Wow, we must apologise for not updating our website for, gasp (!) nearly five months! Where do the weeks go? Many of you will have received a paper prayer letter from us either in the autumn (USA) or winter (UK) with a prayer card. If you haven’t and you would like one, please ask and we’ll send you one. We also will be sending out an email update very soon with lots of news and reports on family and ministry. For now, we’d like to share some photos from some of the memorable moments in our lives and ministry over the past 5 months. This is quite a long post . . . we hope the photos will give you a little peek into our lives from the past few months.
Going back even further than 5 months, we celebrated Jessah’s sixth birthday in November soon after we got back from the USA (thus the pumpkin in tow from our pumpkin patch visit in Oregon).
Christmas 2021! Here’s the Mead family . . . Aliyah joined us on zoom from onboard the Logos Hope in Africa.
The newest Mead family member arrived at Christmas – Jupiter the hamster. 🙂
During our Christmas break, we had a fun afternoon out in Bradford on Avon – a very pretty little town near us.
We walked to a unique little area above the town at dusk – beautiful view!
Our dear friend and “daughter” in Christ, Georgia, left us on 1 February for several months on a mission trip to Romania and Moldova. We miss you Georgia!
Also at the start of February, our sweet girl, Kaylah, turned 10! We celebrated with pies – a chicken pie (pictured) and key lime pie for dessert!
Like all her sisters on their tenth birthdays, she got her ears pierced! (You can see if you look closely!)
Kaylah also had a music themed tea party with friends a few days later – this was the cake, decorated by Mariah and her friend.
Winter cycling – Jessah and I love our bike rides together!
What joy when spring arrives!
First trip to beautiful Bowood – one of our favourite places!
Dandelion photo by Jessah.
Mariah and I were super blessed to take a trip to the USA in March. The main purpose was for her to visit Emmaus Bible College in Iowa during their preview weekend. She loved it and is making plans to attend starting in September 2023.
It was a special trip down memory lane for me as I attended Emmaus myself from 1995-1997. My time there marked me deeply and I pray the same will be true for Mariah.
While we were in Iowa/Illinois, Hannah was in Missouri visiting Noah.
We got to spend some time with my aunt Carol before and after our visit to Emmaus.
And then we flew to OR to spend some time with my family. We didn’t tell them we were coming so it was a big surprise!
It was such a joy to spend time with them all! I felt so blessed by this trip.
My sister Amy and I had a really special day out together in the Columbia River Gorge. We hiked a beautiful waterfall trail.
I absolutely loved reading Star of Light to my nieces and nephew and also playing games and doing puzzles with them.
Mariah also got to spend some quality time with friends in Oregon and attended two concerts.
Mariah stayed in Oregon a week longer than me and the day before she left they got some serious snow (crazy on the 10th of April!).
On a very cold day in April, a group from Trinity, including Joel, hiked 20 miles in the Brecon Beacons to raise money for Africa Inland Mission.
Peter turned 46 on 13 April. Here are Kaylah and Jessah having birthday cuddles with Daddy.
And a special birthday meal out together!
Soon after Peter’s birthday was Easter. We had a very full long weekend, starting with a Passover celebration with some dear friends. It’s so beautiful to see how Jesus fulfilled so many of the aspects of the Passover.
Our living room was packed on Good Friday for a time of prayer, reflection and worship. Then we had a roast dinner on Saturday with some good friends. Sunday our church hosted an amazing BBQ – great that we could welcome guests! And this photo is of our Easter Monday Family Fun Day which was packed with parents and children.
Kaylah begged me to do the “bunny hop” race with her. She beat me!
And Jessah and her friend with an Easter garden they made.
At the end of April, we were blessed to welcome 4 guys from Peter’s year round mentoring ELF group for a weekend of mentoring with Peter. (They represented Albania, Ukraine, Hungary and London/Middle East) Here they are in John Wesley’s chapel during their Bristol church history tour. Our family had so much fun with these wonderful guys!
Much to our delight, Aliyah surprised us and came home on the 1st of May after spending 8 months away on the Logos Hope and then in Burundi.
Joy, joy joy!!!!
After a 3 year gap, Trinity Chippenham got to have a weekend away together. Beautiful sun, good teaching and lots of fun and fellowship made it a very happy weekend for everyone!
Some of our youth group at the weekend away. We praise God for how this group is growing. Please pray for them, especially the significant percentage that do not know Jesus yet.
Joel has been doing some serious running, including park runs every week, 5Ks, 10Ks and a few unofficial half marathons.
A climbing centre has recently opened in Chippenham and Kaylah and Jessah have been trying their hands at it.
Thank you for your prayers for our family and ministry! An email update with more news and prayer requests is coming soon. We thank God for his sustaining grace to us each day these past five months and are looking to him in faith for all we need for the future.
