Advent 2024

Dear friends,

We wish you a very happy Christmas.

We have remained a household of four this year, as our Ukrainian 18-year-old guest has been living with us for about 18 months now. He is thinking of taking a gap year after his A-levels. Meanwhile, Jamie is hoping to study Politics and International Relations. After attending a string of open days, he has got his short-list of universities down from over 100 to his top five: Edge Hill, Keele, Leeds, Newcastle and Sheffield. This year his school voted him the student, "Most likely to start a protest".

Dave is still working with the many asylum seekers and refugees in our area. When they are given the right to remain in the UK they become homeless, and so Dave works with the manager for a local landlord to help them find housing and settle into independent living. Debbie joins Dave in leading a weekly Bible study for asylum seekers in our local hotel. It is a joy to get to know them, and to learn from them. Being present when some of them got baptised this year was very special. You can read more about this work here.

We receive some interesting messages from the asylum seekers through Google Translate. Some of our favourite recent messages have been, “Thank you for your sincere love, you are really annoying today, Thankyou” and “Hello, you don’t need to be alive”.

Debbie and Dave also continue to support mission workers and their children. We are grateful for the technology which allows us to have internet calls with people in many parts of the world. Technology can also be challenging. Debbie had her first experience of competing with Peppa Pig, when running a retreat for mission workers, with a child being entertained in the adjoining room.

We are grateful for our health. Dave was sent an ambulance after he phoned 111 about chest pains. We noticed the paramedic looking at the music on the piano, which was open at “Digging an early grave”! Thankfully that was not needed and Dave is doing well! He has continued his musical interest by joining an orchestra that doesn’t perform, and a choir that does.

We still enjoy travelling by train. In May we went to Croatia. As well as having many beautiful beaches, we discovered that Croatia also has many interesting museums. We particularly enjoyed the stuffed frog museum (‘Froggyland’), and the Zagreb Museum of Illusions. The Dubrovnik War Photo Museum was very informative, but perhaps less original than the Museum of Broken Relationships. We avoided the Museum of Hangovers. In Dubrovnik, while Dave and Jamie went round the historic walls, Debbie bumped into friends from Long Eaton who were also there just for one day.

The train journey home from Croatia was quite an experience. Most other trains were cancelled due to floods, so a stampede of passengers boarded our sleeper train when it stopped in Salzburg around 2am, and refused to get off despite being told that the train could not move with so many extra people on. The train was delayed by several hours and we thought we would miss our Eurostar back to the UK. We remain aware of the impact on weather extremes on many people around the world, and we try to do what we can to take action on climate change.

As we started to write, snow was lying on the ground here and it was starting to feel a lot like Christmas. The stories of refugees also remind us of Christmas. So we wish you a peaceful Christmas season. May you find things to be thankful for in 2025.

Much love,

Debbie, Dave & Jamie Hawker