Its been a while...

Due to the lack of internet connection in our caravan we have been a bit absent from here for a while...which has been fine until i sit here thinking of how to condense the last month down into one single blog that will be readable over one cup of tea not seven, so apologies if any of this seems a tad indescriptive!

But mainly the past month has seen us;

• Aquire a new dog named sam- a very much needed companion for JD and another way to cover our caravan with unbelieveable amounts of dog hair. However, dog hair aside he is a wonderful 21 month old Mongrel from the rescue centre. He and Jd have quickly become inseperable and are constaly play fighting or snuggling together. its pretty cute.
• fall in love with our jobs- yep, bar work is one of the best jobs i have ever had- i love it. We are getting to know the locals really well and enjoy just being in such a sociable job - the hours are rather unsociable we know, but now that the bar is really seeing its busy season begin we don't notice the time flying past between 6pm and 2am. I think what is also amazing is the relationships were building with the people we work with, they find us pretty interesting and we often talk about the community and our dreams for the future and our faith - its just so refreshing to speak to people who don't really believe in God but really believe in what you are doing.
  
• meet some more people like us- a couple called Dave and Philipa and their little boy Tom have moved to wooler from oxford for pretty much the same reason as us which is very exciting and although they have been here only a week we are already feeling a good connection with them and discovering that they have very similar ideas and future plans as us. So were really thanking God for them being here...
• join the running club, Rae only, which as much as i feel embarrased to admit this- I LOVE! you haven't been in a running club till you've been in a running club that runs through the valleys of the northumberland national park...thats all i have to say on the matter :)
  

ok quick overview done...!As far as comunity life goes- it's definetly interesting. It seems we have come at an interesting time- basically the hall is on an estate called hetton estate, and the estate is up for sale and very recently it was announced that the leases on all properties on the estate would not be renewed if the estate isn't sold...which is a big possibility, which puts the house in the position of not knowing what it's future holds. We feel that people at the house are defiently pre-occupied with this, and rightly so, for some its been their home for the past 10 years. They are also struggling for staff a little bit too, which in many ways is good that we are here because we can help out a lot but in others its a bit difficult because you don't see anyone that often. So as outsiders coming in to the hall its a interesting time and i am intrigued to see how the community reacts and works together in such a time as this and i am sure we can learn a lot from that.

I think one thing we are still really struggling with is understanding our role in the community this year- what is it that we were called here for? sometimes we wonder what we are doing here at all...work takes up a lot of our week and the community and our invovlement in it is not what we expected- even though we didn't think we had any expectations. We find it difficult to engage sometimes due to it being such a interesting time for the community and sometimes we struggle to see how the community will be relevant to what we are doing in the future. Saying all of this though we really do still believe this is where we are meant to be and we are learning to be and not preoccupy ourselves with what it is we feel we 'should' be doing but what it is God is doing here with us and the people around us. Its in those times that we find ourselves having amazing conversations with the people we work with, or we spend time with people from the community in casual conversation that turns into talk about things that ignite passion in us again. We still get so much time together too as a couple with our two favourite dogs which we can never deny is a complete blessing and will never be taken for granted - we know how lucky we are!

The last few weeks we have struggled with not being part of a 'church' in the sense of sunday mornings and worship but it seems God is listening and as of next week myself and Andy along with the new couple dave and philipa and our friends at the community Ben and Ru will start a little book discussion/reflection group which we are sooo excited about...so thank God for that. As far as our invovlement with the community it looks like we will be here every wednesday morning and every thursday all day just doing things that need to be done or reading or just sitting and chatting with people.

We are so grateful though that we have found jobs we love so much, a 'house' that we can afford and a dog mental enough to keep up with JD. We hope this updates you some more and we will be in contact again soon...

Andy and Rae