First of all, though, a lot has happened since our last newsletter, so let's fill you in.

You are probably aware that we have finished the sponsored walk but, sadly, two-thirds of the way in, Tim's father had a fall, and passed away a week later. This was on the same day that our eldest daughter, Debbi, graduated from University. The funeral took place in early August, just 4 days before Debbi's wedding to Ryan. Tim's Mum was able to come along, which was an unexpected surprise, as was her trip to Reading with Tim for the street collection for Guide Dogs as part of the walk. She has also now seen the boat - something we thought would never happen.

So far, the sponsored walk has raised in excess of £8,000! We are very grateful to everyone who has helped us in any way. We are keeping the fund raising open for the time being, as we would love to reach £10,000. We are so close, it would be a shame not to try.

All the above has necessitated a change to our cruising plans. We had originally intended to carry on to the Wey Navigation and, hopefully, the Basingstoke Canal. Instead, we remain in the Newbury area, as we have regular fortnightly trips to Bournemouth to look after Tim's Mum. Newbury is handy as (traffic permitting!) it is only a hour's drive to Bournemouth. We have also cruised up towards Reading twice. Once for a recce for the walk while Bridge Church were away (so we went to Reading Family Church instead), then again for the walk. We found a nice mooring just outside Reading, and stayed there on and off for a couple of weeks or so. Reading is not so good for facilities - we have to cruise to just the other side of Theale to get water and empty the cassettes.

So, we remain on the Kennet and Avon Canal, pootling between Reading and Newbury (further navigation thwarted by the broken bridge at Newbury and the Thames – as we don’t have a Gold licence, but simply buy a ‘transit permit’ between K&A and the rest of the system). We are gravitating upon Newbury every fortnight to hire a car from Enterprise to go to Bournemouth for 3 days to care for Tim’s Mum. At 93, she is doing remarkably well and coping much better than anybody thought she would, but, of course, there is a limit to her capabilities. Our role is largely about taking her out shopping, to various appointments, and just generally out of the ‘prison’ of her home. (Without help, she cannot get out simply because the self-closing doors on the entrances to the flats are too heavy for her!) The paperwork seems to be slowly reducing in volume and we hope that very soon we will get the official notification that Tim has Power of Attorney to take full care of his Mum’s admin etc. (She has never dealt with any such stuff before and simply cannot handle it).
 
We really are blessed by the location that the Lord has placed us in: Newbury has all we need – the town is lovely, with all needs met within walking distance of the visitor moorings. Not least in the blessings is that the Enterprise Car Hire base is right beside the moorings! The only slight ‘downer’ is that we have to pay quite a significant sum for water and elsan services at the boatyard. CRT have been fantastically helpful and supportive. They have given us permission to overstay on the visitor moorings, acknowledging our need for accessibility. (For those unfamiliar with the K&A – most visitor moorings are limited to 24 or 48 hours, most of the 14 day moorings are very ‘rural’ in nature, often needing long-line tying on pins in soft ground, and use of a long gangplank! With a lumbering Guide Dog and poor eyesight this set up is really not sensible!). This permission is, thus far, only verbal but we have been promised a sign to put in the window – we still await arrival of this notice some three months on!
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We have found two spiritual homes – Bridge Church in Newbury and Reading Family Church. We attend whichever of these we are nearest to each Sunday and have been very warmly welcomed into both families, finding excellent worship, fellowship and teaching at both. For this we praise God!
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We find it astonishing that, having spent 25 years in the same house, with no plans whatsoever to move, we now find ourselves with very itchy feet having been confined to the same stretch of canal for four months! This is certainly a challenging and unexpected twist to our vision for our Continuous Cruising life. The fortnightly trips to Bournemouth, for three days each time, we do with love of course, but it is proving to be somewhat trying and tying. Please pray for our patience and endurance. Please also pray for Mum as she is saying quite clearly that she really doesn’t want to ‘go on for much longer’. She is proud of herself for managing as well as she does, but she is finding things hard and is clearly missing Dad and longs to join him.
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We have just had a quote for a minor alteration to the interior of Sola Gratia, which will make life more comfortable, give us a little more storage space, and should improve guest accommodation. This quote came in rather higher than we had budgeted so we are now awaiting a revised quote to see if the chap might have any ‘give’ available on his price. We would appreciate prayer on this. This is not just a cosmetic procedure, but, we feel, will help us to fulfil our calling to offer hospitality to people who need a bit of the peace of the canals.
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Tracey’s parents are not getting any younger (her Dad is coming up to 82 and Mum will hit 80 next May) and neither of them is enjoying good health. They don’t profess a faith although we suspect they do have some level of belief in God. We would ask you to join us in praying for them and for wisdom for us in our dealings with them. Dad, in particular, can tend to be rather ‘prickly’ in attitude sometimes!
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Having enjoyed the beautiful blessing of our eldest daughter, Debbi’s wedding to Ryan in August, and then helping them to settle into their new Army house in Hounslow, we thought that our offspring were settled. Then we had the news that our first grandchild is on the way – but not from Debbi and Ryan! Most unexpectedly (by all concerned!), our youngest, Rosie is expecting! She is now happy about the news and is settling down with James, the baby’s father. We have met James a couple of times now and he is lovely. None of this was the way we would have had the story go had we written the book! However, of course, we are delighted and very happy for Rosie and James.
 
