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Our dear friends,

 

Greetings or Namaste from Delhi! We hope you had a really blessed and meaningful Holy Week, and are enjoying the various bank holidays and the good weather. We’ve been here for almost a week now and we thought we’d send you this brief update and family picture.

 

Our last few days in Gloucester were a mixture of mad rush packing, paperwork and sad farewells to our dear friends and family. A big thank you to all of you who took the time to come and meet us or send us cards and messages  to assure us of your prayerful support, we certainly feel very loved and prayed for and rather unworthy of it all!

 

In the 6 days that we have been in Delhi, the temperature has been rising by a degree a day, so it was 35 degrees on the day of our arrival and it was 41 today! Apparently this is an unusually mild April in Delhi although it certainly doesn’t feel like that for us at the moment! The only good thing about the heat is that washing dries in about 15 minutes!

 

We are staying in Lajpat Nagar (S. Delhi) at R’s parents at the moment, which is about 45 minutes by car from the place where we will be based. We haven’t had the opportunity to see our workplaces yet – this is fine with us as it gives us a bit of time to catch our breath and get acclimatised. On Friday we will be going to clean the flat where we will be staying until we find our own flat to rent – so this means more moving but hopefully the kids will take the experience of sleeping in different homes an exciting adventure!

 

The children have been great. They don’t seem too bothered by the heat and are really enjoying the pampering from their aunt and grandparents. Sem has mentioned a few things that he misses about Gloucester but so far has been happy to absorb all the different sights and sounds, especially the different modes of transport here. The only thing so far that has seemed to perturb him has been seeing, or rather smelling, some of the pavements that have been obviously used as public urinals! Joanna seems to be happy as long as we are around and she’s got plenty of reassurance. This morning, she was very proud to spot a largish gecko on the wall (proud that she spotted it before her big brother).

 

We are fine too, it has been really good to have some time to rest and have time with R’s family. We are slowly adjusting to the rush of Delhi, enjoying the energy and buzz about the place and practicing Hindi. A very positive thing is that we have now seen Sem’s future school (he’ll hopefully start in June after the school summer holidays), and it looks really lovely and well cared for, and it is just walking distance from the guesthouse flat. We will be visiting it properly next week but as far as we can make out it is a real answer to prayer. The most challenging aspects have been the heat, mosquitoes, and there being so much inequality around.

 

This much for now, we will keep in regular contact, our internet connection is rather erratic at the moment but hopefully should be better in the coming weeks. Our main prayer points at this present time are:

1.Good health (R’s already had a bout of Delhi belly but the others have been fine).

2.Good friends for the children so that they will find it easier to settle in.

3.Our work – we are looking forward to what lies ahead.

Most of all, we are just so thankful to God for the way He has been guiding and caring for us.

 

Please keep in touch with your news too as we would love to hear from you.

 

Love from

 

D, R, S and J

 

Shanti Dilaye Yeshu Naam

(Peace in Jesus’ name)

 

Jen Howitt, an American who is to be married at Kingscote in the summer (2010) and played for the American Para-Olympic basketball team at Athens, winning a gold medal, gave a moving and informative talk at a recent Family service about her work with Motivation. This is a charitable organisation who seek to provide wheelchairs to people in the developing countries and also run a training  and educational programme. Jen told us that only one per cent of people who need wheelchairs are able to obtain them -a mind-blowing, thought provoking statistic! We will be discussing how we can support this worthy cause.

“The Parable of the Talents” is to be re-enacted by 20 worthy or daft members of our congregation who were given £10 at the end of our Easter Sunday service and told to “Go forth and multiply” with the results being announced at our Harvest service. The worthy winner will receive a free dinner for two at Calcot Manor. The recipients of monies raised have to be decided – but we may look no further than Motivation (see above)

 

Andrea Urquhart handed a card to Stephen (Vicar of St George’s) with the message:

“Having had the most amazing experience, on my tandem SKY-DIVE, I am pleased to give St. George’s a cheque for £771 raised through the generosity of family, church family, friends and neighbours towards the restoration/replacement of the church organ. The pleasure really was all mine!”

Brilliant effort Andrea and we all thank you.