Friday 18 May 2012

Lilies and Ravens

We feel compelled to share the great things God has done for us since we left the ship. He has consistently given us more than we have asked or hoped for. First up, somewhere to live...

As we were leaving the ship we needed somewhere to live! We wanted to be back near to our friends and church in Cambridge but rents are very expensive there (close to £1000 per month). We prayed as a family that we would find somewhere we could afford, that we would be near to our friends in Histon and also that we would have enough space to have visitors. We asked people to ask around to see if we could find a place that was cheap to rent. A couple we had never met responded to a request for suitable accommodation put in their church news-sheet by our best friends. We got more than we could ever have hoped for!

They had just found out that the husband was being sent to Switzerland for two years. As part of the arrangement they were to be put up in furnished temporary accommodation while looking for a long term rental. As a result they were able to offer us the use of their house RENT FREE from the end of January to early July. And to show that God blesses abundantly, it is a spacious house right in the village we were before.

To top it off, we heard a couple of days ago that their plans have changed slightly and we will be able to stay in the house until the end of July, saving us a few weeks of being homeless while the boys finish up school here.

To sum up: God has provided us with a rent free house to live in, owned by people we had never met, for just the right time in just the right place.

We have found that ordinary people who have experienced God's amazing love have themselves been extraordinarily generous. We are humbled to be the beneficiaries of such sacrificial generosity.

God is Good, all the time! All the time, God is Good!


"So I tell you, don't worry about the food or drink you need to live, or about the clothes you need for your body. Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothes. Look at the birds in the air. They don't plant or harvest or store food in barns, but your heavenly Father feeds them. And you know that you are worth much more than the birds. 27 You cannot add any time to your life by worrying about it.


"And why do you worry about clothes? Look at how the lilies in the field grow. They don't work or make clothes for themselves. But I tell you that even Solomon with his riches was not dressed as beautifully as one of these flowers. God clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today but tomorrow is thrown into the fire. So you can be even more sure that God will clothe you. Don't have so little faith! Don't worry and say, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' The people who don't know God keep trying to get these things, and your Father in heaven knows you need them. Seek first God's kingdom and what God wants. Then all your other needs will be met as well. So don't worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will have its own worries. Each day has enough trouble of its own. [Matthew 6:25-34 NCV]

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