Dear friends,
Two sides of A4 is quite enough, Sue insists, for this letter. And what she says three times is true, so it must be. Please take as read our standard apologies and excuses for not being in touch. We are thriving here in Bristol, still living with Steve Poulard, and none of us any the worse for the experience. And we don't know where the last few years have gone.
The changeling. He cares about fashion and listens to music. This may be normal teenage behaviour, but he certainly didn't get it from his father or brothers. He is also part of 'Devotion', the church group for teenagers, and goes to Crusaders on a Thursday night. There seem to be girls in his life as well, but we're not supposed to know about them. Last year he took part in the Bristol- Bordeaux French exchange, and thrived on that despite misgivings about him being the youngest participant. We also enjoyed having Loïc stay with us, and meeting his twin brother Arnaud staying elsewhere in Bristol at the time. In February he tolerated a four day trip to France with his parents: Sue had set her heart on seeing the Millau Bridge, and after that he enjoyed go-carting and quad-biking, and getting the hire car stuck in the snow when we went to see the wolves!
Ian also has clear political convictions and would dearly like to set the world to rights. When he is rich enough, he will do so.
Social interaction IRL (in real life) is limited to Explorers, but his paper rounds have financed the purchase of his own computer which enables Weirdofreak to play a full and active part in various online communities. He's also been on two school ski trips which he has very much enjoyed. For several years, he has been mastering the complexities of the teenage grunt, but recently we have detected some English words escaping. The forecasts for his GCSEs in 2006 are good.
Philip was on the school team which made the finals of the UK Mathematics Trust Team Challenge. Paul went up to London to support the team with Paul's parents, but were strictly not allowed to cheer them on.
Suggesting to Alan that he should apply for a job we saw advertised at the local cinema was inspired. It is a small and friendly place where they really care whether you enjoyed the film or not. In slack moments he can read a book or do his homework, and there are two free cinema passes each week as a bonus! It's also warm and dry once he gets there, and as it's just under 30 minutes walk away we don't have to chauffeur him there and back. This has financed his ongoing driving lessons (all the best people fail x times), and regular after school trips to the local shopping centre with friends who make him look quite normal. However we suspect more people know him as Draknek, in which guise he moderates various websites.
His grades at AS (Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Computing) were encouraging, and he's continuing those to A2 and added AS Critical Thinking to his timetable. Visits to assorted universities have led to Warwick and Southampton being his 1st and 2nd choice respectively to read some sort of computing.
Paul is doing too much - everyone says so. He is also, according to Pam, our church leader, 'ubiquitous'. He doesn't think he has ever been accused of that before.
Apart from running Crisis Centre Ministries (www.crisis-centre.org.uk), Paul is on the board of the local community development project in Sea Mills, the Director of Voscur, Bristol's Council for Voluntary Services (www.voscur.org), the steering groups for BCAN and the BCAN Homeless Forum (www.bcan.org.uk) which has just formalised itself with a public launch in April after operating as an informal network for the past three years.
Oh yes, there is also the Bristol Inter-Faith Forum, and several Council committees that deal with various aspects of homelessness and drugs. And the BCAN training programme, and preaching in various churches. And going to Glasgow last year for the Jesus in the City conference, and helping plan this year's event in Bristol. And the MA at Spurgeons College for which he now has just the dissertation to write, which is an excellent excuse for buying and reading more books! (If you ever buy books from Amazon, by the way, we'd really appreciate it if you used the link on the Crisis Centre web site. You get a discount on the bookshop price, and CCM gets 5% commission. It's a way of supporting us without costing yourself a penny.)
All this activity led to an invitation to meet the Prime Minister: in February he attended an evening reception with Mr and Mrs Blair, to whom he did not actually manage to speak (More...). (This is probably just as well, since clients had given him a number of messages to pass on - few were repeatable.)
Over the past six or eight months, Paul's skin has been causing problems again, after a period of maybe six years when it has been almost completely clear (More...). The good news is that this led to a referral to a dermatology nurse who's made some helpful suggestions. And no, it's not stress - despite all the activity, Paul feels much less stressed now than when we were trying to move to Bristol, or when we were running the Snowball programme.
Sue is still the Administrator at One25, a charity working to help vulnerable women in Bristol, and we have it in writing that Sue was 'awake, alert and oriented' at some point in the past year, which was good news.
If you promise not to panic you may read on: Sue has a small, benign, slow growing brain tumour behind her left ear, a posterior fossa meningioma if you want the technicalities. They found it in a brain scan (which definitely proved she still has a brain - quite a colourful one at that) while they were looking for a reason for the dizzy spells of a year or two back, which they still can't explain. We were anticipating an operation in April, but for some reason her blood pressure was a little on the high side, so she's being treated for that and we're now hoping for a date in May (More...). After that she will probably be off work for around six weeks. But that is okay, as One25 now have a wonderful Administrative Assistant to hold the fort in her absence.
If you want to be kept in touch with Sue's progress Paul is likely to find that email is the easiest way to keep in touch, so if you want to hear from us that way, please email to say so! If you don't use email but want to be kept in touch let us know that as well and we'll see what we can do!
We are still part of Highgrove Church, participating in a variety of ways. And we've made a couple of quick dashes back to Guildford to witness the baptisms of our godchildren Jenny, Katie and Chris: what a delight!
Given that our boys are so radically different, it's a delight to discover things we can do as a family. The new Dr Who series sees us all jammed into the lounge - with Steve - and no-one has yet hidden behind the sofa... The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is another favourite, and we'll no doubt all be off to see the new Star Wars film.
Families are mostly well: we celebrated Sue's Dad's 80th birthday last September with all their children and grandchildren there. Quite a feat of organisation! And on our latest trip to Paul's parents we showed them what happens inside Laserquest, after which we (Paul, Sue, Mum and Dad) retired for coffee while Roger and the lads charged around zapping each other.
Much love,
Paul, Sue, Alan, Philip and Ian Hazelden
Crisis Centre