For Jim the run up to Easter was dominated by the preparation of the latest edition of Vista, the quarterly bulletin of the Nova Research Centre.  Each edition of Vista focuses on a different issue related to mission in Europe and this one deals with the thorny issue of politics and the church.  History has shown that when the church has got involved in politics the result has more often been the corruption of the church rather than the sanctification of society.  Yet holding up our hands and doing and saying nothing in the political issues of our day (whether because of our own timidity or because we have accepted the secularist argument that Christians have nothing to say in the public arena) cannot be right either.  To download Vista from the Nova blog just follow this link: http://europeanmission.redcliffe.org/vista-communicating-research-and-innovation/

Next Monday at 4am Jim will be travelling out to Sofia in Bulgaria for three days.  He is working with a group of the national directors of the International Federation of Evangelical Students (IFES) on a project to research the values of students across Europe so as to produce more relevant evangelistic and discipleship materials.  Some of you may remember that around this time last year he travelled out to Frankfurt for the first gathering with this group of leaders.  The project has great potential but Jim is concerned that not everyone is pulling in the same direction at the moment so pray that these three days would be productive and bring everybody together in a coordinated research effort.  As always pray too for safety.

This short three-day week has meant some very intense days for Christine, not least because of the arrival and return of some new volunteers.  There has also been the start of a new and very differently structure “Term 5″ which has been quite stressful at times but has gone well.  She is looking forward to the long weekend and to being part of a Royal Wedding Celebration organized by some of the students.  A picture of Christine’s “Royal Biscuits” is attached.

The children are all well.  Grace is counting down her last ever days of classes at school – there are just 19 days left before she is on study leave before her exams.  Alex faces a new challenge this weekend as he makes his first solo trip on a train up to see friends in Boston, Lincolnshire.  And Rosie seems to be developing her artistic talents at the minute….there are pencil drawings of faces and eyes and other things all over the house at the minute.  We know you love pictures of the kids so a couple are attached from a recent family day out and another from a recent trip to Norwich.

Finally, some of you have asked after our laptop problems!  Jim’s laptop proved beyond repair though we were able to retrieve all the content of the hard drive and Jim intends to sell it for parts on eBay.  Christine’s laptop is working though has a serious problem with the connection between the base and the screen which makes it a bit unreliable, but we are thankful for the loan of a laptop from college.

Forgive this rather rambling Postcard, but we wanted to get something to you before Jim’s trip to Sofia,

All our love,

Jim and Christine