Jessica writes about the aquarium

Scotland:
In Scotland we went to Nanny and Grandad's house. The next day we went to an aquarium, we saw a shark her name was Tiana. Tiana was the biggest fish in the aquarium.I met a bearded dragon called Fin,he had lots of spikes but they were very soft. Me and Sam held him but he ran from Sam's hand , he was yellow.

Bonnie Scotland

Here we are north of the border, it is good to be back in Scotland.
We are having precious family time staying with Scott's parents and this weekend we enjoyed our last link church visit. Our only link church in Scotland is Cupar Baptist church and what a treat they had in store for us! This weekend we were invited to their Scottish evening, we feasted on haggis, stovies, scottish trifle and tablet. We listened to scottish music and poetry and we also had an opportunity to share about our work in Cusco. Cupar have been fantastic at keeping in touch with us and supporting us and it was wonderful to spend time together again.It will be impossible to forget Cupar since they presented Jess and sam with a battery operated bag pipes toy!!
We have enjoyed our link visits immensely, we have spent 12 weekends visiting 20 different churches and now that we have completed our busy tour of our the UK churches we look forward to some much needed rest and relaxation.

Searching questions

Generally our link visits consist of speaking engagements at our supporting churches, however a few have involved schools work when we are visiting a church that has close links with schools.
This week as we visited Vale Community Church in Bedfordshire we also visited 2 primary schools that the church works with.
In each school we took 1 class room session and 1 assembly, we did a geography/spanish language class and the children had spent some time in advance thinking of questions for us. Jess and Sam made new friends and played in the playground at playtime, Anjanette felt a little in awe of the fact that for the first time in her life she entered "The staff room!" For the first time in many years we all enjoyed school dinners!
Jess and Sam thoroughly enjoyed the time in schools, as it was interesting for the british children to discover about life in Peru it was interesting for Jess and Sam to experience life in a british school. We had some wonderful questions from the children, one was very concerned that since we lived at such high altitude closer to space then didn't we need space suits like spacemen? But the favourite and most honest searching question of the day was "Why are you here?"

Sam's new glasses

Sam is looking very handsome in his new specs, he needed quite a strong prescription (long sighted) and we are delighted that now he will be able to see much better!
There is so much excitement that Jessica even handwrote her own entry for the blog for the occasion!

Our World project

practicing their bandaging skills for the our world Peruvian clinic



Jess points out South America on a huge inflatable globe!


We had great fun visiting our friend Georgina and as you see in the photo Jess Sam and Georgina certainly enjoyed playing with the props from her schools' Peru clinic project.

Georgina works with flame trust and has devised an excellent project called Our World. She teaches schools and church groups and runs workshops about Our World, a fun interactive program where children are challenged to think about life in a developing country. The workshop involves making houses out of plastic bags, learning about child labour (the children have a go at shoe shining), thinking about water resources (the children learn how precious water is as they carry and distribute water) and there is an interactive clinic session challenging the children to think about using resources as they dress up and take on the role of doctors, nurses and patients in the Peruvian clinic. Like all good teaching projects the kids are having so much fun learning about these important issues that they don't even realise it is work! Jess and Sam certainly had fun playing "clinic" all afternoon!

Georgina visited us in Peru last year so she even has presentations teaching children about life in the Williamson family!
for more information about Our World cut and paste the following link into your browser:

http://www.owlandpussycat.org/ourworld/index.htm

High Wycombe Link group

Last weekend we had a terrific time visiting our link churches in High Wycombe, we enjoyed spending time with folk from Loudwater , Wycombe Marsh and Union Baptist churches.
Over the years we have corresponded with friends from this group and it was great to put a face to the names that we know and who pray for us so faithfully.We all made new friends and Jess and Sam even felt confident enough to go to Sunday school on their own at one church whilst we preached at a smaller congregation that didn't have a Sunday school. It was one of the first weekends when the weather was milder and we enjoyed a lovely winter walk in the beautiful Buckinghamshire countryside and had a great view of Hughenden manor where Disraeli once lived! We were delighted by the level of interest and support that we experienced from the churches. Thankyou High Wycombe we have thoroughly enjoyed our weekend with you .

Please pray for the Ropers

Neil and Amanda Roper and their 2 children Daniel and Sophia (standing with their children in the front of the photo) are leaving the UK this week to travel to Peru . They are youth workers who will be supporting our church in Cusco, we are so excited that they are moving to Peru!!!

please pray for them for a smooth journey and in the following weeks as they get their paperwork organised in Lima. Hopefully in a few weeks they will be heading to Cusco where they will stay in our house and start their language training .

Link Visits

Well our Christmas break is over and once again we are on the motorway (that Samuel calls the run way!) visiting our supporting churches, we particularly enjoyed meeting some retired BMS missionaries, John and Shirley who worked in the Congo back in the 60s and also the legendary Christine Preston who just retired after decades of service with BMS in Asia. It is wonderful being part of the BMS family and a privelege to travel the country raising awareness for BMS World Mission. Jess and Sam have been having fun making new friends in the various churches and were sad to learn that we won't be returning to each church for another 2 years!