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The picture below was taken in Warkworth in 2006.

Our family went away together for our 25th wedding anniversary to New Zealand. It was the first time for us all to cross the equator and to see the water in the sink swirl the other way when we pulled the plug!

Matthew is presently studying in Newcastle University doing Mathematics. He and a few other students rent a house not far from the church he attends.

He has joined the  Christian Union and attends a local Baptist Church, where he has already started helping with the PA system. As you can see from our other page, he is doing a mission trip in Taiwan.  

James has completed his first year at Aston University, Birmingham. He attends a Chinese church in Birmingham and has joined the CU.

His hair is longer than his mother's now - as you can probably tell from some of the pictures. He took a gap year and worked a few weeks in a supermarket stacking shelves and fridges but did not take to it well.

He is now stuydying at Aston University doing Computer Science, and thoroughly enjoying it.

He has just found new accommodation for next year with a few other students. Presently he is doing jury duty in Liverpool.

After nearly six years of being back in England we have settled, though we still find that we long for Asia from time to time, and Taiwan will always have a special place in our hearts.

We are doing what every British person seems to be doing to their houses, gradually improving areas that have needed to be done for a long time. We have redecorated the loft to become the computer den. When all three men are home, that is where you will find them half the time. Sook says it is David's "cave," where he can retreat to study or relax with a book or the computer. Our second bathroom which has just been a black hole at the end of a corridor has been installed, so there are fewer queues for the bathroom in the morning and fewer desperate visits to the outside "loo" in our small backyard. We still miss having a garden and have to do with a few plant pots in our very small yard.

Transport-wise we were blessed to be able to buy a better second-hand car, which will enable us to take longer trips in more comfort. It is a blue-green Skoda Octavia.

So what have we been up to? David has been working for the Liverpool Chinese Gospel Church now for five years. God has blessed us greatly over these years. Things were very tough at the beginning of 2006, when, elder Lord Michael Chan died, leaving us all grieving and meaning that the workload that he used to take up in the church, went on David's shoulders until he could find others to share the load.

Shortly after, our other pastor, Daniel Ng, felt that he did not like the direction the church was going and decided to leave the church. This was not altogether a surprise as he had already indicated that he intended to leave after his term finished in September, but he felt it difficult to work with the rest of the council, so we agreed mutually to part ways. He took his six months sabbatical leave early and so officially leave the church on September 1. This meant that there was an ever-increasing burden added to David's shoulders.

The church sought more staff to help out and in July 2007, appointed someone to take charge of the Cantonese work. Jonathan Wan used to work in the Bible College run by COCM. The church is inexperienced in hiring staff and so I personally feel we hired Jonathan too soon, though I was anxious to get a new worker for the Cantonese congregation as soon as possible. He is an excellent Cantonese worker but in some areas we have different theological stands, which can be very challenging.

I favour emphasising what is biblical and emphasising grace, he favours emphasising the traditions he has grown up in and works. Be that as it may, this is the way many people in the Cantonese Congregation think, so it seems he is a suitable worker in that side of the ministry. We are slowly adjusting to each other and the longer we work together the better the relationship is.

We changed the Mandarin Bible Study into a fully fledged service and now is a congregation of about forty, with many not-yet-believers coming afterwards to our 'China Fellowship' meeting. Many are Asylum seekers, which bring us a lot of challenges.

Sook works two and a half days a week as an ‘Administrative Support Worker’ in a GP’s Office (a medical clinic) and is a grreat help to me in the church during her "spare" time.

She does a lot to help in the church. She preaches in both the Mandarin and English congregations and helps in the student fellowship as well. We are developing an outreach to the Mandarin intellectuals in Liverpool, which also involves their families so Sook helps in that ministry too.

In 2007, we employed another full-time worker, Daniel Deng to help with the Mandarin work and that is going very well. He and his wife Jing have just had their second baby, Caleb, so are struggling to adjust to their new family life.