Fouch Family Newsletter, Christmas 2014

The evenings are drawing in, the cold weather has finally arrived, the lights are going up in our neighbours' gardens and roofs and every advert on TV is full of festive cheer. This can only mean Christmas is on the way. But you knew that already.

So it is that the Fouches gather to prepare to not only to celebrate the New King's birth, but also to reflect back on the year that has gone, and to share our news and reflections with our friends and family.

It has been a year of new beginnings - Sam starting a new school, Aimie becoming a Brownie, Hannah starting GCSEs, Debbi completing her first year as owner manager of Kings Pre-School and Steve finishing his first marathon.

Aimie moved up from Rainbows to Brownie's this year, and is proper proud of her new uniform and her growing number of badges. She also moved from Infants to Juniors at school, and now feels very grown up. She is getting more and more into reading, finger knitting and riding her bike.

Sam had a sad farewell to his old primary school and has now started at his new secondary school.  He is really enjoying science and maths.  His ongoing obsessions with Minecraft and Doctor Who keep him busy most of the rest of the time.

Hannah is now well into Year 9, and getting stuck into all her GCSE courses. She is also enjoying school orchestra and playing flute in a couple of music groups at church. When not buried in a book or her phone she is still most often to be found with knitting needles and crochet hooks and a ball of yarn in her hands.


Steve started the year getting up at silly o'clock most mornings to run in the cold and the wet, disappearing at weekends for hours at a time to run stupid distances just to get in shape for the  Brighton Marathon in April.  Having got him back in May, the family were dismayed when he promptly disappeared overseas and around the UK on a succession of work trips right up until the end of October - leaving them wondering if he had actually been around all year at all. Work has been focussed on building up a UK national Christian nurses movement, organising a European Christian nurses conference in Spain, and pulling together a growing network of practitioners and thinkers working on global health issues from a Christian perspective.  Its hard being away from the family as he runs around doing all of this, but it has also been worth the effort.

Debbi's year has been again dominated by the work of building up King's Pre-school.  Ups have included the real progress that Kings has made in the last year, and its increasing recognition by the local authorities and parents, and working with such a great staff team.  Downs have included the challenges of finding good new staff and building up the existing team through trying circumstances.  The Pre-school had an Ofsted inspection in February, and while this was not an entirely positive experience, it was much as expected and gave her much to work with and on which to build. Positively, the team have made great progress since then, a great new staff member has now joined the team, and the kids are lovely and make it all worthwhile. She hopes that the coming year will be more settled and less stressful.  But through it all there has been a real sense of God looking after the Pre-school and the family, and really answering prayers.