ETC has been and gone and it was a really great time. I've decided that from now on, the staff are going to have a champagne breakfast on the last morning to say "yeah, we got through the first semester!" There were times when I would question it... but it's all worked out in the end. More reflections about ETC will come later, but for now I have something far more important for you to read/think about and, if you're a Christian, then to ask you to pray about.


This is one of my favourite photos. I took it on April 10th 2005 within minutes of Penny and Marty saying their 'I do's". I love it - spontaneous, carefree and full of joy in the moments that have been and are to come.

Two years and one day later (ie today) saw Pen and I sitting in the New Orleans cafe in Crows Nest while Marty lies in surgery having one of his kidneys removed because of the threat of the dreaded word... cancer.


Really there are two scenarios at the moment. The first is they take out a kidney and everything will be ok. The second is that Marty's recent anaemia is a sign that the cancer is already in the kidneys. If this is the case, then the doctors have said there is nothing more they would be able to do. I can't believe that I actually have to say that, let alone that it is even the remotest of possibilities for my beloved friends.

Can you please pray that isn't going to be the outcome? That the docs really have just laid out worst case scenario because they have to?

I have to say this has been a head spinning couple of months, hence less than previously seen quantities of posts becuase it's been tough to process it all. I didn't think I could see so much hardship and suffering happening to so many people that I love all at once. It sucks not being able to take their pain away. Knowing that I'm not in control but that God, in His providence, is. It's hard.