Hobbits, I understand, frequently enjoy a 'second breakfast'. One of the 'perks' of crossing the Atlantic at this time of day is 'second lunch'. Sorry I haven't written much for a little while, I hope to correct that somewhat over the next few days whilst I'm in the United States.

At the moment  I am somewhere in the sky between Greenland and New York, so I'm typing this offline using Microsoft OneNote and will cut and paste into an email and the blog when this evening finally arrives.  If you haven't yet come across OneNote, let me recommend it to you. OneNote is a excellent piece of software which helps me remain marginally less disorganised than I would otherwise be. One way of getting it is as part of the three licences which come with the good value Microsoft Office Home and Student Edition.

For the past few years I have travelled with Virgin Atlantic from Heathrow, but this year the cheapest option was to take the Continental flight direct from Bristol. To be honest I would rather fly with Richard Branson - this Boeing 757 doesn't even have screens in the seat backs let alone the choice of a dozen different films on demand. Well, at least I've managed to catch up on some unfinished reading and you are hearing something from us at last.

I've just finished reading Total Church by Tim Chester & Steve Timmis. Others have already written helpful reviews so I won't attempt another one myself, but I do recommend it if you care at all about how your church can best help believers to mature in their faith and effectively communicate the good news of Jesus to a world which would rather ignore him.

I will be posting more here about what I'm doing and learning in the US over the next few days, but let me conclude this missive with some news of the rest of the family. Please pray particularly for Margo and all five children during this next week while I am away. We are currently having our boiler replaced so they'll be without hot water for a few days too.

Margo does a fantastic job looking after us all, but doesn't get much time to herself or as much appreciation as she deserves.

Hannah has just passed 12 weeks old so obviously demands quite a lot of attention, but it is great to see her beginning to smile and pay attention to what is going on around her.

People are constantly surprised to learn that Eliana won't even be three until July, she is into everything and talking about it. She recently tried redecorating our lounge as well as herself with a green ink pad, which was a bit horrifying, but it mostly seems to have washed off.

Luke just turned 5. He is still trying to get to grips with the hard task of learning to read and write. He enjoys school but still gets very tired.

Emma and Christopher are in the middle of GCSE exams at the moment. Emma is taking French & German a year early and Christopher is taking about 10 more subjects, having completed his French last year. I had fun helping him revise Maths, I now understand several things which I don't think I really did when I took my O levels about 30 years ago!

A somewhat disappointing second lunch  snack box has just arrived so that'll be it for now. Keep checking the blog for news over the next few days, I won't send everything out by email in case you get tired of hearing about techie stuff.

Hannah Grace was born today at 7.50am only 50 minutes after we arrived at the hospital. She weighed 6lb 11.5oz (just over 3Kg). Margo and Hannah were both able to come home this afternoon. Both are doing very well. As you can imagine our other children are all very excited at having a new baby sister. It was great for me to come from the hospital and lead the service in church this morning.

Apologies for not letting you know before that our move went well - it took weeks to get our phone and internet reconnected! Our new address is 124 Oaktree Crescent, Bradley Stoke, Bristol BS32 9AB and our phone number is 01454 610840. We have also found a new seven seater car which we should be getting later in the week - its a Kia Sedona.

Thanks for all who have been faithfully praying about all our changes. The Lord has truly granted us grace upon grace!

Time for an update on what has been going on in our lives. The first bit of news is BIG!

Our sovereign God caught us all by surprise when we learned in July that his good plans for us include a fifth child! We thought that four children were more than enough, but no we really are expecting yet another, probably in March. Having broken the news to the rest of the family and thought things through, we realise that we need to find a house with a bit more space. We have put our house on the market this week, so please pray with us for a buyer. We can’t afford to pay much more for a different house, especially considering that the total costs of moving now amount to around £15000 – half of which is tax. We don’t have any significant savings, so our mortgage will need to increase substantially. Apart from moving, we will also need to change our car before the baby is born since we currently only have a six seater. We really would appreciate your continued prayers particularly for Margo in the pregnancy, but also for the whole family as we go through lots of change again.

Luke's first day

• Paul’s trip to the US in June was helpful for his IT work and Margo survived without losing her sanity. AIM’s new online personnel placement system which we have been talking about for so long is finally close to being launched. AIM’s reorganization into regions is going well, but we would appreciate prayer for the upcoming International Council meetings.
  
• Christopher took his French GCSE a year early and achieved an excellent A* grade. He is now beginning year 11 and will take about a dozen more GCSEs next summer. He and Emma really enjoyed attending a Christian event called Creation Fest in Devon with their cousins. Emma begins year 10, her first year of GCSE courses.
• At the other end of his school years, four year old Luke was very excited to begin at Holy Trinity Primary School last Tuesday. He was very tired by the end of the week but is very happy to go each morning.
• Eliana, our little two year old whirlwind continues to keep us all laughing and on our toes as she rushes around the house organising and disorganising everyone and everything. Keeping things in a state ready for prospective buyers to view the house is a big challenge!
• We took our car through the channel tunnel and drove down through France for a relaxing family holiday in Spain with Margo’s parents and her sister’s family. While we were there Margo reached the big four-o milestone! ... (continued)
  

Next Tuesday (5th June), I will be heading out to the States for a week or so. On Wednesday and Thursday I will be chairing a meeting with colleagues from AIM's US and Canadian offices to discuss current issues and strategy for Information Systems. On Friday I will be flying on to Indianapolis for the annual gathering of missions technologists known as the ICCM . The great thing about working in mission is that other organizations doing similar work are not our competitors but our allies, so we can use this kind of opportunity to share ideas and resources for the greater advancement of God's kingdom.  I will probably be blogging some of the interesting things I hear about on this website, so either check back or sign up to the news feed. If you haven't yet worked out how to use news feeds, then let me encourage you to read on and learn more...