Linz in Focus

We have now officially been offered a one year internship with Grange Park Church in Northampton! yay!

There is a couple that attend the church who will be heading off to moorlands bible college. They own a house near the church and just a ten minute walk from the school!  They have said they would like to rent us thier houseyay!!!!! again. There will be plenty of space for folks to come and visit. There are some of you not invited you know who you are!!!(Pamela Currie!) We will hopfully be moving in at the end of August. But No fixed date as yet!

Thank God for his goodness to us! The kids are also ready for moving on please just pray that we will have a good family holiday(in about two weeks) and that the kids will settle into life in Northampton as well as they did here at All Nations Christian College! And to anyone looking to do a short course in mission even if you are not going abroad then we can highly recommend En Route here at All Nations!

Well this week we started working for the college to earn our keep until the kids finish school. We (me and some other students who are also working) have made over 200 beds in the last few days. Oh man I tell you if I have not lost at least 3 pounds this last week I will not be happy. We have been up and down stairs so many times it is unbelievable!We have also had fun while we have been working. The college over the summer is booked up with conferences. So it is very busy right now.

Johnny has been changing light blubs and he has discovered it only takes one Baptist to change them but it takes about 20 different folks to find the store rooms where they are kept! 

Friday night our first two conferences arrived and everything went smoothly getting everyone settled and in the right rooms and after a very tiring day we all went off to bed and then about 1am the fire alarm went off. It was a little bit scary. So off we went outside to the main car park in our pjs kids hanging on to teddys asking why we are standing outside in the dark!

Thankfully it was just a false alarm there was no fire. So we all shuffled off to bed to try to go back to sleep … some of us took longer to get back to sleep than others!

Plus someone managed to get himself locked in the bathroom! (and no it was not me!…. or Johnny!)and we managed to get them out through the window, thankfully they were on the ground floor.

Going now to get into my pj’s and go to sleep because I am very tired!zzzzzzz

Well Friday was graduation day! Hooray!!! Friday was thee busiest day ever!

We had our graduation ceremony in the morning and then we had coffee in our tutor groups then we had a commissioning service  and then we had lunch. After that we had fun and games on the lawn including a water slide. The sun shone the whole day… it was beautiful.

Then we had to get dressed up really posh for our end of term party which was a masked ball! my very first masked ball, it was a really good night.

but even tho we were in our posh frocks we still had to do dishes and they say fairy tales don’t exsist huh!!

The day however was not all happy as we had to say goodbye to some of our firends who were returning home so there were some tears but we just gave Johnny a box of tissues! and a hug then he was ok!!!

 Now more and more pepole are leaving  it is getting quiter and quiter and it feels like we are being left behind but there are students staying on to work for the college during the holidays. As we are until the kids finish school at the end of July. In these four weeks left we will be busy helping out with summer conferences and cleaning and all sorts of things. Then we have a week in Austria hooray!!! and two weeks in Scotland hooray!!!!

About an hour ago Rachel just learned to ride her bike without stabilisers hooray!!!!! and just before her 5th birthday on monday! well done Rachel

I can’t believe it is the last week of en route it has just flown by! We have all sorts of end of term stuff going on ranging from a picnic to a masked ball next Friday! What to wear for that! Maybe I can go and buy a tent from Tisos! Anyway it promises to be a good night. What ever I wear!

Unfortunately it is not all just play we still have one Assignment still to do we have to do a presentation for about 10-15 mins about our Country in which we will be going to work or about the work we will be doing! For those who know me know I hate doing things up front so I am dreading this part of the course.

Well what a weekendthe kids and I had-a whistle stop tour of family. We had a great time eating and chatting. Our weekend went a little something like this.

Friday we left at about 3 in the morning we dropped Johnny off at Manchester airport at about 5:50am. Then the kids and I continued up to Scotland.  We arrived at my sisters about 10:45, my mum joined my sister and I for lunch. After lunch we went to my dads and we got settled in for the evening. Trying very hard not to drop off and end up face down in my dinner!

Saturday After the kids woke up at 5am gently suggested that they may want to go back to sleep! We went and had lunch with my mum then went to my sister’s were the kids played in the paddling pool most of the afternoon then we went back to dad’s for tea then after tea I went to the pictures with my sisters and I fell a sleep half way through not good!

Sunday We got up and went to Abbeyhill (our home church) it was fantastic to see everyone again then we went and had lunch with our friends Craig and Elyse and one of Lee’s best friends. Then we went to visit our old neighbours at Queensferry, another of Lee’s best friends. We had such a laugh with coffee and cake my favourite! Then we went to Johnny’s mum and dads to have supper and spend the night.

Monday We got up, got ready and left about 11:30am to meet Johnny at a services near Manchester airport then we all arrived back at All Nations Christian College about 8:30pm.

Well there you go it was a busy weekend but you know it was so worth going back meeting up with everyone. We are tired but we had a great time hopefully it will put an end to my home sickness for a while. If you want to find out how Johnny’s weekend went in Canada you will have to watch this space.

Well half term has officially started and it is raining What’s that all about???

It has been raining here since Sunday and it feels like home! But we have been told it is really unusual for it to rain two days in a row. Yet in Scotland if it does not rain two days in a row…… well that’s known as summer!!!

The kids maybe off for half term but unfortunately Johnny and I still have class. So the kids are in with us and they are doing well learning a lot about cross cultural living!

This week seems to be stretching out in front of us a bit because we are looking forward to going home for the weekend. Time is now moving at a snails pace, I really just want to kick that snail and shout hurry up!!!!

We are getting to know our group in enroute better now. We meet up regularly to have coffee and cake, prayer meetings and eat meals together in the dinning hall. It is a good group of folks we have. We may only know them for this short time but God has blessed us as a group and hopefully we will be able to keep in touch with some when we leave. We can’t believe that we are in week 6 of our 10 week course. After the course is finished we have about 5 weeks left until the kids finish school. We have asked the college if we can stay on as work volunteers (All Nations have conferences on through the summer) until the kids have finished the term.
 

Since coming to All Nations Lee has been getting involved with the volleyball. Every evening after tea the students play and he joins in. He has loved playing and improved every time he plays.well done Lee!!!

We are working hard as ever!!! 

Last week was a hard week as we were studying world religions it was interesting but hard going for 3 hours a day. This week is a lot more practical like how not to get burnt out or stressed and how to spot the signs. We have also been doing luvvv languages  which was very good and funny!!! Love languages is how you feel loved and how you express love to others. We are also doing a lot of other practical stuff which will be really good.

The kids and I are very excited because next weekend we will be up in Scotland for the weekend and we are looking forward to spending time with family and friends. Johnny will be visiting his sister in Canada. 

It was a good weekend. Normally weekends here are very quite and we just potter about but this weekend Johnny’s sister Aileen came to visit and she and Johnny took the kids swimming and me well OH JOY I found a hobbycraft. It was great they had to send in a rescue team in to get me out!!!

Then on Sunday Johnny’s other sister Maribeth, Jonathan, Luke and Ruth came to visit us. It was really good to have them here. The kids had a great time playing(croquet) as did the adults. It was a really good week end.

Oops well I had a bit of a red face last night. Lee asked me to make him some toast for his supper so I said yes he could if he finished his home work which he did and I put two bits of toast in the toaster and returned to what i was doing on the computer. Then the next thing we knew the fire alarm went off not just in our room but in the whole college!Pepole came running to see where the fire was and I met them sheepishly at the door saying how sorry I was but it was just the toast did not pop out of the toaster but they said they were just glad it was not a real fire.  But there were folks starting to  head outside. Oops sorry