What a busy couples of days. I don't know why I'm always so surprised about how busy life is, as it's never been any different. Its almost 10 pm and I've got 3 letters to write. I've written one already but I have another 3 to reply to. I hope to get at least another one done tonight. Today I received a letter in the post from a man in Zambia. He is on death row too, like my other pen pal in the US. I don't remember ever writing to him. I know I must have done, because he has replied to my letter! But I don't remember it. The way the WAP website works is that you can email your first letter and they post it for you. Subsequent letters must be posted. Obviously I must have stumbled upon his ad one evening and emailed him through their system, but I have no recollection of it. Anyway, he wrote in his letter that he had been praying desperately for someone to write to him. He is going to be executed for armed robbery, although I don't believe he murdered anyone. He has been in prison for 9 years and in that time he has not had a single letter. I felt really sad reading about how much joy my letter had given him. It was like his first visitor, he said. He was elated and thanking God for answering his prayer, yet I don't even remember writing to him. He has become a Christian since his imprisonment and called me Sister Hazel all the way through - I felt like a nun! LOL. Here is one part of his letter
"One thing you have to know is that God has brought us together for a purpose. This is the divine love of God working in you. The Almighty God is speaking to you inside your heart about me, a condemned prisoner. Be assured that this friendship is from above". I'm inclined to believe him since I didn't make a mental decision to write to him myself. It will be interesting to write to him, although I am a little concerned. The pending execution of my 2 year friend in Georgia is enough for me to handle. I don't know if I can go through it twice. I guess the Lord will give me strength.

Anyway, Sam will be celebrating his 11th birthday soon and he wants a trampoline. After enjoying 2 days of bouncing at Jenny's house he is convinced this is what he needs. I have told him it will be his only present because of the cost of it, and he seems fine with that. I will need to get out to the shops some time to buy it... not an easy task when home educating three children.

A few weeks back our fellowship helped one of the men, Barry, move house. His house needed a lot of work done to it to make it leaveable! Every Sunday and Wednesday for 3 weeks everyone cleaned and packed and tidied for him. During this process Steve and the kids collected all the spare change that they found and put it into bags for him. Steve has since spent an hour every day counting that change! Jude would take a bag at a time to the post office to be changed into notes. At our Sunday meeting yesterday Steve told Barry to guess how much money they had collected. He had no idea. Someone guessed about £200 !!! No. They had collected no less that £820 from around his house! Isn't that amazing! So Barry took the fellowship out for Chinesese meal on Sunday evening, with cash from his house. The rest of it is being used to buy a car. Steve made a heap of jokes about informing the royal mint. I wonder how many years it had taken to collect that. He reckons he has about another £200 worth of coins at home that still need changing. We all went toChineseese restaurant here in the town after our Sunday meeting. We had a big round table that we were all able to sit around. Even Luke had a big seat and felt the business sitting with all the adults. The food was lovely, and it made a change to tea and fruit loaf! We did take photos, they will follow soon.

The weather seems to have taken a turn for the worse. The beautiful sunshine has gone, but not before giving my veggies a boost. The sunflowers are now about 3 ft tall. The potatoes and onions are HUGE. But alas, my tomatoes and strawberries have been attacked by greenfly and I had to spray them despite wanting to go organic. But they were covered with them and I was frightened of it spreading to everything else. I must get some sort of organic pesticide for emergencies. The cabbages were attacked by tiny caterpillars but we found most of them and squished them! Nice. Hopefully they will improve. Next year I will just grow the things that we have great success with, I think.

Well, I better go and write a letter whilst I'm still awake enough.