dangerous streets

saw this fella crossing the road this evening!

a big hole in the ground

here's phil with skye at the grand canyon

we're having a fantastic time in arizona, including one very long day today visiting the amazing and awe inspiring grand canyon
i've always wanted to see it so i am one very happy bunny!

skye dedicated

we had a dedication service for skye this evening at st andrew's
dedicating her to God and giving Him thanks for her life

well, the calladines will have their hands full - they agreed together to be skye's 'God-family' - just like kodjo had his hands full during the service!

state eight

welcome to the hotel california

go west

phil flew out to arizona (state seven) with mal today for meetings

i love bono

"There is a continent—Africa—being consumed by flames.
I truly believe that when the history books are written, our age will be remembered for three things: the war on terror, the digital revolution, and what we did—or did not do—to put the fire out in Africa.
History, like God, is watching what we do."
you can click here to read all of bono's remarks at the npb

simplicity

woohoo! it's the end of the journey for our things - we collected it all from the shipping agent's warehouse today, a month and a day after it left sheffield

it's funny and healthy and good - we've been here nearly two years now, the process has been one of simplification, our story is that our amazing God provides every thing we need!

steelers win

the pittsburgh steelers beat the seattle seahawks 21-10 to win the fortieth superbowl in a strange, somewhat less-than-convincing game

home again

phil arrived back safely this evening, having covered about 1600 miles in total and touched the ground in two new states, alabama and mississippi

congratulations to dave and janelle on the birth of benjamin owen!

home this week

is a school gym in long beach mississippi
after hurricane katrina it was converted into temporary accommodation for volunteers helping with the relief work creating 'camp coast care'
on one side is a dining and hanging out area and the other is camp beds

they regularly house around 150 volunteers at a time, but this week has been much quieter with 35 here
it's operated by a committed team of volunteers and church leaders in a neat partnership between two denominations

new porch

olivia and charles pose with miss hortence and her shiny new screen porch

look closely

you can see it's a beautiful area, but look closely and you can see almost every home has a white trailer (a caravan) in front of it, where people are living while their homes are rebuilt

devastation

until we got here and began looking around it was impossible to really take on board the devastation of event like hurricane katrina
this is a house we saw at the beachfront

quite literally everybody has lost something
around two-thirds of the population of long beach still have not returned - the storm hit five months ago

mississippi with a mission

phil set off today for a six day mission trip to the gulf coast of mississippi
a group of ten from the st andrew's year team will be helping with hurricane katrina relief
follow the team's adventures online at the year team blog


here's the team after lunch at charlie joseph's in la grainge, georgia

fdr

"let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance"
(from franklin d roosevelt's inaugural address, saturday march 4th 1933)

shipping news

the stuff we shipped from the UK has arrived in Charleston today! woohoo!

but perhaps you're more interested in skye who has teeth and can crawl now (it's official, mummy said so).....

what goes...

...wriggle, wriggle, lunge, face-plant-into-the-carpet, giggle?

(answers on a comment below)

pirate baby

panthers lose

the carolina panthers lost 14-34 to the impressive seattle seahawks, who win the nfc championship and now progress to the super bowl
they'll play the pittsburgh steelers in detriot on sunday february 5th
(translation: some american sports result)

home help

spent the day doing errands, tidying up at home and getting ship-shape
later mags and skye helped the calladines and phil went with some of the year team crowd to hollywood (it wasn't glamourous - just helping at a nearby church)