"When you are going through hell, keep going" - Winston Churchill

Well some of you know that I had to travel to Manchester for a couple of days work. We planned to drive down on Sunday but the weather report was poor so we took Poppy to a new auntie called Helen and cancelled a fondue lunch with a local Swiss family. All was well as we manoevered through the snow until we stopped with other sight-seers on Ranoch Moor to take in the spectacular view.

Then the bumper got ripped off.

As we drove South the fog came up and warning signs showed on the dashboard.

We managed to get to our overnight accommodation but the host came to greet us, slipped and broke his wrist! We spent the evening in A&E. The next day we followed our hosts to church in Dumfries but further snowdrift damage was causing something to scrape under the car.

The blessing was that the church was run by John Donnelly, a minister that we have been trying to meet up with since September!! After the meeting we carried on heading towards Manchester as I had to work on the Monday morning and I couldn't carry all of my training resources on the train. On the A75 we broke down in the sleet and snow. The AA came, towed us to Gretna Green and finally hotwired the car. After we refuelled we found the car would not start again!! Thankfully the AA man had not left so he re-jigged the engine and we continued to head south.

The scraping started again so Dave got on the floor at the service station in the rain and snow and tried to tie up the damaged underbelly of our car. It remained in place until we got to Manchester. We finally arrived tired but glad to be in the warm.

After a long day training we managed to live-stream a mini bible study. If you subscribe to the Jeremiah Tree youtube channel you will get notifications.

On the final day of my teaching Dave found the car was completely flat so whilst I was teaching on Tuesday he spent the time with yet another AA man (the third) getting a new battery.

This has been our confession throughout: 'Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivers him out of them all'! Psalm 34:19