Earlier this week, though, we had the news that Rosie went for her 12 week routine scan and it has revealed that the baby’s intestines are outside of the abdomen. Apparently this is not an uncommon situation and is rarely life-threatening, but, nevertheless, it is not the way the story is supposed to go! They were referred to St George’s Hospital in London the next for further scans and consultations. We were blessed that we were in Reading at the time, and they came and stayed with us overnight, and we all went to the hospital, and Debbi joined us later. The most likely scenario will be that the baby will have to be delivered a week early and then whisked straight off for surgery to put everything where it should be. We would really value prayer for all of this.
 
Rosie has never come to a faith, despite having been brought up in ours’, but she is now very good friends with a young couple from our ‘home’ church in Worthing. We pray, of course, that Rosie and James, as well as Debbi and Ryan, find a true and living relationship with our Lord.
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Tracey is currently awaiting an appointment to go to the Ophthalmology Unit at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford. This will be for perhaps more specialist investigations into her failing eyesight, but more significantly, for genetics testing to find out if future generations need to be concerned. On the whole, her vision seems to have stabilised but she has recently been experiencing a lot of pain behind the eyes and a new manifestation of the vision distortion whereby the ground appears to be undulating towards her as she walks (rather like ocean waves rolling in under the gravel/paving etc). This is most disconcerting and does get her some very indignant looks from Oakley when she stumbles and wobbles, causing inadvertent tugs and jerks on his harness!
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Amidst all of this, we are trying to settle into some kind of rhythm of life and to get going on our path to writing and publishing, plus Tim is trying to rebuild some business hosting and designing websites etc. Both of these, we hope, will eventually bring us income and enable us to come off of benefits. God has brought us to where we are, given us the skills and equipment to do this, all we need now is the time, focus of attention, and time discipline to get on with it.
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Of course, whilst ALL of this is going on, we continue to do our best to serve the people that ‘happen’ across our path: We have recently had the privilege of chatting a couple of times with a homeless chap, Jon, who vehemently declined offers of food, except for a cup of coffee, plus one to go in his thermos mug, and a couple of slices of bread & butter. We did actually slip in a few other items of food into his bag, plus a bible! We pray that he will read the Bible and that we or somebody else might be able to follow up on this in some way. We seem to do a fair bit of seed-sowing but don’t expect to see the harvest reaped. Most of our ministry seems to be in bringing tired / drained / drifted Christians aboard the boat for a bit of the peace of the canals. This is often just for a cuppa and a chat, or sometimes a meal. Occasionally for a night or two aboard and a bit of a cruise. There do seem to be an awful lot of such people in churches around the country!
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It was, we are sure, no coincidence, but a definite God-incidence that we arrived at Hungerford on the day that Tim needed to dash to Bournemouth to his Dad’s hospital bedside. It was there that we ‘happened’ upon friends Mike and Jean Greenslade, who very kindly moved Sola Gratia on to Kintbury, then arranged with another friend John Froggatt to skipper her on to Newbury. Thank you to these wonderful brothers and sisters (who are fellow Canal Ministries people) for their help and support. Thank You Lord, for your planned timings!
 
God is SO good! He never fails to care for us and to provide for us. Jeremiah 29:11 has been, and continues to be our ‘mantra’. Once again, with all that is going on, this seems a very poignant promise.


Love
Tim, Tracey & Oakley