www.thegilmours.co.uk

Its about time we gave you an update on our lives.

Last week Douglas returned from the UK after a two week trip for work and leisure. He returned to take an active role in the National Christian Resources Exhibition at Sandown Park Racecourse in Surrey, in particular, promoting the new CRE website to be launched later in the summer. He also had a chance to meet his new managers from the Bible Society (who have bought the company from Douglas’ energetic but aging director Gos Home). The exhibition was a great success and he really enjoyed being a part of the show, meeting the faces behind the names and email addresses of clients he communicates with from Chile.

Following the exhibition, he spend 5 days in Scotland, with friends and his family. It was great to visit and assist in the redecoration of Chris Reilly’s new flat (Doug’s best man). He also spent two days walking and sailing, in the borders and central Scotland respectively. The latter, sailing on Loch Earn, seems to have rated highly on the “most exciting experiences of his life” list and might have convinced him on the benefits of rain and wind again!

Well, he made it back to Chile with almost 50kg of baggage including a rather erroneous set of “skis” which were actually a set of roof rails for the car, padded with around 15 books, both of which are a pain to source here (a pain in the butt and to the wallet!). The books include a range of stories and Godly guidance books for our youth group, Cross Connexions. Not only can’t you get these in Chile, but they are subject to a book tax of 10% (a rather ancient law enacted during the Pinochet years to discourage the spread of radical ideas and, ermmm, education).

We hosted our mad youth for a sleepover at our house while Doug was still recovering from his flights. We studied the Holy Spirit and the theme of Pentecost by playing silly games, making a kite, eating fajitas, cake and popcorn and anything else unhealthy!

News emerged this week that water and hydro power firms in Chile faced bankruptcy after an extremely long period without rainfall. Yesterday we had the first rain (with the exception of a one hour flashflood in early March) since November. This has restored the quality of air in Santiago to the relief of everyone and has restored the green to many plants and lawns. It also, unsurprisingly, restored traffic jams to unprecedented levels! More news to follow regarding a failed new public transport system (Transantiago) in the coming weeks.

Rachel has been working hard to submit her first paper for publication. It is very exciting to finally reach this stage after several rounds of comments, criticism and amendments. She is now attempting to resucitate a pipeline model developed as part of her PhD in Edinburgh to full health in order to develop her second paper on the subject of where black holes are found in galaxy clusters (more or less, right darling?).

Rachel has just received her shift rota for the next 4 months. Praise the Lord! as it gives us much needed time together (3 weeks, then 5 weeks of regular life in Santiago with 3 weeks of holiday in August with Rachel’s family). This is exciting and encouraging too. It gives Rachel time to work on her research, a part of her job she feels she has neglected during the madness of night shifts on Paranal.

We’re hoping to enjoy a weekend away in Mendoza, Argentina one weekend soon. There is always a risk that you will not be able to cross the Andes on the international pass, due to snowfall. In fact, more often, returning is a problem! So we’ll just have to watch the weather and act spontaneously.

Your prayers would be appreciated for the following concerns:

Thanks and we hope to be in contact with you all soon.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 3rd, 2007 at 9:54 am and is filed under Doug's job hunt, News from a long narrow country- Chile 2006. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.