Let’s start with the grant. We heard this week that we have been awarded a grant for £10,000 by the Garfield Weston Foundation for our refurbishment. This is terrific news and we are hugely grateful. Just over a month ago we took a step of faith and pushed the ‘go’ button on the project. This grant fills the gap, and more than that, I see it as a sign of God’s blessing on this project. We are not doing this in our own strength but in the Lord’s.

The second thing this week is that we had our pre-contract meeting with our principal contractor, Kirk and Bills. The meeting, guided by Mark, our professional advisor, followed a well-established agenda that covered all of the fundamentals of how the project will be conducted. No problems were thrown up during the meeting, and we are now moving towards the ‘exchange of letters’ that will comprise the actual contract.

We have an aspirational start date of 6 January. Of course, this is dependent on various details that must be worked out between now and then, but it gives us something to aim towards.

We are hoping to retain use of the schoolroom, kitchen, and upstairs rooms during the main work, and the contractor certainly did not seem to have any problems with this. Of course there may be the odd time when we can’t get in due to critical stages in the work, when we will make other arragements. We will try to give as much notice of these times as possible.

There will be more to share as planning and then work progresses. Please keep praying.