Before you take a peak.....

You need to be aware this is our old blog. Dave (the blogger) started blogging when, as a family, we went to India for 3.5 months from April - August 2008. This blog is the story of our time there. You'll find lots about our story by going to the 'archives' section of the blog to the left below.

If you want to see our current news go to our new website and blog here..

July 15, 2007

Update on our proposed trip to India....

Thought we would update you on our plans for the our India trip next year as things are changing by the month.....

Dates: Looking fairly sure it will be 5th April 2008 - 16th August 2008

'Permissions': Work have approved the 5 months off (a miracle in itself) and so has the kids school. Some of the time will be paid holiday for Dave which is good.

Where: Bangalore, India, where Raj is based
(see www.thefishermentrust.co.uk). We plan to rent a house that is big enough for people to stay (as there seems to be a fair few people coming!!). We've given Raj an idea of what we would like and would ask for you to pray about this as this is a crucial factor in the trip. We are going to need a 'home' to return to when we have had challenging days (as we no doubt will) and this home will be a place for Sarah to home school the kids and be a bit of a sanctuary for us all.

What: Well this is what we are starting to focus on now. Certainly Dave will spend the bulk of his time helping Raj with the Trust (www.thefishermentrust.co.uk) at the very exciting stage it is at but Dave is also starting to have conversations with Oasis and may get involved in the 'Stop the Traffik' (www.stopthetraffik.org) project. They have specific projects in in Bangalore. More detail on this another time.....

We hope to have at least 2 teams coming to India whilst we are out there from our Church and are meeting with people that may be interested soon

Our house in Hereford: For some of you we may have mentioned that we planned to sell the house (we would have been doing that anyway) and bank the money and then buy when we come back. Well we have had some wise counsel from people close to us and have also had a sense of God steering us away from that option and a door or two closing.....

We feel now that it is right to pursue two options now. The 'miracle one' (which is the one we need you to pray for!) is option A and the non miracle one (not so keen on this) is option B!!!!!!

Option A: We got to India having found a family or 3 singles that we know that will take on the house as it is and look after it for 5 months with all our stuff in it

Option B: We clear the house of precious stuff and lock it up and rent for 6 months via lettings agency

We feel that we will need to come back to 'our home after the trip' and both these options will give us this

We are givings the miracle (option A) one up to the end of the year (that's as far as our faith stretches!) and then will go for plan B from January. Please pray with us that plan A works out!

Finance: It is looking as if things will be OK month by month in India. A couple of people have already offerred to sponsor us for which we are very grateful. If you want to as well we have decided that whatever we get in, if we do not need it on our expenses there we will use it to bless some of the kids (and others) we will be working with so it won't be wasted.

Our main costs are going to be flights etc and we need to continue to save hard and do some sponsored stuff. Again we won't object if you fancy helping us. Dave's salary is the only wage in our house so when that goes we are on a faith trip!!!!

So final reminder of things to pray for:


House - please pray we get lodgers we know and will look after our house

Finance - pray for finance towards tickets etc especially

Peace - That we ALL know this trip is of God and have confidence and peace in what he has called us to do. Sarah has not been good at all recently (with Arthritis) and when we think of all the potential dangers it is a very challenging thing to do. We need peace in our hearts that 'those He calls, He equips'

Well I think that's it for now......This India trip is going to be a real challenge - just look at the differences between the 2 photo's on this post to see the kind of clashes of lifestyle we are going to have to work through........!!