Water Eaton and the start of our mission

Fri 10^th Jun  Water Eaton

Our mooring at Water Eaton

We had a pleasant relaxing day meeting more of the team, and putting up a banner. Sonflower arrived behind us, with Peter, Fran, and Sue McCouaig on board.

We spotted some historic boats heading for the Braunston Traditional Boats Rally.

Boats heading for Braunston

The mission boats

We gathered socially under the bridge in the evening. Hazel had some mosquito bites.

Team fellowship

No boating today

Sat 11^th Jun  Water Eaton

Early morning

We drove to Aylesbury with Roger and Jo for a Greenhouse meeting. Four churches in Aylesbury are getting together to discuss various outreach projects, compare notes, and plan the next stage. Some interesting ideas. Our projects are narrowboat Beacon, More+ café, and the ministry to families.

Greenhouse training day

Roger and Jo collected their car, and we drove to the Red Lion to give them two posters we had, and work out where we would be performing.

Red Lion

James helped David Litchfield and Graham Pope erect a gazebo.  The boat trip skippers had a briefing to learn the quirks of Beacon and Ten Thousand Reasons.

Skipper training

Later the whole team met under the bridge for fellowship, introductions, and briefing for the next day.

No boating today on Gabriel.  2 miles on Ten Thousand Reasons

Sun 12^th Jun  Water Eaton

We started at 8am with prayer and worship. We led the singing with Ten Thousand Reasons and How Great is our God.

We went by car for breakfast at a bagel place with Roger and Jo, where the menu was fairly complicated. Roger enjoyed his bagel.

Bagel menu

Roger and his bagel

We joined in the worship at Queensway Methodist Church at 1030. We had a pleasant welcome, and gave out a lot of our coasters with mission information on. Many of the congregation were from Ghana, Nigeria or Sierra Leone. Although it was Trinity Sunday, the focus was on Pentecost, as the Diamond Jubilee last weekend had obscured the message of Pentecost.

On our return we went on board Kew for some parkin that Angie had made. I don’t think we had ever tried it before. It is a northern England cake made with oatmeal, ginger and treacle.  Very nice.

We had a trip to the Fenny Stratford facilities on Ten Thousand Reasons. We emptied two cassettes and disposed of rubbish. Other team members came for similar reasons. The boat was just able to turn there. On the way back, we met Beacon on the first of the boat trips.

Lavender run on Ten Thousand Reasons

Beacon

In the afternoon we had a much needed doze, as we had been up early. Meanwhile there were several further trips taking place on Beacon.

We have not yet had to run our engine, which is pleasing. The batteries are being boosted by the solar panels, although the levels are slowly dropping.

Poplar trees in the park

No boating today on Gabriel.  2 miles on Ten Thousand Reasons

Next: Tomorrow a shared breakfast, and we are taking some boat trips on Beacon. Looking forward to Wednesday, when we have our folk evening at the Red Lion in Fenny Stratford.