Steadfast

I was praying about our situation the other day and the word 'steadfast' came to me. So I get my Bible and I look up steadfast in the concordance bit - thinking about that old chorus 'The steadfast love of the Lord never ceaseth, His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning, new every morning, Great is thy faithfulness, O Lord, Great is thy faithfulness'.

What do you know? In my NIV concordance there are quite a few 'steadfasts' BUT they are ALL about God making ME /US steadfast ! Well HURRAH I say.

I like 'steadfast' - it's a good Anglo Saxon word about standing firmly in a particular place - and we do believe we have been called to this particular place.

So with Psalm 108 in mind and Psalm 112 'He will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord' , here's the latest....

Things that have happened since last blog:

School is going well for both Flossie and Jude. This week Flossie has 2 days out of school, one to take part in some drama workshops and one to go out with the Ranger to see an ancient archeological thing called a 'broch'. Days out are a nice and frequent occurance in our school's programme.

We have a really hectic weekly programme of work and work related stuff - this week my 'girls only' fitness class starts - I'm very pleased that's happened.

Andrew is getting on well with his Fishermen's Mission work and we all went to lead worship (him) and speak (me) at a service in Kinlochbervie - where we introduced the congregation ( 12 including 4 Jarvis Clan) to Godfrey Birtill.

Things that haven't happened since our last blog:

We are still waiting for the house sale to complete - the end is in sight with this tho - hurrah!

Brownies is still waiting to start - this is INCREDIBLY frustrating but we will get there in the end I am certain.

Pix this time: us staffing a bike race 'food station' on Saturday - shortbread and bananas!

Jude in the rain on the beach - in new super duper 'Keeler' jacket (supporting Scottish Industry!!!)

AND the view from our garden (again) - tho the sun hasn't been out for several days!!!!

Sporadic!!

Jarv and Cle on the beach at Dornoch 30th Aug

Jude's 5th birthday tea party at Clactoll Beach 7th August

I really must get better at keeping this up to date. A September resolution. We have been here 5 months already, July and August have passed in a bit of a blur: a great time at Clan in St.Andrews, visits to Norfolk to see our parents, taking the young people from Lochinver to the Black Isle show, our own Highland Games being the wettest for 72 years or something!

My blogging may be sporadic but our God continues faithful - in the ups and downs and serious and minor wobbles He is the same......

Mountains and valleys

Suilven dominates the sky-line here. Not a very big mountain but a shape like no other - it's what you can see in our profile pic. Andrew and I managed to climb it a couple of weeks ago, we had a great time and could see miles and miles and miles from the top and our village and our house tiny dots below. If you have seen Kung Fu Panda - I really identified with the hero arriving at the top of the mountain a complete breathless HEAP, but it was great to do.

Another mountain top we experienced this last month was at Bught Park in Inverness, where we took 25 young people to hear Luis Palau and Delirious and saw 2 lads commit themselves to Jesus - we now have a little nurture group of just a few young people...please pray for them and us as we find the best ways to disciple them.

We have just finished helping out at holiday club in the village and met lots of children and their families, played games with them, helped them do craft and got them thinking about David. So really rather weary just at the moment BUT it was great to be involved in that as a whole family - Jude and Floss are great at teaching the actions to songs!

One of the verses we taught the children is You are my Strong Shield and I trust in You completely! It was a HUGE effort to get up that mountain for me, but thanks be to God that He has power for us all to live for Him and do all He's asked of us: He gives rest to the weary!

Some firsts on our Highland Adventure

Three 'firsts' in the last few weeks in reverse order.

Today our first really serious experience of the dreaded midgie! Up at Glen Canisp Lodge - used to be owned by 'the estate' but the estate has been bought by the people (yeah!!), so this very nice house is used for weddings and all sorts of other things - like today the finish line for the Assynt Triathlon competition. Still, warm, not sunny, near water - in fact MIDGE HEAVEN - clouds of 'em in your hair, your clothes, your ears.

BUT we have survived!



On Weds we took part in our first evangelist mission in Lochinver. The Luis Palau Highland Festival was in the village and we along with a little band of our Christian friends here were the hosts. We had a Family Fun Zone, a BMX and skate demo and 2 great bands Superhero and Ladd Hill and it was GREAT. Lots of people turned up and enjoyed themselves AND heard the Gospel and 20 wanted to know more about Jesus - some of those 20 made the first step in a relationship with God by inviting Christ into their lives - really really cool and exciting. AND despite it being a bit of a mammoth day for our little group as we did everything - fed the team, ran the events, counselled people, it was great to hear people say, 'Let's do this again next year.'



Finally a Highland Shoe Shop in Dingwall last Saturday, we decide to buy Jude some smashing new walking boots - the shop assistant waves one of those cans of leather protector at us - you know 'you'll need this, it will cost you another £4' BUT instead he said 'AND I'll throw this in for free' Another first!

Good, eh?

Today I completed my first youth cafe session as The Youth Worker. I enjoyed the whole experience! We have now been to a ceildh : this was the previous worker's farewell do and saw a very different culture in action - it is completely cool to do scottish country dancing with your mates as a yp in these parts - how excellent!

We continue to be really excited about the visit from the Luis Palau team to Lochinver on June 10th.

Oh, and we went to the cinema the other week - it arrives on a trailer...here's a pic.

New jobs all round - thank you, Lord!!

First of all sorry to all our followers - we've moved blog address as I am still not as sorted with this blogging lark as I'd like to be and I lost the password and cancelled the email address with out sorting the blog stuff out ...blah ...blah - glad you've found us ...if you have!

Both Andrew and me (cle) have now been accepted for jobs! We are delighted that this has fallen so well into place - but HE does all things WELL - hurrah.

I am about to be the Youth and Community Development Worker for Assynt (the area/parish we are in) Christian Community Youth Project and Jarvis is to be Auxiliary Superintendent for the Mission to Deep Sea Fisherman - this is a part time post working in Ullapool, here in Lochinver and perhaps beyond in the future - if you want to see what this charity does, then Google it!

So we've been here 5 weeks and it is good to be contemplating work, to be involved with the Christians here, to be getting to know people. Flossie and Jude are increasingly settled at school and pre-school and our house is looking good.

We thank God for all these blessings.

Pix: Jarv and Cle looking odd, Jude and a languostine - can I take him home, Mum?? Flossie in new school uniform.