Dear Friends & Family,
Thank you for your continued support in all ways. It is of huge value and we recognise the time and commitment it takes.

It was good to meet together as a team at the end of January. Our annual gathering took place at Kings Park Conference Centre, Northampton. We had fellowship and good teaching. We were blessed and encouraged to have James and Fiona Coombs from South Kent Community Church, our home church, come and lead the teaching and some of the worship. They took us on a journey through Psalm 84, knowing God and being in His presence. We looked at Mark 14:1–9 and being at the feet of Jesus, and the pouring of precious alabaster oil all over Him.

We also had the opportunity during this time together to continue making action plans in connection with our vision for Canal Ministries.

We discussed these 4 topics in the vision document:

1. Support for those who God has called to Canal Ministries.
2. Appropriate training.
3. Forging stronger links with churches.
4. Finding ways to offer temporary positions for those wishing to serve God in ministry on the waterways.

We continue to work through these points. Some of the areas to action, or are being actioned, are as follows:
A First Aid course has been arranged to take place in September, and we are looking at a helmsman’s course so others can take trip boats out on missions or events, rather than just a few (trip boats require someone who has completed the course to be on board to safely take members of the public out).

We realise the importance of meeting together face to face, as well as our regular Zoom prayer meetings. So, on 14th March, a few people had a meal together in Chipping Campden, arranged by Steve and Fiona. In September, we are hopefully, alongside the First Aid course, going to be spending time together using the facilities at St Pancras Cruising Club, arranged by Mary and Richard.

We are also encouraged to have Roger Womack join us on the team. He now owns Litania and, alongside his charity lossandlife.org, has a unique way of supporting the bereaved through working with clay. We experienced a small taster session at our conference. If you need further information on this, please contact us.

We always look to visit local churches on our travels and share who we are as Canal Ministries. Chris had the opportunity to speak at the Warm Space project, which takes place in Mill End Baptist Church, Rickmansworth. This happened in February; a few boaters, as well as others from the area, came along and it was an encouraging time. Some New Testaments were given out and enthusiastically received.

We are always keen to visit churches and share about the work of Canal Ministries or do some teaching. We have members all over the network and, if you would value a visit, please ask and we will make those arrangements.

Please take a look at our website @ canalministries.org.uk. It has the most up-to-date news for all our work.

Below are further areas for prayer; some are ongoing, some are new.

Personal
• Our maisonette in Folkestone continues to await the work required. This has been ongoing for 2 years; it is finally making some progress. Pray that it will be complete by the end of July and that we will be treated righteously by the council. The flat is our son Jacob’s home and it would be good to have this settled for him.
• We thank God for how He has supplied for us. Work has been plentiful and more of this has been working from home. Some is not, and this year we have covered 15,000 road miles, of which 75% is work-related. We always require God’s protection on the roads.
• The boat is working well and we are thankful for this. There is ongoing maintenance, but this is to be expected, and we thank God for His provision.
• Health has improved; however, both of us suffer from back and hip pain. Pray that we can manage this with our travels on Kairos around the Grand Union area.

Canal Ministries
• Canal Ministries needed new trustees. We have 3 new trustees and one who has retired. Thank you, Lord, for your provision. Prayer for God’s blessing and guidance for our 6 trustees is always needed.
• Continue to pray for the outworking of our vision aims. I have attached these and spoken about some above. Please have a look at our website, where there are blogs and up-to-date information on all that is going on.
• Pray for our team who are on the coalface. On boats – Rob and Trish on Ocha, Steve and Fiona on Lutra Lutra, Andy and Sue on Spring Waters, Roger and Jo on Spirit, Paul and Sue on Ten Thousand Reasons, Roger on Litania, Chris and Sally on Kairos. Those on land – Martyn and Donna based in Nantwich, James and Hazel based in Aylesbury, Graham and Sandra based in Devizes, Mary and Richard based in St Pancras, London.
• Please continue to pray for more boaters to join our work. We need people with a heart for evangelism to bring the Good News.

Sent with much love and blessing,
Thank you again for all your love and support.

Chris and Sally