Back in Bristol

As always it has been a while - we have been a bit rubbish at staying in contact and we now have the consequence of updating you with a blog that hopefully wont take you a whole day to read! So here we go…

We are now back in Bristol for good, which has been a strange transition. The last few weeks have been filled with flights to jersey, friends weddings, family get-togethers and moving all our boxes around between various houses and garages. As a result we haven’t really stopped to think through the last 8 months.

Leaving Wooler was a lot harder than we thought it would be…our relationships at the pub had grown very strong over the last few months, before we left some of our regular customers brought us gifts and our work friend threw such a good leaving party for us we realized how blessed we were with friends whilst being up north. Its amazing to think really how God worked in that time; how we even ended up in a job that we loved so much, that taught us about ourselves, our hopes for the future and our gifts then we ever thought possible. What really excites us though is realizing that through this experience we have stated to figure out what it is we are passionate about doing - and that is working together, serving others and being deeply involved in the life of the community that we live in. Our experiences have kindled a growing desire to open our own cafe together and run it with a community focus. In Northumberland we were amazed at the ways in which God worked in the people around us, we ended up developing many profound relationships with people that we worked with as well as some of our regular customers – it was a real lesson in how just being genuinely open and available to people, and engaging fully with the community around you, is a powerful thing. We are still very excited about being in Easton and we believe it is the area God is leading us to live and work in. So you could say things have become pretty clear for us and where we feel God is leading us as a couple.

Whilst we were serving Fosters and providing for the never ending Bingo habits of the residents of the caravan park, St Marks church in Easton was opening a coffee shop for the local community and continuing to develop ideas and desires for that local area; now that we are back we are really excited about being a part of that vision. Basically we are looking to start attending St Marks church and begin to develop relationships with people in Easton and hopefully begin to get involved in the work there…the challenge is how we do this, we don’t have a house, we don’t have a job and its not really a good time to be looking at the moment. We want to give our all to this and trust that God will provide for us but we can’t do this by ourselves. We hope to come to Cairns Road for a few more weeks and have the chance to share some more about our hopes for our future in Easton but we would really appreciate your prayers as we find courage and strength to make a decision that really seems a bit mental! We believe in what we are passionate about, being in the pub showed us how naturally we build relationships, how we long to be a part of peoples lives and show compassion towards those that don’t often see it. That’s why we want to be in Easton and why we long do this through the powers that are coffee shops and of course, the love of God!!

Well now that we are back in the land of internet connection we do hope to keep you more updated- we are currently looking for some part time work in Easton and somewhere to live that we can afford on part time work and/or benefits and hope that soon we will be settled in Easton. If you could keep this in your prayers that would be so wonderful, thank you for all your support, we really do appreciate it and have certainly seen the hand of God over us as we take these slightly nutter-like steps in life.

With love
Andy and Rae