Friday just gone Lesley-Ann graciously came round again to cook for son Paul, Brianna and I. We have this deal whereby she comes and cooks and we eat. It's always sounded fair to me. That was followed by a nice Bible study at John's house on Judges 17 and 18. I was a little nervous at this point about speaking on the Sunday at Twickenham.

On Saturday I was due to arrive at the Wilsher's for tea at about 5pm. I was about 1:30pm and I had some time to kill. I had a little time to kill so I thought I'd get my tax disc done online... but it wasn't letting me do it. “We can't find your MOT,” the message read, “if you have it please ring this number.” I finally found the certificate after searching high and low and looked at the expiry date: 14th March 2009. “You've got to be joking,” I thought. I quickly rang up Nigel Farrow

who did the MOT last time (which was also in a rush!) and he graciously agreed to do my MOT this day (so much for time to kill). In addition to this my tires were bald, my brake pipes weren't doing to great either and my breather pipe was leaking. He allowed me to sit at his desk to read my bible while he worked and I called ahead to tell Elliot and Jen I was going to be late. At 5:30pm the car was done, I payed Nigel, shared Jesus with him and headed back to the house to pick up the materials and some clothes.

I got back and found the S.L.U.G. Youth Group (Servants Learning Under God) there who recounted the days swimming antics while I packed my things and had the leftover shepherds pie. At 7pm I finally left for London, with a map print-off and my talking Sat Nav.

Managing to escape the M25 with my life intact I arrived at the Wilsher's at about 9:15pm with a warm welcome from Elliot and Jen and stayed up for a while to chat with Elliot about how the Lord has led his life and provided for him so far. I also found out they have the biggest pet rabbit I have ever seen! I crashed on the couch at about 11:45pm, grateful for a place to lay my head and close my eyes!

Sunday morning saw us setting up Whitton High School Hall for church service, which reminded me very much of home!

I met some of the people who attended and found that I had heard some of their names in conversation and was glad to finally get to meet them. I was really blessed by the time of praise, some new songs that I hadn't heard before yet found easy to pick up, and which really rang true to who God is and what He has done. Afterwards Elliot shared some announcements and introduced me, and up I went. I was almost as nervous as I was at Cambridge, and I opted to not use the microphone so that I could stand closer to the congregation. I thought this would connect me more to the people... but it actually meant that a couple of them couldn't hear me very well and the parents in the creche could not hear me at all! I explained Gospel For Asia and illustrated the need as best as I could, as well my purpose in raising support for myself. I think it went pretty well. After my spiel we were blessed to hear Tim McBryan from Calvary Chapel South London share on holiness and the God who makes us holy, and our need to not focus on our lack of holiness. After service I had a nice chat with Marvin and Kara about eternity minded living and the seriousness of the Gospel message.

After Twickenham I went a further round the M25 to Leatherhead to visit Tim and Ann Daniels, a couple who have been of tremendous encouragement to me, and then finished off the M25 to get back the M11 for my ride towards Norwich (and went through the Dartford Tunnel for the first time). Not sure if I could stay awake all the way to Norwich and remembering the Hulleys' most fervent return-invitation I diverted myself toward Bury St Edmunds with no guarantee that they would actually be at home. To my relief they were there to give me an extremely warm welcome, a space on the couch for the night and tell me I and arrived just in time for dinner :-) I could not have planned it better! On Monday Peter kindly showed me around Bury St Edmunds and told me about some of it's history while we kept an eye out for job vacancies. As I promised Gabrielle, we didn't have any ice cream at the Abbey without her.


I left Bury and arrived in Cromer for 6pm for dinner at the Billings household where there lives the biggest dog I have ever seen in my life!After this weekend I was exhausted, but very blessed by everything that happened and everyone I saw. I am now in preparation to head off for York. I have found that unfortunately there is no place to stay at the bible college so I am going to be taking the Kiriks up on their offer to stay at theirs. I know they are happy to have me, I would just rather not get in the way of someone's family life, especially with Brian being so busy! I'll keep you posted on where I end up.