Poured Out

We had a fantastic holiday.  We spent 10 days by Lake Como.  We had Melanie’s parents with us.  We had glorious spring sunshine for 9 of the 10 days.  We had fun adventures around Como, enjoyable trips to a couple of cities, travel in some unusual transport, the sometimes frustrating experience of a 1000-piece puzzle, we made some great memories and it was all over too soon.  Now we have a couple of weeks staying with good friends, using this as a base for life and ministry.  Since the holiday is now over, school is in full swing downstairs (I’ll hear how much adjustment that required at lunch time!)  I have a list of projects to move quickly through, not to mention preparing to preach this weekend.  I’ll leave it there for now, but we will give a more complete account of the holiday and fill you in on some of the funny moments from Joel and the girls.

I have finally decided to turn off the comments on this site.  Every day we get up to a handful of comments from family and friends, which we really appreciate.  But we also get dozens of spam comments.  Rather than clogging up our email with the spam comments, we have turned off the comment feature.  Sorry for those of you that like to comment, we just hope you’ll be willing to fire off an email to us instead.  Thanks for understanding!

Hannah’s 8th birthday has come and gone.  She had a great time.  Here are some pictures  . . .

We waited to celebrate Hannah’s birthday til Peter and Aliyah got back from Oregon.  Aliyah arrived home from her LONG flight with loads of energy.  Peter on the other hand, needed a nap.  Here are the kids trying to wake him.  Looks like they gave up!

Hannah is usually full of dramatic flair . . . . It’s great to be eight!

Happy birthday, Hannah!

Hannah’s special birthday treat was to ride a horse.  This is nearby to our house in the beautiful Surrey Hills.

She had a great time and progressed a little in her skills too.

This morning I wasn’t preaching anywhere, so we got ourselves ready for church and then walked.  It’s not far.  10 minutes walk I suppose.  But I think it was the first time we’ve done that.  The morning sunshine had given way to cloud cover and a strong breeze by the time we left to come home.  Perhaps that will temper our newfound pedestrian freedom.  Actually, most weeks the English weather dampens the walking spirit.  Tonight I am with our youth group to address the question “What about those who’ve never heard about Jesus?”  An important and increasingly forgotten question.

Hannah and I (Peter) were driving along the motorway this evening.  As we passed a big truck something flicked up in front of us like a piece of cardboard.  It wasn’t.  It was a piece of metal roughly 2 feet by 1.5 feet.  It hit the front of the car, scraped up the bonnet (hood) and then bounced over the top.  When I stopped to survey the damage I realized how close we were to real trouble.  The front grill is smashed, the bonnet is well marked and there is a deep scratch about 8 inches long right up by the windshield.  If it hadn’t dug in to the paint and flipped up at that point, it would have been a 70mph piece of metal coming straight toward me, sharp side first.  Obviously it’s annoying to have damage to the car (I would have preferred that to happen to the old car I traded in last year), but I’m thankful that it jumped over the windshield rather than through it.  How often are we all protected and don’t even know it?

Sunday went really well.  Two meetings in the morning at Sun Valley Bible Chapel, then after lunch and a quick nap, I was collected by some college-age guys from Fairhaven.  We enjoyed a meal together, then headed to Fairhaven where I opened up the meeting with a devotional, then closed with a report.  Was then taken to the airport for my late flight back to Portland.  Got to my parked car, arriving back at the in-laws by midnight.  Finished packing in the morning, then Aliyah and I were dropped off at the airport again.  Flew to Atlanta without incident, had a relaxed layover there (and a date together in a restaurant to finish off our week “together” – truth is she and I spent very little time together on this trip, apart from travel).  Then we flew on what might be the oldest 767 still in service, back to London.  She slept four or five hours, I think I got a couple of hours in there.  It was a fairly bumpy flight and the bounciest landing I can remember, but we made it safely.  Our bags and boxes came through without problem, didn’t have to pay any customs on the school supplies we brought back (next years’ curriculum, books, etc.).  Our friend John arrived at just the right moment and 45 minutes later we were home.  There you have it.  A good trip on lots of levels.  But it’s great to be back with Melanie and the rest of the children.  Thanks for praying for us.