Amazing news!

Here we are again ... a few weeks later ... still enjoying the English summer (when the sun decides to shine!!) ... Abigail is a big fan of going to the park ... especially the swings and the slide ... here's a little photo of her cheeky little face peering round the climbing frame when we visited her Auntie Pippa! We feel really privileged that part of our role with MAF during our support raising time is to travel around the country meeting up with friends and family ... what other job allows you time to do that?! Given that we won't be based in the UK for at least the next 11 years we're really enjoying this opportunity to see everyone! (Below some friends we met up with last Saturday!) This coming weekend we're heading back to Dorset to catch up with friends down there one last time and then driving onto Birmingham ... the following week we're hoping to go to Ashby-de-la-Zouch and Sheffield ... stopping off at various different places, to and from each trip!! It's taking quite a bit of planning ... trying to get everyone in the right place at the right time ... especially because people are away a lot over the summer ... but as you can see we have the brains of the family on the case!! (... and no, we're not referring to Mark!!)

So ... the amazing news ... (amazing because you're still reading ... and we haven't yet told you what it is!!). We found out this morning that at the half-way point in our support raising ... we have already reached 74% of our minimum target ... it's all going to plan!! Thank you again to everyone for your commitment to support us ... only 26% to go!!

Out and About!

Having moved house during the hottest few days of the year so far we felt it was only right that we got our little water baby into her bargain paddling pool as soon as possible ... as you can see we had no complaints from her!! She already loves going swimming so this was going to be a no-brainer ... we just need the hotter weather to return so we can enjoy it some more!Having got more settled and having sorted through even more boxes ... we started our support raising up in the London part of the country ... and it's given us a great chance to catch up with friends we didn't see too much of when we were down in Dorset as we were just that bit too far away to meet up for lunch ... or for the afternoon!! (Here's Abigail having fun with her Uncle Ian ... you may recognise him as one of the ushers at our wedding if you're really observant!!) We've just had a really busy weekend ... we went along to a MAF extended coffee morning run by one of our supporters ... and were overwhelmed by the interest of those who came along as to what we're doing ... we also managed to head up to near where we studied at All Nations and caught up with some good friends up there ... and enjoyed a delicious home cooked Korean meal (thanks Yo ... you're a star!). Here's a photo of Jenny and Abigail with Anna who used to be the hub of ANCC!

On Sunday we were able to catch up with lots of the All Nations crew at another friends commissioning service ... she's now almost 100% raised with her support which was a real encouragement to us! We found out last week that we're already at 40% ... which is fantastic ... so thanks for your continued thoughts and prayers about that ... and we have been so blessed by so many generous people committing to support us .... THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Moving madness!!

This last week or so have been crazy crazy crazy ... moving house ... from our gorgeous little cottage ... to a temporary room with Jen's mum until we fly out to the States ... it was hard work and also really sad to say goodbye to our first family home together!

We have been trying to sort out all our belongings ... those things we don't need anymore ... those we want to store in the UK ... those we will ship to the States ... and those we'll need to use over the next three months ... all very confusing ... (and we're still sorting through some of the stuff!!) ... but as you can see Abigail was ready to lend a hand with packing boxes!! Mark's mum and dad came down for a couple of days to help us out which was fab ... BT managed to frustrate us A LOT by cutting us off from phone and internet early ... and the two days that we did most of the moving were two of the hottest days of the year so far ... but it's done ... and now we're able to concentrate a bit more on our support raising! Thanks to all, for your thoughts and prayers throughout a stressful week ... and to those who have already promised to support us in our work for MAF ... you are complete stars!