Winter Reflections

Melanie —  February 9, 2023

The winter air is crisp and frosty this morning.  I’ve been out walking and marvelling at God’s creation, especially the exquisite frozen spider webs dotted through our neighbourhood.  I love how these hidden mini-miracles show up so clearly when the air is the coldest. Who know there were so many busy spiders at work all around us, even in the dead of winter!  This reminds me of the work of God in our world . . . He is always working, often in hidden ways that show up when life’s harsh “weather” hits.  It’s also brought me joy to see the first snowdrops appear, poking their delicate heads through the dead leaves under the bare branches of the trees down the street.  Their beauty reminds me of the faithfulness of our Father who tells them when to burst into life at just the right time, every single year.  Spring always follows winter.  And in our lives, the seasons of suffering and challenge (even if they last a lifetime) will always be followed by hope and joy.  The longer I live, the more I feel like I join creation in its groaning for liberation.  And my heart longs more deeply for home – our eternal home where we will be with Jesus face to face.  One day soon it will be reality for us.  Come quickly Lord Jesus!

It’s hard to believe we are now well into the second month of 2023. Crazy how time marches on! After a lovely few weeks of Christmas holidays with Hannah and Aliyah home, we are now past the second half of our school year (we started early due to our planned trip to the USA for Hannah’s wedding in June.) It’s been awhile since we shared any family news, so here are some photos giving you a little picture of the last few months of ministry Soon, we’ll also share a new mini-update and let you know what’s been going on in our ministry and family lives and what we are looking ahead to.  Keep an eye on your inbox for that.

First, a few photos from the autumn:

This gorgeous tree in our backyard gives us so much delight every autumn.

 

Jessah at Bowood . . . one of our favourite local places to enjoy the outdoors.

 

All dressed up for our church’s Light Party. Kaylah was Susan from Narnia and Jessah was a parrot.

 

Joel is continuing to love running and has done several 5K and 10K races with more planned for 2023.

 

Jessah 7th birthday – with her roses from Dad.

 

Peter and I were blessed with a little getaway in November in the Cotswolds. We are always so grateful for time together.

 

December brought us some snow! We had so much fun in it together. And thankfully, it didn’t put a stop to our children’s musical at church which happened later that day.

 

Our first ever Trinity Chippenham children’s Nativity musical was a huge success! All the kids did a fantastic job!

 

The younger girls have picked trees in our neighbourhood to watch throughout the changing seasons. Jessah named hers “George Muller” which I found quite hilarious. This gorgeous oak is absolutely massive and it was a rare treat to see it in the snow.

 

Hannah and Aliyah both came home in December for a few weeks.

 

It was such a joy to be all together at Christmastime!

 

We had some sweet times together . . . we had a great day out in Bourton on the Water.

 

And our traditional Christmas Eve ice skating! (Sadly, Joel wasn’t well so couldn’t be there.)

 

Aliyah had an extra long break so was able to stay while longer than Hannah. She and the younger girls had a bucket list of fun things to do together while she was home that they worked through. They made a pie together on her last night!

 

Kaylah and Jessah and I thoroughly enjoyed reading a book about George Muller in January. What a beautiful testimony of faith and God’s faithfulness! We went with some friends to visit the George Muller museum recently and had a wonderful time. The girls even got to dress up in Victorian clothes.

 

And finally, Kaylah kicked off our family birthday season by turning 11 on February 1st. Peter and I took her on a little outing to Bath. Our voracious reader was on a mission to show us a special bookshop she had seen with her sisters and it did not disappoint!

 

We also had lunch at the famous Sally Lunn’s. Sweet times.

 

Trinity Chippenham continues to grow! We are excited and humbled at all that God is doing and we are praying for his wisdom to know how to respond to the growth.  We’ll share more in our upcoming mini email update . . . watch for this in your inbox soon.

 

So there’s a little snapshot of family life these past months.  We very much value your prayers for each of us to stay close to Jesus every day and rely fully on Him.  Please let us know how we can pray for you too!

