The Morgan-Gurrs

I know it’s been a long time since our last blog update – we should have updated sooner!

But this is the last couple of months in a nutshell:

Kay’s operation went well, and as a result her health is improving very quickly in many areas – especially the fibromyalgia. She is now off the crutches and down to a walking stick, and hoping to be off the walking stick by Christmas!

Steve did a really good job on the Hungarton camp – as Kay knew he would! The teaching went well, and various members of the team helped out with storytelling and doing actions to songs. Steve commuted twice a day, coming home in between sessions to look after Kay.

Kay didn’t spend her recovery time doing nothing, but in between the compulsory resting she took time to think and pray about all things children worldwide, do some work on child protection/safeguarding policies, and various other admin type things she could do whilst lying down. In other words, even with the recovery time, work has continued – its just hasn’t been ‘on the road’ work.

On 22nd August, Steve’s Youngest son, James, was married to Naomi! A lovely day (see photo) and we now have a daughter in law! It was the first day Kay was allowed out after her operation.

We’ve had a break up in Filey for 12 days, and have come back very refreshed!

The ‘on the road’ work begins with a training day in London on Saturday, working with a church we have done church weekends for in the past, and then continues with more training days over the next few weeks.

We are currently putting together a presentation for our management board about how we see Children Worldwide in the future. We have spent much time praying and thinking this through. We have come up with many ideas and found a renewed passion for the work we do with Children Worldwide and the way we lead it. We will be doing a lot of work on this over the next few months, with a view to re-launching all things ‘Children Worldwide’ after our conference in February.

We will let you know what these ideas are once our members have heard and approved them!

Kay hasn’t been doing twitter much over the last couple of months, as she tends to use it to let you know how our work is going when we are on the road – but we haven’t been on the road! So the twitter updates should start again very soon.

But the next job is – to update to the diary page!

Those of you who check the twitter updates on the left may have noticed a major news flash from Kay.

The out come of her hospital visit was the need to go back into hospital for more surgery (Total hysterectomy). We thought this was to be on 4th August (as announced in the latest news letter – see news letter page). But a phone call on Tuesday changed all our well laid out plans……

The date of the operation is now 14th July – three weeks earlier than planned. This DOESN’T signify a problem! Because Kay has Fibromyalgia, it does throw up a few issues to do with major surgery like this, and her consultant wanted to make sure she had the best team around her, and not on holiday. (The consultant anaesthetist was due to be away on 4th August).

Because of the Leicester holidays beginning today, it also means that no one else wants to have their operations next week – so Kay is the only person on the list! 

So what about the camps we were going to be involved with? Well – Kay won’t be doing any of them! 

For the Hungarton camps in Leicester (Starting on the following Sunday  - the day we hope Kay is to be discharged) Steve will still be doing the morning meetings as planned – starting Monday morning, and doing the teaching Kay would have done. Our pastor has agreed to do the stories (Thanks Andy!) and there are lots of people willing to help. He will commute twice daily and not stay on camp.

All of the Health and safety, and safeguarding things that Kay does have all been handed over too – everyone has been brilliant in just stepping up and taking on various bits of responsibility to make the hand over so very easy! Steve will also continue helping with music in the meetings for both weeks, while mum and friends keep Kay company at home. With Steve having to be carer for Kay for quite some time – both Kay and Steve strongly feel that he should still help with the music as it’s something he loves doing!

We won’t be going down to the Dalesdown Camps, and had already pulled out because of the original date making it impossible to go. Again, others have stepped in to take over the roles we were doing.

Because the operation is so soon after the pervious surgery, and it is a bigger op, Kay has been given strict recovery guidelines. She’ll be gently moving around, but will have to spend most of the first 6 week horizontal, and will have to take things very slowly after that. So – there will be a lot of resting, but when she feels up to it, she’s hoping to do some writing and research (Whilst horizontal!)

The blog won’t be officially updated during the first 1 or 2 weeks, but I’m sure Kay will ‘twitter’ a few comments from hospital – so do check the column on the left for those!

Preparation for all things summer started last weekend with the Hungarton Camp training day. The week one team were treated to a Hungarton breakfast before learning all that will be happening on week one, and then doing some clean up/set up work as team building activities – see photo of one of them! (Our favourite sort of team building – no embarrassment factor!) From that day we can see what a great team we have – for both weeks.
During this week we have finalised the teaching for week 1 of Hungarton – we’ll be looking at Joshua, and applying the theme using sporting themes. The evening theme is “Building” (For those who know we did a building theme for Whizz Kids – we didn’t decide this one – it’s totally different…. although some of the props may be familiar!!)
Hungarton 1 and 2 are both full to overflowing, it’s going to be two very full on weeks for the leaders! Please pray for suitable weather, fun and safety, as well as for children’s hearts open to what God has to say to them during their camp.
There is still space on the Dalesdown Camps (Nr Horsham) – check out www.dalesdowncamps.co.uk if you know any youngster who would like to go (Bursaries available if the cost is too much) contact the office on admin@childrenworldwide.co.uk
For the rest of this week, Kay has been finalising Spring Harvest accounts, as well as preparing presentations, and finalising child protection (safeguarding) documents. Steve has been doing battle with the garden and household DIY – and winning!

Last weekend was a great one, spent looking after twelve 4 – 8 yr olds at a church weekend. We always enjoy working with St. Luke’s Thurnby – always welcoming, friendly and a pleasure to be with. It also makes us feel old seeing youngsters who have been with us over the years now ‘all growed up’!
If you check out the twitter updates on the left, you will see some of the things we taught.

