Six!

This is very old news to most of you now, but just in case you didn’t hear yet, Eliana Joy was born on 22nd July2005 — our 16th wedding anniversary. Fortunately she sleeps better than most of her siblings ever did at her age. Eliana is a Hebrew name though not found in the Bible as a name. It could mean either God has answered or possibly the LORD is God. We understand that Eliana is a popular name in Portugal and in modern day Israel, it has been increasing in popularity in the US, though it seems almost unknown in Britain. We can certainly confirm that our Lord is God and he really does answer prayer. We hope that you will know that as your experience too.

13 Blackthorn Drive

At the end of April, we finally moved into our own house in Bradley Stoke. After more than twelve years of living in rented properties, it is good to feel a little more settled and that we will gain the benefit of effort put into decorating.

We want to say a huge thank-you to friends and family who made our move possible and helped us get moved in. Thanks also to whoever it was who advised us to buy our original house in Bridgend before we went to Africa. Entering the housing market for the first time in 2004 would have been very difficult.

New Beginnings

This year has certainly been a year of big decisions and major changes in our lives. We praise the Lord for his faithful care and direction.

No going back

When we wrote in April, we were beginning to face the possibility that we might not be able to return to Africa and we asked you to pray that the Lord would guide us clearly. Not long after writing, we heard that SIL had decided not to return to Côte d'Ivoire this year.

Torn Apart!

Can you remember being woken by an unexpected sound in the night?

In more rural locations in Africa, we have been woken by many strange sounds - rats running around in the roof space of our house; the blood curdling screams of tree hyraxes and once, by what sounded like someone walking around on our corrugated iron roof!

Since moving to the city of Abidjan it's more often been loud music from neighbours, all night parties, the bin men clattering and banging at 1 a.m. or telephone calls from friends who are unaware that most Westerners don't get up with the sun at 6am on Saturday mornings!

Since 1999 though we have become more familiar than we want with a more deeply disturbing sound:

19 September 2002 5 a.m. Again we wake to the rattle of automatic gunfire in the distance, but it doesn't seem to be stopping after a few shots as it usually does with armed robberies. There are also occasional louder booms which sound like heavy artillery.