The Greens

Time continues to pass quickly and yet again I can’t believe I’m writing a newsletter to update all our friends near and far on our progress here in Cambridge. Kerry and the kids are enjoying life in Cambridge and making lots of friends. Bethya’s potty training is going really well and she is really starting to get the hang of it, which is a real relief (excuse the pun). Nate is huge! The 91st percentile for his weight and 99th percentile for his height, he’s at the limits of his car-seat and many of his clothes. He’s not yet crawling but is starting to shuffle around on his bottom and is certainly enjoying mucking about with his sister. It’s already noticeable how much of a boy he is, loving rough and tumble and rougher games than his sister ever did when she was younger. There are now just three weeks to go to the end of term and the end of my first year here at Ridley Hall. I completed all my essays and handed them in on Monday just gone. I’ll have to wait a little while to hear the results. In the meantime, I have various ‘short courses’ ahead of me that Ridley put into these end of term weeks to cover stuff that doesn’t fit well anywhere else. Forthcoming subjects include managing pressure, faith and business, why men don’t come to church and funerals! Eclectic mix, I know! Of course, it’d be nice to imagine a nice hugely relaxing summer like our student days of the past with nothing to do and lots of time to do it in. Sadly though, a hectic summer awaits the Greens with a lot on our prospective plates. After the term ends here, the whole family is dashing to Kent the next day because on the Sunday I start work on a month long placement at All Saints, Crowborough, who have been kind enough to allow me to come and work with them for four weeks. The day after that placement finishes, we dash back to Cambridge so that I can start the core module for the Masters that I am taking next year. That core module is done intensively over ten days in August and then we get a couple of weeks off before I’m off to the RAF in September on placement with them and their Chaplains. I’ll be coming back to college for a break, I think, after all that. We hope in the midst of all that we’ll get a chance to see you all. While I’m at All Saints, Kerry and the kids will be in Kent and, no doubt, enjoying catching up with everyone and while I can’t fit in New Wine this year, I know Kerry is looking forward to seeing everyone down at Boulder Gang too.

While the early part of our new experience here in Cambridge was pretty well accounted for, we’ve been very remiss in the last few months and haven’t been keeping this website up-to-date with our news. Our big apologies for that… hopefully this special Easter update will keep everyone posted on our latest.

So here is Dave’s training update with news from Kerry and the family too!

My second term brought a new semester and a new set of classes to engage with. I handed in my four essays from last semester on time (don’t die of shock) and even managed to avoid the nearly ubiquitous all-nighter! I did really well too. I got firsts in all four essays with ethics getting 75% and the other three (mission, church history and Christology) getting 70% each. It was hard to make a big celebration of it at college, since obviously you couldn’t be sure what other people had got and I didn’t want to rub their noses in it. Inside though I was celebrating like mad and feeling very chuffed.

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Hello regular readers and occasional Christmas visitors! Thanks for stopping by to read our 2006 newsletter. I am sure that there are very few people who know us and don’t know our big bits of news from 2006 but, nevertheless, we’ll rehearse it all for those near and far who for whatever reason have either been out of contact or with whom we’ve been terrible at keeping up!

The year began with the news that Kerry was pregnant for the second time! We found out in January and it made for a really great start of the year.

The other thing that has dominated the whole year for us has been Dave being accepted to train as a vicar. Read the rest of this entry »

Term is almost six weeks old now so this is a brief update about college life for those that are interested! One of our biggest struggles is not missing you all too much so it’s really good to have a chance to tell you our news and thanks to all who do come here to read our posts and look at our photos.

My studies are going very well. This term I am taking classes in church history, ethics, mission and christology (the study of Jesus) as well as ‘Life and Service’ which is a kind of catch-all course for various practical and pastoral things. I have four essays due for the end of term… crikey! So the work is piling up, the books to read are just getting more and more of a mountain on my desk and there is lots to do and it’s proving tough to keep up, especially with the demands of being a dad and trying to help Kerry look after Nathanael and Bethya.

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With Nathanael just over a month old now, the camera has been in overdrive taking photos of everyone and everything. As I sat and downloaded them all tonight, I thought I’d share some of the best ones with you all! The photos are available here.