve reached the end of the line. We are both feeling very tired but elated.

We have so many people to thank. God has been enormously kind and generous to us through His people. It has been like living in the middle of a miracle on times. While at other times, the process has seemed spiritually exhausting. As with many of our experiences along the way, we so wish we had kept a written diary of events.

We have a good pictorial record and hopefully this will jog our memory. What we do know is that God has been good and that God has been faithful even when our faith has been small. So now the real work begins. All the rest has been preparation for the vision to be fulfilled. Please pray with us that God would send just the right people to us. As Francis and Edith Schaeffer used to pray for their work at L’Abri, ‘Lord send all those you want to be here and keep all others away.’

As for the family, Luke is still in Sweden, though sadly no longer with Emelie. We are looking forward to seeing him this summer. We can’t believe that Menna will be returning to her third year in September. Her second year was less enjoyable than the previous year which was very experience based. She has a job in Cotswold’s which keeps her abreast of all the new gear for the outdoors. Ffion was three on Sunday 1st July and continues to grow into a beautiful, chatty little girl. Lloyd has really enjoyed his first year in Bible College. He hasn’t had his results yet but thinks he’s done okay. It’s good to have him living closer. Well, we must get this blog sent off.

Thank you so much for standing with us over the past couple years.

God bless you and those you love,
Clive, Gay and family

Please check out our website where you will also find photos of the finished bunkhouse.
Just click this link: www.hiraethbunkhouse.com

Spring 2012

FEBRUARY 2012 BLOG……completed end of March!

Though long gone, it was really lovely to hear from so many of you over Christmas. Thank you for your expressions of love and friendship.

Thankfully it has been much milder this year than the two previous winters. Kinder for our water pipes, the sheep and the chickens. Shadrach, the very impressive ram we borrowed, has now returned home and we can get closer to ‘our girls’ again! If he did his job then the lambs will be here soon. Exciting!

We are all well here and rejoicing that at long last, good progress is being made in the bunkhouse. Most of you will know that due to the exceptional generosity of friends, we are now in a position to complete the building work. How we have rejoiced at this kindness and how we have realised that we are slow learners when it comes to knowing that God’s timing is always best.

The relief we feel is enormous. The gratitude to all who have given in order to make the vision a reality, will be on going and especially so, as we see the bunkhouse being used to draw people closer to Jesus.

The whole process has been a testing time but a time in which we hope we have learnt the lessons God intended us to learn. More of this in our next and what may be the final blog before we open the bunkhouse.

So practically speaking, the wet room walls are now formed and all the plumbing in place, all the downstairs walls are insulated and lined and the plasterers have done a super job.
The architraves, fire doors and skirting boards are fixed upstairs and all the electrics are installed including the fire alarm system.

I suppose we have always felt our builders were a bit pre-occupied with their other project for the National Trust but they announced this week that they wouldn’t be continuing with us as they were under too much pressure. It came as a shock as we are so close to completion. However, we will take it as from the Lord and we are now busy sourcing other carpenters and tillers.

We will see what is left in the kitty to furnish the bunkhouse but this seems rather more ‘do-able’ than the large sum we needed to finish the build.

Church life is busy and we have seen reasonable growth over the past months. Lloyd enjoyed a three week placement with our pastor, leading schools assemblies, helping in the youth group, giving the children’s talks in church and leading the Bible study group that meets in Costa Coffee once a month on a Sunday evening.

Menna, as some of you will know has had very real hassles from the press recently. If you want to know what she has to say on the subject you may want to look at her blog site http://aimevenhigher.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/response.html She will be away on and off for much of April on course work so we’ll be looking after Ffion, who now talks without pausing for breath and is busy, busy, busy and quite beautiful.

Luke is still ensconced in Stockholm, he seems very happy there and has lots of friends. We were saddened to hear this week that he and his lovely girlfriend Emelie have broken up after six years. He is naturally upset and it’s at times like this when it would be so good to be closer to each other.

So dear friends, thank you for your interest in and prayers for this great project, we’re almost there, so please continue to stand with us.
If anyone is interested in sponsoring any of the following items we would be so pleased to hear from you.

Bunks – we need 10 @ £99 each

Mattresses - we need 20 @ £100 each

Duvet sets – we need 40 @ £20 each

Commercial Cooker @ £900

Crockery @ £100

Carpets - 4 @ £200 each

This comes with much love,
God bless you all,

Clive, Gay and Family x x x

Photos here:

SPRING 2012