 

 

 

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Summer Slips Away

Melanie —  October 5, 2022

All 8 of us Meads together . . . a rare moment

 

We are thanking God for a really blessed summer!  It was such a joy to have Aliyah and Hannah back home and it was wonderful that Hannah’s fiance Noah could join us for a good portion of the summer too. The picture above was taken during a week of holiday that we had all together in Norfolk.  With everyone’s work and travelling schedules promising to be very busy, I savoured this week where we were able to be all together.  We took long walks in the surrounding countryside, played games, slept, read, enjoyed eating together and did lots of swimming in the heated pool on the property where we stayed. Here are some more photos from that week:

 

 

 

We are excited to announce that on May 19th, Noah Mozingo asked Hannah to marry him and she said YES! They plan to get married on 3 June 2023. We are absolutely thrilled that God has brought Hannah such a wonderful and godly man. He already feels very much part of our family.

The summer was filled with foreign trips for our older kids.  Mariah spent a month in Spain, studying Spanish.  Once Aliyah got back from her year on the Logos Hope and in Burundi, she travelled to Romania and Malta to visit ship contacts and then with Mariah and Joel to Albania for a ten day mission trip outreach.  They had a fantastic trip and I think they would all say it was a life-changing time.  Hannah and her college roommate Mallory were able to travel to Norway, Sweden and Denmark and thoroughly enjoyed it. Peter stayed busy with two Cor Deo intensives (Aliyah, Mariah, Joel, Noah and I were all able to attend one and were greatly blessed) plus our ongoing ministry responsibilities at Trinity Chippenham.  We continue to praise God for growth and are asking him to provide all we need to shepherd the growing church body. Lives are being changed and that is so exciting!

Here are some more photos from the summer/early autumn . . .

 

What a joy it was for us to have Aliyah home. Here she is with the younger girls at our favourite Bowood House photo spot.

 

Kaylah and Jessah have absolutely loved the art classes they’ve been attending with our friend Jupy. She is a wonderful teacher and the time they spend with her and their friends is a real highlight of their week.

 

 

Kaylah has also enjoyed the Hearts and Hands group at church (a group to encourage friendship and serving). Here are the girls with all the Bible verses they coloured and gave to residents at a retirement home. They were such a blessing as they sang and chatted with the residents.

 

Another creative endeavour . . . the Logos Hope built out of magnatiles in their bedroom!

 

We didn’t grow as much veg as in previous years, but we did manage to harvest and eat a bit. We still currently have tomatoes trying to ripen in our cool autumn weather!

 

The younger girls have been thrilled to be able to do some horse riding recently. It’s fun to see them improving and enjoying it so much.

 

Right before Aliyah, Hannah and Noah left, we had a wonderful evening as a family in Bradford on Avon, a beautiful town near us. Precious memories, especially for me as a mum.

 

The past few weeks have been filled with starting back to homeschooling and regular activities (music, Spanish and art lessons).  We actually started school in mid-August as we are anticipating finishing early next year due to Hannah and Noah’s wedding. It’s been an adjustment for all of us, but we are gradually finding good rhythms and routines.  Mariah recently got a job at a nearby retirement home which she’s very excited about. She’s also enjoying teaching music lessons and mentoring younger girls from church. Joel is well into his long distance running.  He’s done several 10Ks and runs a 5K park run every Saturday.  He’s doing so well with his schoolwork and staying on top of everything. They are both heavily involved in the youth group.  My parents came to visit us recently too and we had a week away up in Derbyshire with them in a beautiful rural location. They hadn’t been here for almost 4 years, so it was such a treat to spend time with them here in the UK.

 

 

Thank you for praying for our family as we serve Jesus here in Chippenham.  We have several church outreach events coming up soon and Peter leaves Friday for a weekend of teaching in Ireland.  Please pray that all of us Meads would lean hard on Jesus.  We all have different challenges and growth opportunities we are facing.  We need your prayers so much.

 

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Five Months of Photo Moments

Melanie —  May 16, 2022

 

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.

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