hannah's blog

This is my first 'blog'... Dave and I have been challenged to really trust God recently, things that have happened have been unnerving but also forced us to put our faith in God. Dave became unemployed just before our daughter was born in december - it wasn't planned but was the only option at the time - God was in the decision but the timing seemed crazy. We shared our situation with friends and family and in the following month we received in gifts from friends and family and other means more than Dave would have earned in that month! While Dave has been off work we have been able to get used to family life together and during that time have grasped a vision to start youth work on the estate likning with Connexions and the Tenants and Residents Association, we have even been encouraged to pursue a funding bid. The idea would be that we raise funds for Dave to do that part time and another (well paid) PT job was in the pipeline with a mentoring project locally. The part time job didn't come through and then another significant turn... We are renting privately on a mostly council housed estate, since we moved in we've felt that we could make it our home and like the house more than others we've seen on the estate. Since we moved in in March last year we've hoped we could buy it. Well, now that Dave has no job - not even the PT job and I'm still not in a position to work - having a 7 week old baby - our landlord has decided to sell up and has offered us first refusal! Ridiculous timing, but God's timing. We believe it's right to pursue buying the house - and if (or should I say when) it happens it really will be God's provision. God made space for us to think up a youth work project and now he's ensuring we can do that from a secure home base on the estate (I say that in FAITH!). This really has confirmed our call to use our gifts for God on the estate here in Newton Heath. We've had to swallow our pride and ask for help and now we have to trust for something really big. But these are small things in comparision to trusting God to seeing chaotic, broken, perverted lives become free and whole - that's where the real challenge to trust God comes. We've been reminded about Peter getting out of the boat on to the lake when Jesus called him - the issue wasn't 'did Peter have enough faith?' it was that Jesus had faith in Peter in calling him out on to the lake. The great thing is realising that yes, we can trust in God's ability to get us through these challenges but amazingly he trusts us to do his work here - wow!