UK September -- 30th September 2006

Hi there everyone…

Time flies when you’re working!! It didn’t seem that long ago I was beginning the 3 weeks supply work at Weald Middle School (same school as Jon’s permanent job) but I have now completed that. I have really enjoyed it, and although at times I wondered what I was doing, it has been good for me to refresh my teacher skills! I have been given another couple of weeks there doing more relieving, and after that… I don’t know but praying I can get some type of permanent arrangement there too. Jon is enjoying his job there too, although there is one very difficult class he has quite a few times that is very challenging & can be quite depressing. We would appreciate prayers for wisdom & keys to handle this. The staff there are a really cool bunch. We went to the pub for drinks last night with some of them. It was a fun night, they are a laugh a minute kind of people. There is a good mix of NZers, Australians & English people.

Other than work, we haven’t really done much so far. We aim to head to Brighton, (where my Dad was born) the south coast of England for a weekend really soon, and then during midterm break in the middle of October we aim to head to Ireland for 4-5 days. In regards to travel we have also booked tickets to travel back to Ukraine for the xmas holidays, (21^st Dec-3^rd Jan) so we will get to experience Ukraine in the winter.

Our future ideas at this stage are to head back to NZ after we finish up here in July 07 for about a month to visit everyone, and then head back to Ukraine for a year to start with. But it is a while away, so we’ll see what happens and how God leads us.

It is not too cold here yet, but definitely autumn. We have enjoyed a few days where we have headed to the park with a rug to read a book, or a picnic. One of those occasions was to catch up with one of Jon’s school mates which was really cool.

It has been interesting for us to observe the culture here, and although we speak the same language, it is easy to assume we are the same, but we have found that is not the case. Food & clothes etc are really cheap here, people are buying stuff (and lots of it) all the time. There is people everywhere & heaps & heaps of smokers. Customer service is really useless because there are so many people it doesn’t really matter! We have started our own tradition of having a roast every Saturday night and our first couple have been NZ legs of lamb!! Cheaper than we can get in NZ, and taste very nice. This country is a very rich, prosperous place, but almost void of any kind of identity, direction or common beliefs. Everything goes, and religious tolerance is absolutely huge. We are getting a chance to learn firsthand about many different religions. It is very interesting.

Anyway… that is probably enough for this time.

Until next time,