For some of our friends this year, wishing them a happy Christmas seems insensitive, and the phrase ‘seasons greetings’ always seems a little bland. So we will instead pray that God would bless you all as we celebrate the Birth of Jesus - and that you would find Him to be all that you need during this season.
As last year, we have again decided to only send specific cards to family, and those who do not have access to the internet. Instead we decided to email this news letter, with our greetings, and give a gift to a charity instead.
It’s been a mixed year for the both of us - many blessings, tinged with days of sadness as we have mourned the passing of friends.
At the beginning of this year we let you know that we would be stepping down from the leadership of Children Worldwide in January 2016 - remaining as members, but choosing to lay down/pass on to others the mantle of leadership. As we explained, Kay now has many other things she is involved with, and felt it was time to move from this role to allow her to fully immerse herself in those areas, and pick up more responsibility within one of those areas in particular….. We didn’t say clearly what that was at the time - just hinted at it. So now we can say officially that as of the 20th October, Kay became chair of the Children Matter Exec group - stepping into the shoes of the very gifted Alan Charter, who is now working with the Global Children’s Forum and therefore still very much part of the Children Matter group.
Kay still remains on the Council of Reference of Home for Good - an area very close to her heart, and is very much enjoying being part of the Evangelical Alliance Council - stirring up stuff to do with children, disability and lots of other things to do with justice, advocacy and evangelism.
Because word has got out that Kay has stepped down from being both Director of CW and will be stepping down as a trustee of FFT in March, lots of other opportunities are coming her way. BUT she’s being sensible and not saying yes to anything until she’s had a chance to settle for a while!
Steve has now reached retirement age, but continues to work just as hard as ever - Kay doesn’t believe he’ll ever slow down!
We continue to do grass roots kids work together, with assemblies and church weekends away, as well as camps.
We’ve had a LOT of building work done, using some of Steve’s pension fund, some inheritance money and a grant from a closing down charity. The downstairs of the house is now accessible and Kay friendly, with the addition of an extension that has a downstair’s loo/shower, a utility room, and a garage Kay can access independently to reach her power wheelchair. We also had the kitchen gutted and a new Kay friendly kitchen fitted. It’s lovely! And we keep thinking we’re going to have to give it back….
We’ve also had to apply to change from DLA to PIP - simply put, this provides our much needed (big enough for the wheelchair) car. We have only just heard that Kay has been successful with her application, at the level she needs to carry on independently. Having to do all the paperwork for this put Kay behind on one of her writing deadlines, and she hopes to catch up in December, if we hadn’t been successful, we would have had use that time to appeal instead, which would have been a huge pain when she has an editor waiting on her submission. Thankfully, the process is now over for another 4 years. Claiming for PIP really is a dehumanising and exhausting process that takes over your life!
We’re heading into the Spring Harvest prep season, this year we will be in Skegness - Steve working with Whizz Kids, and Kay being the disability advisor, and also Minehead 2 with both of us working on the disability side of things.
The best way to keep up with our news is to follow both our ministry blog and Kay’s ‘Thinking’ blog - addresses at the bottom of the page. Kay is also very active on Twitter and does do live tweets on the things she’s up to. She tries to do that on Facebook too, but we do tend to treat Facebook as fun and Twitter as work.
Many thanks for your continuing prayers and support.
Kay and Steve x
Kay's Twitter: KayMorgan_Gurr
Steve's Twitter: stevemorgangurr
Kay's 'Thinking' Blog: Musings of a Kids Worker
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