Sweet photos

Not sure how to get these off facebook - so here's the link to some wonderful photos from a few years ago. Sweet.

Joys and bittersweetness

Off we went to Manchester on the red-eye (yes, I love getting up at 5am) on Friday, whizzing back here Saturday evening, late.

Hired a car. Drove to pick up my mother. She chatted non-stop as soon as she got in the car, continuing for the next couple of hours. Beautiful drive through autumn-tinged fields, red-gold leaves sharply in contrast with rich black loamy fields. Coffee, sitting in warm sunshine streaming through the windows.

Bittersweet. She could hardly walk, complaining of tiredness after half a dozen steps. She barely knew me. What she said rarely made any sense at all.

Drove to Bradford over the Pennines. Superb views. Even more superb to meet Catharine at Christians Against Poverty. What a fantastic place to work: open, friendly, huge fun; focused on helping people escape the confines of debt and the shackles of fear. And a daughter so full of joy and enthusiasm, loving every minute of her new life. Drive to Yorkshire National Park, Bolton Abbey, Ilkley - such a feeling of space, history, a new culture beckoning exploration. Another time...

Then the farewells. Bittersweet. 8 weeks to Christmas.

Whizzed back towards the airport, calling in to see dear friends for a cup of tea. Wonderful to be with, to catch up, to rejoice in. Then, negotiating motorways and traffic jams once more, we returned.

Phew.

Cake sale!

As part of Cat's internship with Christians Against Poverty, she has to fundraise for the charity, aiming for a total of £3000 over the whole year. Quite a lot.

She started with a talk - illustrated with a superb Powerpoint - in church, followed by a cake sale. We seemed to be baking for days, but she raised over £400 through the generosity of the congregation in both donating and buying cakes.  It was a lovely opportunity to chat to people, too.

God answers prayers

A blogpost by Karen Ehmann of Proverbs 31 reminded me of a similar situation a few years ago.

Catharine was going off to help out for a week at the Christian conference, Momentum, at Shepton Mallet in Somerset. I think she was 18 or 19 at the time. Not so young, but not so old either.

A plane ride, a bus ride, a train ride, another bus ride... a little complicated, but not too bad.

Until she ended up at the train station 6 miles away from where she was heading. No buses. Not enough money for a taxi - she'd hoped to use her bank card, but had to spend most of the cash she had on her train fares. So she phoned me. (Her phone credit was about to run out, too, but there was a telephone box. Amazingly, not only had it not been vandlised, it even displayed its number, which she gave me so I was able to call her back.)

I was at home. A plane ride, a bus ride and a train ride away. Too far to help my little girl, I thought. ("I knew you'd know what to do, Mum," she said later.)

We discussed her options, but when she said she would walk if she couldn't find any other way of getting to the site, I started to panic. The idea of my daughter, with heavy back pack and innocent attitude, walking along a busy main road, no footpath, with cars dashing by at speeds of over 60 miles per hour filled me with horror.

I hung up, promising to phone her back in a few minutes. I thanked God for the internet. I looked up taxi firms in the towns nearby, hoping to be able to pay by debit card over the phone, but none of them would accept. Until the last taxi firm of all. As I explained my daughter's predicament, the driver interrupted me. "That's all right, I'll take her," he said. "I'm going that way anyway. I've just left the station but I'll turn round. And I think I saw her: there was a girl in the telephone box. I'll be five minutes."

He was indeed five minutes. He picked her up, dropped her at the gates and refused payment, leaving her with enough money to tide her over until she was able to get more cash.

Don't you believe in angels of the human kind? I do.