Harrys Travels

Back in the UK

Well, what a month June has been!! It really has been a month of the unexpected...losing so much stuff through the theft; then being totally, incredibly, overwhelming blown away by God's provision, learning to recieve the amazing generosity of those we know and those we don't; watching our little boy suffering, not knowing what's wrong with him, and carrying the uncertainty that that brings; then being so uplifted by the thousands of prayers that have been sent up for Evan; and now...cutting short our summer travelling to return to the UK. Needless to say we're pretty exhausted (and Scot still has 3 days of driving left to reach us) both physically and emotionally, and we have a lot of thinking and praying to do.

The sun is shining and we are being very well looked after in

Neubrandenburg

,

Germany

, this weekend. We arrived here late Friday night after too many hours sat in the Land Rover wishing the kilometres away.

 

 

This year our summer’s journey started after lunch on Wednesday as we travelled, via Crawley and then onto

Utrecht

where we stopped overnight. Friday saw us driving for 11 hours along many an Autobahn, pausing only occasionally to stretch our legs, swap drivers, drink coffee and eat! Boy I hate motorway driving! A big part of these ‘trips’ we take is about the journey – learning about the country from what we see and stopping at places where we can pray and meet God…not so on the motorway. On the motorway it’s all about where we’re going and getting there as fast as possible, not leaving any space for God to speak or direct (ooh, I feel a life analogy coming on!!)

 

Anyway, in this instance we had to push on, and the destination was worth the effort. It’s been great to spend some time with the community here in

Neubrandenburg

–Ralf, Moni, Basti and Kaddi. They have an amazing gift for hospitality and we’ve been able to experience a little bit of their life here. One thing that has really impressed me is the way that, although this is a ‘community’ here it feels much more just like one big family – the way it’s supposed to be I guess - it seems to come naturally to them…beautiful!

 

This morning they’re going to take us into the centre of

Neubrandenburg

to show us and share with us more of their vision for being here. Once again we’re privileged to be in a place at the beginning of what God is doing…

 

Then we press on northwards, with Krister and Resa, into the unknown. We’ll travel on slower roads and with less ‘fixed’ destinations. So who knows where God will lead us this time?

Tabor - Czech Republic

It's 7am, the sun is already shining, there are cats and chickens and a dog roaming around the garden and sounds of people waking up all over the house...

Onto the next stage

The last couple of months have been a pretty exhausting emotional roller-coaster ride (hence v little blogging) and now that we have decided to leave our lovely friends here in Ramsdorf earlier than planned ,to continue our journey, I kind of feel like we're about to jump off one rollercoaster onto another (albeit a very different one).

Tick, tock, tick ,tock

Just came across this on another blog, it's a world time clock which shows a whole variety of important statistics and how rapidly they change. Kind of blows your mind and speeds up your prayers!

Blowing the cobwebs away

The last week and a bit has been very tough for us. Without going into details we've had to do lots of questioning (of ourselves and others) and are currently having to take a long hard look at where we're at.

So today, when we decided to take the kids down to the lake - them on bikes, us walking (and sometimes running) along behind, it was really special. I don't know about you but I love those days when your head is full of whatever so you take a walk to blow the cobwebs away.

Having grown up within a few miles of the sea and so it's always been the place to go when I need to clear  my head, especially when it's windy. I love that feeling of being blown along and feeling the power of the wind, with the waves pounding the shore - oh how I miss the sea! Where we live in Ramsdorf we're very fortunate to live very close to a lake, but there's very rarely any wind here and certainly I don't remember very many waves, but today I loved it because there was a pretty strong wind and even some gentle waves hitting the beach - just what I needed (although it made cycling a bit tricky for the kids!!)

I wouldn't say all the cobwebs have gone (a bit like in the flat!), but a walk in the fresh air really did me good. So if you find any time to pray for us we would really appreciate your prayers for patience, direction, a lightness in spirit and oodles of wisdom, thank you :)

Christmas and all that Jazz...

My only resolution this year is to blog more - so here goes.

We had a great Christmas in England, but didn't get to see everyone we wanted to (sorry if you were one of those) and many people we didn't get to see for long enough (sorry to you too!) Apart from that we had a great time seeing family and friends, and generally enjoying a typical English Christmas - you know...Pantomime, silly hats, too much food, so many presents, chestnuts roaring on an open fire...

We eventually made it onto the flight home (2 extra suitcases in tow!) on Dec 29th in time for the New Year (Silvester) celebrations.

So a GREAT BIG thank you to all those people who provided us with their hospitality, their love and friendship, their cars and so much more. HAPPY NEW YEAR!! WE LOVE YOU xx

A good day was had by all...

Yesterday, after an intense meeting the day before and some sour faces at dinner I was not really looking forward to the Convers community-only weekend Scot and I had planned here. Markus is trying now to have 1 weekend a month with only the community here - no visitors (as lovely as they are!) and nobody away. This was the first real one and Scot and I asked if we could plan it so that it didn't end up just becoming a weekend where no-one saw each other and rested in their own flats.

We decided to make it fun, but also team-building and planned some silly games, some creative stuff, lots of cake and other food for the day. And even though yesterday evening I was beginnning to wish we had just all planned to spend the weekend in our own flats, now at the end of the day I'm glad we didn't!

Remember, remember...

On Monday night we remembered, remembered the 5th of November, gunpowder treason and plot and introduced our German friends to the strange ways of Bonfire night celebrations.

Just a thought...

Sorry, my thoughts aren't as profound as Scot's, but here goes:

Ok , so I wasn't gifted with any language learning skill whatsoever, so this is a big thing for me and I was thinking and worrying about this today (as usual) and I came to realise that ...

Some things are learnt by a process of elimination, but languages (for me anyway) are learnt by a process of humiliation!!!

Oh well, probably good for the soul!!!