Sullivans for the Saviour

MARCH 2021 – Edition 2

Dear Friends,

We are now in Ipswich England. The weather is nice and warm although it was cold and rainy when we arrived. Our flights from Durban to London via Doha were delayed, and we waited in the queue at Broder Control for over two hours which meant we missed our coaches to Linda’s place. We had to catch a train from Paddington Station to a station near to where they lived (the underground was closed due to a strike by workers). We spent a lovely weekend at a seaside resort (in winter) so we could be with Janet and her son Maveric for their 60th and 35th birthdays. Janet still had leave so we stayed at Barrington Barn for about a week so we could also visit with Heather’s older sister, Linda. We attended her church (combined Methodist and United Reformed). Sadly Janet contracted covid which resulted in us leaving her earlier than planned and stayed in a hotel in Banbury near Oxford so we could visit with Andy’s nephew, Clive and his family, only to find out that he has covid! So we delayed that visit and spend the days in Oxford and Banbury (made famous by a nursery rhyme).

We read a devotional book entitled “Exodus and Acts” authored by Jean McCullum (previous Scottsville Youth Worker now ministering in Johannesburg). She has written the book as JS Mack and makes two statements about Moses that really spoke to our hearts. She writes “it can be disheartening and confusing when we follow God’s paths, and the outcome is not what we expect” We have had to be very flexible in making our plans and open to last minute changes that can be “disheartening and confusing”. However we learned the lesson Moses had to learn – that “God’s timetable is not the same as our and often it makes no sense to us whatsoever”. Please pray that we listen to the Lord and allow changes to be made even though we don’t understand why.
We had a lovely weekend with John and Kath Follows in Stoke on Trent visiting local places and preaching at their church in nice warm weather. Andy preached in the morning serve and was also invited to preach in the 4pm afternoon service which was for the Indian community (they use Tamil and Malayalam)> we were supposed to just visit and bring a greeting but t Previn the pastor introduced Andy as the preacher! Nothing new for us!!
On the way to Ipswich, we stayed over in Cambridge with David and Anne Stearn who were SIM missionaries in Pietermaritzburg South Africa before returning to England to pastor a church. It was a great time of catching up and sharing memories.