VISA arrived

Hooorah hoorah! Praise the Lord! The Visas have arrived safely - just picked them up from the Royal Mail sorting office. Talk about 11th hour!

We fly on Sunday, so without these visas we would probably not be able to go, so thank you everybody for your kind prayers.

We will be attending St Mary's Church, Luton on Sunday morning (3rd January) at 10am for anyone who wants to see us and give us a hug before we depart! It'd be good to catch up with many of you.

God has really done amazing miracles, especially in the past few days.

On Friday we received a phone call from the South African High Commission demanding a further £600 each as a security deposit in case we 'needed repatriation' and further South African-based health care cover (our British long stay medical travel insurance was not sufficient for their standards). We have only just fundraised enough for our needs with no 'buffer', so it was a heavy blow and a shock as we had not been informed of this earlier.

However, over the weekend, and without us asking, we have received enough donations to cover all these extra costs. We are over-whelmed by God's provision and people's generosity and obedience

Hopefully (and please pray for guidance) Pete will be able to meet with the High Commission this week and give all the funds and necessary paperwork to them.

It's just 2 weeks until we fly to South Africa. There's still so much to do (mainly packing and sorting), so please keep praying for us, especially as we work to get our visas.

We have just about enough now for the first three months (study phase). Friends and family have been so generous with sacrificial gifts. We are so humbled by this. Thank you!

Thanks for all your prayers and support. It has meant so much to us, especially in the past couple of weeks which have been quite difficult. Both of us have felt really under attack. They're not things that we can easily unpack here but it has been a time of authorities personally attacking and undermining us. It all happened on the same day and we knew that this wasn't from God. This is a real time of testing and trusting God, even when things appear to fail. When God calls you, the enemy will try and put obstacles in your way. We know, however, - thanks to so much confirmation - that we're supposed to be in South Africa in 2010. Please keep praying for us to be obedient to this call.

Close friends of ours from Luton, Matt and Mareike (and baby Seth), will be in Cape Town in January and will be picking us up from the airport. This is a real blessing and just shows God is looking out for us in little ways too.

On a lighter note, Christmas is almost upon us. We've managed to escape without spending much on Christmas this year (thanks in part to Pete's family's recession-busting secret santa). It feels all too quick and things are happening where we feel like we need another couple of months to prepare...but Christmas week puts a lot of pressure on getting things done now!

Thankfully things all seem to be going smoothly...still waiting on visas, so prayers needed there!

We'd love to meet with as many of you as possible before leaving. We know that this might not be feasible, as many of you are away over Christmas. However, if you are able to get in touch - either via email, telephone or popping into our house, we'd love to see you.