A year in Brussels - ‘le confort, la Calme,  le caractère, la cortoisie et la cuisine’.  Thank you so much again to those who are praying and supporting us.  We have enjoyed the visits of both those passing through to or from holiday, and those staying longer.  It is always good to see you.  I was reminded by one visitor that we came out to be helpers in CCB-Est (the church we are part of here). The Team (Dave & Sue, Yanis & Rachel, Rich & Anna, and ourselves) have a vision to bring people to encounter Jesus whether they are Christians or those who are interested.

A typical week includes the Sunday morning meeting involving setting up, getting the coffee strong and the tea weak enough for the European palate!  We are all involved in helping with crèche or the children’s work, Tim using his strangled French to lead a meeting on occasion, being helped by Sue, Rachel or Anna so that his English sermons are translated into French.  Wednesday morning, reasonably early, sees us meet for prayer, very occasionally with a croissant or two in attendance.  Then the same evening we meet, at the moment bringing a song, a film clip, a scripture, or, well whatever the theme for the evening is.

A Scottish Dance evening with a KBCTC group visited led by Cedric and Audrey was an example of an event we organised in the community - we also used some questionnaires, in French, near where the Sunday meeting takes place.  Every six weeks we have a Sunday lunch at the lounge for visitors and ‘the fringe’, followed by a talk with an evangelistic edge.  Rich and Anna hosted an Alpha Course in the New Year helped by a number of others in the church, and a course is planned for this New Year too.

Everything is conducted in French, any English being translated.  This is a challenge for the Anglophones amongst us as we learn more effective French. Barb is finding this particularly difficult, learning, finding some encouragements, but after a year of classes finding it frustrating not to be able to talk more freely.  Tim is enjoying his classes this year, amused by some of the turns of Belgian French phrase, and pleased to find the international feel of the British International School of Brussels to be found in the language school too.

There we are: a flavour!  Talking of flavours, Barb has been busy in Lounge 81, cooking cakes, and learning the way things run so that now Sue can leave her in charge for a day.  She has also hit it off with this year’s group of girls who work in there, so much so they even had t-shirts with her photo printed on them.  They wore them for a week or two before shutting for the summer break, and Barb was embarrassed.  (Nice photo though, visible somewhere on Facebook!).

She returned to the UK for a fortnight followed by another week to make up her nursing hours at Helen House and so retain her registration with the RCN.  A lot of very hard work and allowing her to see Sam.  From September she hopes to see if there is any nursing she can do amongst the Expat community that might reduce the need to go back to the Hospice.

Sam finished his nine months at the Antioch Training Centre in Mumbai in March and we went out to the graduation ceremony, visiting ‘the Bungalow’ in Thane, Sam as our long suffering guide.  It was a good time, and we are proud of Sam for having persevered through the struggles of cultural differences, and are impressed by how he has learnt some street Hindi, some of which it is probably not wise to have translated precisely, but more because he was following God’s lead.  Thank you to those who visited and kept an eye on him when you were there.  He found it a struggle to settle back in the UK, and is beginning to develop Christian roots while also seeking to go on with God.  He is now in Derby as part of a Year Team in the church there.

Naomi did well in her ‘Junior’ year, getting 5s or better in her IB subjects, and is currently thinking about University courses.  One thought she has is to do a Linguistics degree, and then a PGCE allowing her to teach in Africa somewhere.  She was baptised in July, and since then has begun to read the Bible in earnest (“a shame really, you find out some of the wrong things you’ve got to stop doing”), speak in tongues, as well as the French provoked by working for a month at the Gagnières Christian Centre where Destinée was held.

Since starting work in London Beth has visited us a number of times, most recently with Matt to celebrate Barb’s Dad’s 80^th birthday.  On different occasions we also have all visited her in London and so have a good idea of her environment at Canada Water.  She is enjoying London and the opportunities work has provided - Polo matches with celebrities for example - but is having to work very hard with Events in Argentina, London and New York to occupy her mind, fuel her CV, and challenge her faith.  She came out to Gagnières with us during the summer, hoping for sun, but remaining un-tanned as the weather became wet and cooler. 

Tim led a team that worked mainly with 40 or so French speaking 5 to 8 year olds, using ‘Ratatouille’ (the film not the dish!) managing to understand and speak more French than the last time he was involved.  This term he has a Year 2 class with an equal variety of nationalities to the last, including a Muslim girl who speaks only Urdu and a little French.  He carried out the KS1 SATs last year - a first, being more used to KS3 Science SATs, and was also observed by the ISI inspection team five times without a disaster!  The Team’s Leader (he was from the UK, the others were Brits from schools in Madrid and Amsterdam) summed up how he felt about the school by saying he would be more than happy if his grandchildren went there.

So it has been a year of God’s faithfulness and provision, meeting new people, and living way out of our comfort zones.  God is teaching us to trust him more, and challenging us with how much we actually do love him.  We have had to see beyond a break-in, a school inspection, learning a language, a new church situation, new jobs, and money to find God.  Just to finish, a quote ...

Abraham's 'is a story of a man who obeyed God's call to leave his country and follow the leading of his God to a place he knew nothing about.  It is a story in which, with Paul as our teacher, we become acclimated to the word 'faith' - trusting obediently in what we cannot control, living in obedient relationship to the One we cannot see, venturing into a land we know nothing about. ... The way of Abraham continues today along these same lines.  Somewhere along the way we realise that we are not in charge of our own lives.  The life of faith does not consist in imposing our will (or God's will!) either on other persons or on the material world around us.  Instead of making the world around us or the people around us or our own selves into the image of what we think is good, we enter the lifelong process of no longer arranging the world and the people on our terms.  We embrace what is given to us - people, spouse, children, forests, weather, city - just as they are given to us, and sit and stare, look and listen until we begin to see and hear the God-dimensions in each gift, and engage with what he is doing.  Every time we set out, leaving our self-defined or culture-defined state, leaving behind our partial and immature projects, a wider vista opens up before us, a landscape larger with promise.'  The Jesus Way, Eugene Peterson 2007 p.44.     

Please give thanks for

· all that God has provided and encouraged us with through the year,

· our relationships as a family,

· God’s protection for Sam, provision of work for Beth, and help for Naomi’s IBs

· CCB-Est, and how God is working in and through the people who are part of it

· Lounge 81

· work, fun and favour at the British International School of Brussels www.bisb.org

Please pray for:

· our continuing involvement in CCB-Est

· continued provision for us to remain in Brussels

· Barb’s French

· Naomi as she leaves school in May

· A secondary job for Tim