Summer summer....

We're off tomorrow to Gagnières, a village in the Cevennes in the south of France where each year New frontiers france holds a 'bible camp'...many folks actually camp in a lovely wooded area but our agèd selves prefer the comfort of a B&B these days! This year promises to be even more amazing than previous ones so watch this space!!! Almost all our church are going so that in itself should be fun!
2 weeks ago we attended the annual International Leaders' Conference for New Frontiers , at Brighton. This year was excellent...2 years ago Gordon got the call to go to Paris, last year we moved and this year we have a church of around 35 members!

We spent the weekend after with friends near Woking and enjoyed catching up on sleep!! and Doing English Things...like going to the pub!

Recent photos of the church!

Some photos!..first church baby.....and her mom;one of ourLife groups (we have 4) in our home; Some of us at the elders and Wives New Frontiers France last weekend; Church walk in the forest on May 1st! ( Our dogs love this activity!

Last weekend was spent together with the Elders and Wives of all the french New Frontiers churches..an annual time of sharing, worshipping, being together with the Lord. As ever it was a brilliant time.   we were missing Pete, who's responsible for NF France, and Kim, who are in Redding  N. California for 3 months joining in and learning about Bethel church and it's amazing ministry.  

However Pete's right-hand -man Dave came over with his wife Carol and we had a blast! He exercised a powerful gift of prophesy and a great sense of humour!  The worship sessions took us soaring in the spirit and words , prophesies and healings abounded.

I was especially overjoyed as Dave had sensed that someone had a painful thumb: in fact there were 2 of us and BOTH my thumbs have been horribly painful and non functional for many months! I had had a picture just before Dave said this, showing my thumbs being healed and after Dave prayed for me I was able to manipulate the joints again without pain! I'd say I had about 85% healing (no I don't know why not 100% but hey! I'm thrilled!)  God is good!

It was the first time all the leaders of our church were absent on the same weekend so the running of the sunday meeting was left to 'the youngsters'!  Yann, who presided and led worship, apparently started off with  a film clip of a mouse dancing!( when the cat's away....) which I would love to have seen!!!  William then gave a preach ,about which we've already had excellent reports..I look forward to hearing the cd!

Paris is grey and wet but HEY!!!! On sunday we are off on vacation for 2 weeks. Can't wait We both need quite  bit of R & R!  And sun!  Liz will be living in and looking after house and cats. ..  ( dogs will be in a kennel we've found out in the countryside) while we're away.

I have been hopeless at keeping up with this blog...mainly becauseI don't think anyone's following it! but I'll try to do better!

Life has been very busy ...and very hard! 

Busy:  the church continues to strengthen and grow. we now have 4 home groups, which we call 'Life Groups'  which are a great opportunity to get to know people better and to share and worchip in a smaller setting. One meets in our home.   

 Every week we have new faces in the sunday morning meeting....although our website is not yet up and running, people are finding us through word of mouth.    One young woman came from the south of France to work in Paris...In Issy-les Moulineaux (our area) and when she came to the Saturday we had recently for those wishing to become members, she heard for the 1st time the story of Gordon being told by God that he must 'unblock the wells' , meaning release the annointing that God had placed on Paris which had flowed before , about 20 years ago, and which had been blocked up .  Our young woman was amazed because she had a prophesy 2 years ago that she would be part of a church which was unblocking wells!

Hard:  Gordon and I find living in such an urban situation a huge challenge. I am a real country girl and miss the open spaces and big skies. Even Gordon, originally a Londoner, has become used to living in a quieter situation.  We feel very claustrophobic often....not helped by the fact that our living space and garden are much smaller than we've been used to!So many buildings! So many people!!!  Prayer please for peace!  We are thankful we have part of the old royal hunting forest quite close by where we and the dogs go for long walks! There's also one local park where we can walk the dogs.  

Last week on May day, a holiday here, a gang from the church ..including us and the dogs!, went hiking in the forest followed by a BBQ at the home of a couple living nearby! It was a glorious day! Photos to follow!

New Life in Paris

The technical hiccup became a full scale sickness! but thanks to surrogate son Josh, all is cured and I hope I will be able to post more frequently!

After a fun Christmas spent in Paris with surrogate 'kids' Emi and Josh from Switzerland, together with their mum Karen (over from Vancouver) ,and an early January visit from friends Kim and Kerry, over from the UK for a mum-and-daughter weekend break,we thought we were having a quiet start to the year and I could start getting down to organizing the rest of the sorting out, unpacking, decorating etc.  WRONG!!!!  A few days before it started we heard that there were 3 places on  a course we had tried unsuccessfully to get on way back in November. 

 A flurry of activity followed.....I had to find a kennel for the dogs and arrange for someone to live in the house to look after it and the cats in our absence (thankyou Liz!!!)  Gordon managed to book a hotel and flights  and before we knew it we, together with one of the other leaders, Johan, were off to...North California!!  

The course was run by the church of Bethel in Redding, where Gordon had been twice and Johan once, before and been very impressed with how they live out being a New Testament church,  aiming 'to bring Heaven to Earth' ( see  the lead pastor Bill Johnson's book 'When Heaven meets Earth' and more later on some of the 'how') .  There were about 40 of us on the 4 day course, including about 25 old and new friends from churches in Kent and Wales. As there were 6 folks from Singapore as well, the americans were in the minority!!! 

 The Europeans were made very welcome by the church,  being invited  out a couple of times to  dinner in people's homes ( yes...the whole gang of us !). Gordon and I stayed over the weekend to participate in the saturday and sunday events and then flew down to LA in order to stay with dear friends Joyce and Jerry ( whose sons Chris and Sean had spent 2 months with us through the Autumn in order to help us with moving and church set-up).

  Gordon had to go home after a few days but I got to stay a whole week and visit friends, old neighbours and favourite places ( got to Universal Studios but not Disneyland this trip!!!)  Co-incidentally, Josh was staying with Joyce and Jerry at the same time, as part of his plan to check out the film business, his chosen metier, as J and J have contacts in that world  It was very strange..and fun...to see him there..2 worlds meeting!  AND....the weather was glorious!!!  At a time of year when we've known it to pour down with torrential rain for several days, the sun shone with a temperature of  25°C and more!!!  It was VERY hard to come back to a miserably grey Paris with feeble attempts at snow.  However it was good to see all our friends again, and George ( 3rd leader of the church) had been magnificently holding the fort whilst Johan and Gordon were away.  We're now looking forward to sharing all we gained with the church and moving forward with God's plans for Paris!