On the road

Today we said farewell to our lovely friends Rich and Gay Miller and moved to Allentown.
On the way we visited our friends in Norristown for an outdoor worship service.

Em was asked to sing.

We stayed for lunch and Noah was able to be part of the celebration for July birthdays!!!! (Big cake!)

We arrived at the Ripple Church food bank. This is the queue for food. The umbrella is not because it was raining!!!! It was muchos hot!

Inside the Food bank. This is organised by Tom and Caroline Albright who planted Ripple two years ago. Tom visited us in St. Mark's about a month ago! Awesome!

There's a cafe to chill out in (just like St. Mark's - awesome!).
Hang on - who's that serenading in the background....?
Is it a bird?
Is it a plane?

No, it's super-singing-woman!!!!

By the way,

Things are big here!

BFN

From Philly with Love

Hi. We have spent the last couple of days exploring Philadelphia city and here are some of the amazing sights we've seen!!!

There are approxiamtely 2500 awesome murals in the city!!!



Pastor Ertel Whigham, an amazing guy (and ex-marine, now pastoring a peace church and is the head guy of the mennonite network we're with) showed us around North Philly, where he grew up.

It's full of amazing people and churches but needs lots of TLC.

This was part of a row of terraced houses. The others were demolished. When they get run down the authorities knock them down leaving loads of these stand alone units - they look like half eaten cakes with left over slices... The churches in the area have grouped together and bought 5 whole blocks to stop developers buying up land which would move the residents out. The churches have also pressurised the banks to stop refusing loans to people in these post codes even when they have good credit ratings.

 Down town.

Var with local law enforcement...

Em and the boys whale spotting in Love Park.

A big flag.

An awesome youth band! Something to do with... I don't know... chasing British people.

We're off to worship at Pastor Ertel's church in Norristown tomorrow (Em's been asked to sing!!! Yeah!). Then we'll be located in Allentown for a couple of weeks.

BFN



Precious life and new friends

Well over the last three days we've already made some great new friends...another reminder of how amazing the Kingdom of God is, wherever you go, you meet brothers and sisters in Christ and can immediately connect and enjoy hanging out.

Wednesday and Thursday we went into Norristown and spent time with the staff and children at the Precious Life Centre. An inspiring ministry reaching children from all backgrounds but with a particular heart for children with learning difficulties/special needs. Our boys have made some great new friends and have enjoyed talking about what England is like. One of the boys thought it was great that we talked like Harry Potter!

There was a meeting about immigration issues facing an increasingly multi-ethnic church.

We had dinner with some other new friends Scott & Andrea last night. They are involved in church renewal/planting and also have a sustainable coffee buisiness ('One Village'). We had fresh homemade burgers which we ate al fresco...it was delicious and so nice to hang out and enjoy a beautiful evening. Isaac & Noah had lots of fun catching Lightning Bugs after we had all had a crazy game of badminton!

We found a School with the samw name as ours!!!

So we've just been for a stroll with our hosts Gay & Rich and it's already very hot...so slow walking will be the order of the day!

We're gonna go into Philadelphia itself this afternoon for a little tour.

"I love being in America!"

Well, we're here! Less than 24 hours in and Isaac's mantra is "I love being in America!". Bit jet lagged...Noah & Isaac woke up at 3.45am and Noah stayed awake so we may all crash later! But already had fun playing on inflatble water slide and seen a Northern Cardinal (which is a bird!)! Oh and it's 33 degrees in the shade and beautiful sunshine! So far so good!

A female Northern Cardinal no less!

We're off!

Cases packed, guinea pigs settled into their holiday home in Wales, Noah's 5th birthday celebrations over, Gospel Choir concert done...quite a weekend but it does now mean tomorrow we're off to the USA! We'll arrive in New York in the evening (their time...about midnight UK time) then get picked up and taken to Philadelphia where we'll be staying for a almost a week. We're all very excited, it's a big adventure...so watch this space!

20 days to go!

Well, it's not long til we go now. This Sunday is our last Sunday at St Mark's until the end of September...we'll miss everyone but pray God's massive blessing on them as they get to have a break from us!!!

We met up with Tom Albright on Sunday, he's visiting the UK for a bit and we'll be spending time with him and his church (Ripple) in Allentown, who are in lots of ways on a similar journey to St Mark's. We're really looking forward to meeting them all and getting stuck into the work they're involved in in their communities. He told us to expect it to be very hot when we're there...just like here in the UK eh?!!! So I don't think we'll be needing many jumpers.

Still got quite a lots to do before we go. There's the obvious packing but also need to make sure the guinea pigs get to their holiday destination...Abergavenney, arrange Noah's birthday celebrations (he's 5 the day before we go!) and have a Gospel Choir concert on the 10th July!

We have blog!

Well here it is, the start of the Smallwoods adventure...well almost! We're off to the states on 11 July, staying in Philadelphia, Washington, Chicago, North Wisconsin and finally New York. We can't wait! This will hopefully help keep you our friends and family up to speed on our antics!