It’s always Autumn in England

I took this picture the other day when Evan and I were both sick. I went upstairs to see what Evan was doing and this is what I found: Chaucer is definately Evan’s cat. She follows him everywhere!

Today the staff at Mercy are fasting and praying. At 10:00am, we have a large appeal at court. We should be able to receive Housing Benefit for all the girls, but it was refused last year when we applied.

Housing Benefit could provide around £5000 per month in income for the house. But we were denied mostly on the account that we are a Christian facility and on the fact that it is an American Charity and they claimed that Mercy USA would support us should we not be able to pay bills. This is entirely not true, because we are a seperate charity to Mercy USA, and by law we have to be.

We have a guy called Mark Rogers who is appealing our case for us, please pray for him that he would have the words to speak and that the judges heart would be open to hear them.

I haven’t updated in a while and I feel like I should, but I also have been so tired, I simply don’t have the motivation to type, or explain the last few days.

I am slowly getting over my cold and each day I feel a little better. Margaret Stunt spoke at Mercy this morning - excellent, if you ever get the chance to hear her.

I am going back to Mercy at 7pm for RTF. Senior staff decided that it would be a good idea to take the staff team through the counseling model we use for the girls, so that all the staff know what they are working through and also because we need to remember that even the staff are on a journey, and there are always things we need to work through too! We are going through RTF as a group, so that rather than getting 1-1 counseling, which would take forever, they are teaching us the principles, so that we can apply them to our lives

I have also started working out this week. We have a few free weights here at home, so I am starting there. Along with a few push-ups and sit ups. With two weddings coming up, I figured there is no better time to get toned up than now!

I’ve given Evan my cold. I still feel pretty zapped of energy and slept in today. We have decided to stay home tonight and try to go our for dinner tomorrow to celebrate Valentines Day.

Right now, I am glad I am not in Indiana. I know people here were freaking out about the snow we got, but I am always thankful it is so little and does not last very long. Evan’s parents have called us on Skype several times over the last few days. Today, the accumulated snow on their driveway was 3 feet. Yes, three feet of snow. Jane can’t even walk into the back garden to put food on the bird feeder because there is too much snow. I ask myself, why do people live there??? I just don’t like that much snow.

Here are a couple of pictures from a Lafayette Newspaper:

This second picture is near Evan’s dad’s church and where we got married!

I have a cold and a temperature. YUK. Last night I don’t think I slept until 3am, then I was up for an hour because I was sweating like crazy and thought I was going to be sick. I finally took some Tylenol and went back to bed and slept till 5:30 had a drink and then slept till just after 7am.

I am still going to go to work, but I am definately going to take it easy, and might even attempt to come home early. We will see how it goes!

Last night we went to see Switchfoot at our church, ALC. They were good, but I wish I had not been so exhausted. I ended up sitting on the floor for at least 2 or 3 songs, purely because I was so tired from this last week.

I also have the worlds biggest mouth ulcer (canker sore, as they say in America). It HURTS. I can hardly eat anything at all. Evan tried to go to the chemist this morning to get me some Bonjela, but they were closed. I just sent him back out to try Co-Op, because I simply can’t live with it any more. I have tried gargling salt water, but it only work for about 3 minutes. I might have to resort to disolving some Tylenol and drinking it, but that makes me feel so sick normally. Hopefully, Evan gets some Bonjela!!

On Thursday I was asked to accompany the residents at Mercy on an Outdoor Pursuits Day. We went Caving in Lofthouse, North Yorkshire.

The weather man said it was supposed to start snowing at about 2pm. By 10am it was snowing pretty hard. But, since we were going to be in a cave, we figured we should go for it anyway. We got there safely and suited up in hard hats with lamps, full suits that made us look like Telly-Tubbies and thick rubber glove things.
The floor of the cave was water, so we spent 2 hours walking through water, but we also had to climb what the instructors called ‘The Mud Slide’. This was basically a huge hill of mud that we climbed (or rather slipped up) and then walked across the top of. So many people have walked the same path there is a little path you can follow. Then we slid down the other side, into water that we ended up crawling through, because the ceiling of the cave was only about 2 foot high.

I was freezing. I was given a pair of wellies, that were not water tight, so the second I put my foot in the water, the boots filled with water. Within about 10 minutes, I simply could not feel my toes. By the time we reached the cars again, I took my socks off and my feet were bright red, and swollen so much I almost couldn’t get the wellies off. Then, before I could get my dry socks on, my feet were actually steaming. I wish I would have had my camera with me and I would have taken a picture of my toes steaming!

Although I had fun during the day, and have been caving before, I really don’t think I want to go back in the middle of winter again, and certainly not a cave that I have to walk through water the whole time.

A friend sent me this the other day:

I was out walking with my 4 year old daughter. She picked up something off the ground and started to put it in her mouth. I took the item away from her and I asked her not to do that. "Why?" my daughter asked. "Because it’s been on the ground, you don’t know where it’s been, it’s dirty and probably has germs" I replied. At this point, my daughter looked at me with total admiration and asked, "Mommy, how do you know all this stuff? You are so smart." I was thinking quickly. "All moms know this stuff. It’s on the Mommy  Test. You have to know it, or they don’t let you be a Mommy."  We walked along in silence for 2 or 3 minutes, but she was evidently pondering this new information.

"OH…I get it!" she beamed, "So if you don’t pass the test you have to be the daddy."  "Exactly" I replied back with a big smile on my face.