The Morgan-Gurrs

We’ve been on a lot of motorways, A roads and B roads in the last week!

Last Sunday we drove down to Hassocks, ready for an early meeting on Monday morning in Worthing, and drove back in time for tea in Leicester.

We managed a day at home before going to Ross on Wye for a couple of days to celebrate our 14th Wedding anniversary – a welcome break amid all the busyness!

Tomorrow evening (Sunday), Steve’s youngest son, James is to be baptised. James’ journey has been a long one, and his testimony is awesome. He is quite nervous and would appreciate prayer. We will be taking a few tissues along to the service………!

On Wednesday we will be back on the motorways – in the evening we will be at a camps taster evening at Dalesdown, and then on Thursday morning we will be flying out to Latvia for the CW Latvia annual members’ meeting. (leaving our trusty house sitters in place to look after things back home). We fly back on Monday 8th.

Do keep an eye on the twitter updates (On the right of this page) as we will try to keep twittering from Latvia!

Kay is doing some research at the moment about bullying and how the Church community helps children and young people who are bullied.

If you have a moment – could you look at the page about this and answer some questions?

Thankyou!

Our team conference (5 -7th Feb) at Dalesdown was great! A lovely time of fellowship all round. It was great to have Graham and Steph Reed with us, as well as the newly married Iveta with her hubby Andris, over from Latvia. It was also wonderful to have David Iliffe, the founder of Children Worldwide with us briefly – he is very frail now, and finds it difficult to remember who people are. But on the year we were to present the vision for the future – it was a privilege to have him there.

The food was absolutely awesome – which is always helpful! Add to that the fact that we had planned in plenty of time to just chat and drink coffee/tea. It’s always so good to meet up with all of our members and hear what they have been doing, and to encourage each other in our many ministries.

The new vision and plans for the future were presented and very well received.  All the members were enthused and excited about it all, and our newer members were able to see the amazing history we have and how the past and the future tie in together.

It’s always difficult to describe what Children Worldwide is about and how we got to where we are, just because we do so many things! So it has been a good exercise to think it through and write it down as part of the vision for the future.

One of our friends from church came up with a very good description of Children Worldwide this week: “You’re a bit like a crocheted patchwork blanket – each square beautiful in it’s own right, but each one essential to the look of the whole blanket”. They were right – each member with their own amazing sphere of work, but each one vital in the make up of the organisation!

Since our last blog we have been at the Children’s Ministry/Family Ministry ‘Hand in Hand’ conference in Eastbourne, had various meetings, been to the Spring Harvest Team preparation Day in Derby, and are now in the south, Having had a Family Foundation Trust board meeting last night.

The Hand in Hand conference was excellent. Over 100 packs about Children Worldwide were given out, Steve did really well with his seminar on Puppetry (oodles of excellent feedback!), and many good conversations were had.

The Spring Harvest team preparation day was very useful – all we need to do now is see how we can make some of the themes work for 5 – 7 year olds. We’ll fill you in on other discussions as and when we know more…..

The Board meeting was one of the shortest we have attended – but a good one!

Tomorrow Kay is doing the Child Protection training for staff and volunteers at Dalesdown and then meeting up with one of our lovely colleagues for lunch.

Our full team conference is this weekend, preceded by the Children Worldwide management group meeting on Friday morning – but more of that nearer the time!