Well, I’ve been quiet here for a few days, partly because of the travelling, and that awful task known as ‘packing’! Even after 30 years, although I must be quite ‘professional’ at it by now, I hate it to bits! Unpacking this end is almost as bad! I’m one of those strange people who have to unpack as soon as I arrive, or arrive home, no matter what time of day or night it is. Once that’s done, I can begin to feel at home! I’m going to split the blog into two parts – so you don’t have too long a ‘tome’ to read. Thank you for reading it, by the way! I certainly don’t take your interest, prayers, and encouragement, for granted.

So, just before I left Ireland last Thursday evening, I had a wonderful piece of news about the lovely Ana Beiba, who, I probably don’t need to say, runs the home for abandoned old people. If you read the blog in April when I was here, you’ll remember that she had been diagnosed a second time with cancer – first time was when I met her almost 3 years ago, then with 2 months to live: a brain tumour, which, as I and my little team prayed for her, she felt it go…. 2½ years on, it is back, not a brain tumour, but cancer of the oesophagus and throat. She looked very ill, had lost a lot of weight, and, of course, her voice (which she uses for spontaneous worship to God a great deal, and very loud!) was hard to hear.

The same thing happened: she felt the tumour on her oesophagus go, and the cancer in her throat leave….. last week, she received the results of a most recent scan/tests,

and there’s no cancer there…. while rejoicing for Ana, and having seen quite a few healings from cancer this year, even after all of these years I still have unanswered questions to God as to why others don’t…. thinking especially of a lovely friend, David, who is a walking miracle, but still has the foul disease the enemy’s dumped on him….I so believe that David WILL be… IS being healed, but….. answers on the back of a postage stamp, please, as there aren’t any I can think of…..

Then, having flown into Heathrow Thursday night, my lovely friends Keith & Margaret, and I, waited for Margrethe, from Norway to arrive, as she is part of my team here in Cali. About an hour after her flight landed and baggage was up, she walked through into arrivals. One miracle happened in that hour: poor Margrethe had picked up her out-of-date passport, and somehow was allowed into England by immigration. But that meant, of course, that she was scuppered from flying with me to Cali early Friday morning. Keith and Margaret went with her to the Norwegian Embasy Friday: no joy other than offering her one flight, and that back to Oslo. A friend in Norway has posted her current one to England, but, as yet (Monday night my time) it hasn’t yet arrived. God willing, tomorrow, Tuesday, meaning she can fly Wednesday.

A second miracle, a little more ‘hidden’ and unexpected HAD already happened, though. You might remember a few weeks ago my credit card was fraudulently used, which meant a 5 working day delay in buying the tickets to Cali, the time it took the bank to clear my card back to zero. When they finally did, the tickets I’d found had gone: and they cost £400 more, each: I was getting Margrethe’s as she’d wired her fare to me. Having snarled and mildly cursed the delay by the bank, there was no option BUT to pay the increased price. One of my team, Caroline, from Rouen, France, was already here, and it’d have been a little mean to leave her here alone, though she’s fluent in Spanish and has taken to Colombia like a duck to water (she’s a Spanish teacher in France). BUT….the delay, and the increase, meant Margrethe and I had moved from basic ‘no change/refund/transfer’ tickets, to flexible ones: which means that, having phoned the airline at 1 am Friday morning, to pull her off the flight, she can use it any day in the next year!

Grateful for small – perhaps at £1300+ for the ticket, not so small! – mercies, or what??!!