A Children Worldwide management meeting on Tuesday was really good. We spent some time looking at the future and how we should develop what we do. Our ‘fresh vision’ for the future isn’t earth shattering – It’s to keep doing what we do – but do it better! One new idea was to put on lunch time events to bless other children’s workers who need to know they are loved and appreciated. Children Worldwide is mainly about fellowship and support – so we hope to be implementing this soon! There were lots of other ideas that will benefit our existing membership – we all just need the time to put them in place… All very exciting though!

News hot off the press from Wednesday – those who follow our blog will know Kay had an operation last March. For various reasons, the full operation Kay was expecting wasn’t done, so she is due to go back and have a total hysterectomy on August 4th (As long as the anesthetist gives the go ahead). This is very soon after the previous surgery – and having fibromyalgia means recovery is generally slower, but having the op then gives a longer time frame for recovery (No large event to dash off to only 3 ½ weeks later as we did last time!)

Meanwhile – back to preparing for Hungarton Camps!

This last week has been non stop journeyings! 

From Broadstairs, to Hassocks, to Cheltenham, to London, and tomorrow on to Sheffield.

Lots of meals have been had with lots of lovely people, as well as some meetings, time for ourselves, and even an ‘interview’ for ‘In Good Company’, Jeff Lucas and Ruth Dearnley’s Chat show on Premier Radio. This will air some time in August on a Sunday night at around 8pm. Kay was very nervous about it, but Steve seemed to take things in his stride – as usual!

Next week the traveling continues with a trip to Falmouth for Peter’s (Steve’s oldest son’s) graduation – taking grandma with us too! Then we travel back to a local conference centre to do the children’s work for a church weekend (St.Lukes, Thurnby)

Do keep an eye on the twitter updates (On the left) for real time updates on all we’re doing, as it covers more than we can in blog updates!

We’ve finally updated the diary! Do keep an eye on the tweet updates and you’ll see what else we’re up to!! If you look at the diary and can’t get back to the main page (I had this problem!) try clicking on ‘The Morgan-Gurrs’ title at the top of the page….

Yes – we’ve changed the look of the blog!

This is to try to make it more accessible to those who need a larger print to read the updates. This theme should stop the titles and text overlapping in large print mode.

Since the last blog entry we have done three assemblies – on the theme of “Seeing the Light”, using the account of Saul’s conversion. Today Steve used his newest trick, to very good affect, to show the children how Saul turned around and changed when he “saw the light”.

Tomorrow afternoon is the Spring Harvest Children’s leaders debrief, followed by a Hungarton Camp planning meeting in the evening.

Do keep an eye on the twitter updates (On the left) We seem to be using them to do real time updates on what we’re doing – interesting (and mercifully short!)

We’re not sure if it’s going to be a useful tool or not – but Kay has joined twitter! We’ll give it a go for a while and see. We’ll probably just use it for posting useful or interesting articles, or making comment on various areas of Children’s Work. If you want to follow Kay on twitter, click the link on the right of the page.

Last weekend we were in Latvia for he first ‘formal’ annual meeting of the CW Latvia Team. Although ‘formal’ it was deliberately informal and relaxed, with the chance for the Team to get to know each other better away from the usual pressures of running an activity.
The team over there share a common council of reference/support group, and it was great to have one of the newer members of this group there with us. He had already been doing this job unofficially as he pastors the church where the CW Latvia office is!
On Saturday Morning Kay led discussion about Child Protection and Children with Special Needs – both were lively and helpful debates.
This time we weren’t at Norkalni – it was booked by others -, but at another (beautiful) centre called Vagneris. If you’re interested have a look at www.vagneris.lv
It was lovely to finally meet members we had heard about, and those who have so much to do with the running of the many fantastic camps out there.

We’re back from Spring Harvest – and it was great! 

Sorry we didn’t update the blog whilst there, but internet access wasn’t very good. (Neither was the phone signal – but that’s a different story!)

On weeks one and two we were leading Whizz Kids (5 – 7 year olds) as usual. The teams were great on both weeks, and the leadership teams, both Whizz Kids and Spring Harvest, were amazingly supportive – especially in light of Kay’s recent op.

The children were a pleasure to have – which was much appreciated as we had more children than we were expecting on both weeks, stretching resources somewhat, but we managed to make everything stretch to fit the numbers.

Many children became Christians – but the way this happened was amazing. We are careful in how we talk about becoming Christians – always avoiding asking the “If you want to become a Christian put your hand up” type question, because we are very aware of peer pressure and the need to please in this age group. We want to be sure that children who become Christians are sure of what they are doing and are genuine in wanting to follow Jesus.

This year children kept coming up to us to tell us how they became Christians in the night – woken up with the desire to give their lives to God! The one exception was a girl who became a Christian on the fair, because she saw Christians having fun! 

Week three was a different role for Kay, as the disabilities consultant. This is a role she has done before and enjoys very much, making sure that all guests who have disabilities – children and adults, can access the programmes they want. It was a great week with only small issues to sort out, and many friends made – once again she was supported brilliantly by head office staff and the site leadership. Steve’s role was supposedly that of a guest, but he spent most of the time working side by side with Kay, helping move and park buggies in the big top, and making sure Kay could get into the less accessible venues to support the special needs teams in the children and youth work.

Even with all the hard work, Kay’s health has continued to improve – obviously so. She did get the ‘Bultins sniffle’ along with lots of others on site, which like everyone else made her feel a bit rough for a couple of days, but even that hasn’t slowed down her progress.

Next is the Latvian team member’s meeting – we’ll be flying out on 30^th April!