Have a blessed Christmas!!

Hey everyone just wanted to say have a great and blessed time with each other over Christmas. We're going to be spending time with family and friends, really looking forward totime off and just chats with many people. We've had a leaders meeting with the Grace leaders last thursday evening and had a brill time of just openess and honesty for all of us.

We then drove to Wexford to hang out with Alex's mum and aunt and some friends. Really had a good a time with them and we just drove from Wexford today to head back to family in Cork. So just a nice time of relaxing and family stuff. May God bring His peace to your home this Christmas, lots of love Alex and Linda.

Update

Well we got a phone call today to say that the contracts have been provisionally signed pending a few enquries. But the solicitor says there should be no problems. So God willing all will work out, but we're quite excited about the fact that the contracts have been finally signed. Thanks for remembering us and continuing to pray for us we'll keep you posted. Also still waiting to see if our offer will be accepted by the people for the house in Cork.

Correction

We found out that it is actually the buyer and not the solicitor that is causing all the hassle. He is being really strange about things and is holding everything up for no real concrete reason. We've even heard that he is questioning the "garage conversion" that we don't even have. So please pray that they stop messing around and sort the deal out. We hope to hear from them tomorrow.

Still waiting ......

Just to update you on the house situation. Still waiting on news back about our contracts we don't know what the hold up is really about as the buyers want to push through the deal asap as well but the solicitor seems to be holding it up. It's just all really strange. Also we have put our final offer in for the house in Cork and the owners are getting back to us on Monday or Tuesday after he has done his figures. So it's all very much still up in the air. So please keep praying. We'll let you know as soon as anything happens.

Back in Dublin

Hey there, were back in the BIg smoke and the traffic really sucks. 7km tail backs wont miss that for sure. I oficially hate the M50. Today we put in a real/final offer on the house in Cork and are waiting on their thoughts. So please pray with us as we are waiting on the Lord for clear direction.

Also there may be a problem with a planning issue on our house which could become a problem. It is a bit hard to swallow as we didn't see it coming and it is a silly issue. So please pray that the sale will go through here and that this issue will not materialise into something big.

We have started boxing the house and it is a bigger job than we first realised, at least we have time.

Today was very hard as we said goodbye to our great friends the Steiners who are heading back to the States and we won't see them for a long time. We were very close and had an emotional time at the Airport this morning.

Thanks for keeping an eye on us, and for praying for us as we continue to follow the Lord's will for our lives.

Praise His name for a great time of fellowship and ministry over the last week in Cork

House is gone

Ok the house in Glanmire is gone and we were gutted. Really sad it went but we're going to put an offer in on one tomorrow, so please pray that if this is the one that it will work out. The agent we are dealing with is really odd and quite rude at times, so it's going to be fun trying to bargain prices with him. So we really need prayer for confidence and courage with him and that if this house isn't the one then we will know quickly rather than having it dragged out. We need to find somewhere to live sooner rather than later. This house by the way was the one out of the two we had narrowed it down to, so it's our last choice we have at the moment. After this it's back to the drawing board.

In Cork again

Hey sorry we haven't updated since the last one but a lot has happened since then. Alex got sicker and ended up in hospital all day monday but thank goodness and of course thank God that prayers are being answered and Alex has gotten so much better. He feel to the floor monday with pain and when we took him in they gave him blood tests, x-rays and other tests to see if it was galstones and try to figure out what was causing all the pain. In the end stocked with plenty of painkillers and a referal to the the physio we were off home again. Was so good that he didn't have to stay overnight. It was great to have him back home. Turns out that while they were convinced he had gal stones after a few hours they then determined that he just had severe backpain brougth on by back spasms. I don't know but it sure didn't just look like back pain but we're really grateful it's now not as serious.

On a brighter note we traveled down to Cork on wed and viewed a house. Not convinced it's the one but there was one that we had fallen in love with back in Sept but when we called back about it we were told it was sale agreed and no longer available. But yesterday we drove by it and saw it was still for sale but was being sold by two agents so we called the other one and they said it was still open for offers but was almost at sale agreed. We couldn't believe the other agent shafted us. So we are awaiting the couple to come back to the agents so we can find out if we still have a chance to make an offer. So apart from all that waffling the bottom line is PLEASE pray that if this is the house that we will get it, even though it seems slim now. But God is in control and we know that but would be nice if we knew we had somewhere to move into in January. Would just take so much stress off us.

Ministy wise we just came back from a training time with the youth leaders at Grace. We had a great evening with them and talked about the importance of building relationships with the teens as well as with each other and of course God. It was really encouraging to see them all back tonight and as eager as ever. We are also trying to arrange a missions trip with them all next June to Kenya so praying and looking at that. So ya we were quite excited about tonight and after the last two weeks as hard as they were it was so nice to be with the leaders again tonight. Funny also that we heard that some of our leaders down here have also been having a battering and someone has been having a field day in trying to twart their ministry. So would appreciate prayer for protection in all we're doing down here at the moment.

Schedule for Cork ~
Thursday night ~ Trainging youth leaders at Grace
Friday night ~ Christmas party for the youth at Grace
Saturday night ~ Leaders get together with the Pastor from Grace
Sunday night ~ Carol service at Grace followed by our first "college age group" for anyone from Cork. (1st one so pray all goes well, we have no idea who's going to come)
Monday ~ Back to the big smoke