Chapter 1: Twists and Turns
Text in RED is written by Rich
Text in GREEN is written by Lois
Our lives have always felt like they have constantly been changing direction. Staying on a particular course for a while, sometimes for years, and then changing again. It's often felt like we have been climbing a mountain, about to reach the summit only to find that the summit was false and the path carries on for another few miles until we reach the next ‘summit’ on the horizon.
The start of our relationship, getting married, moving churches and becoming youth leaders, having our children, changing careers, personal tragedies, relocating half way across the country, part of a team pioneering a church, more career changes and starting new businesses. I could go on and on.
This particular part of our story starts with us living in Portishead, a small town, just outside of Bristol in the United Kingdom.
Between us we were actively involved in the church that we had helped to pioneer, responsible for the pastoral care, small groups and kids ministry and Rich was coming to the end of his current IT consulting contract. Lois had established a small property business and was half way through converting a house in Bristol to 2 flats and the project was turning out to be an absolute nightmare, but thats a story for another time.
It was December 2017, I can’t remember what we were talking about but out of the blue, Lois interrupted the conversation with, “Your not going to have another IT contract are you?”, and I remember answering straight away, “No”. We had both felt the call of God on our lives for many years and knew at some point we would work full time in a ministry role, rather than bi-vocationally, and now was the time to make the change. It wasn’t a difficult decision, in fact it was made instantly in that one sentence.
So, from that moment, I started taking funeral services and supporting families who had lost a loved one. It was a huge step of faith for us, leaving the lucrative IT contracting day rates behind and building a new business taking funeral services. A big pay cut for us, but we knew that was where God was leading us, so we were at peace amidst the daily financial stress. We knew that God had more for us, but didn’t know what, or when it would happen.
Fast forward a short while and in early 2019, I was reading something online and came across an advert looking for someone to complete a feasibility study to explore if there was a need for a city centre chaplaincy service in Bristol and what it might look like. Chaplaincy wasn’t anything we had considered while pondering and processing the plans that God had for us, but this just felt right. I shared the opportunity with Rich and he agreed that we should apply. Our application was submitted a few days later, we won the contract, completed the feasibility study and presented a report detailing our findings. In September 2019 we were excited to be asked to mobilise the project and knew that God was leading us in a new direction, and into a new ministry.
Preparations for the project to launch were put in place and a launch event was planned for May 2020, but the plan changed significantly when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
The project preparations slowed and although work continued behind the scenes, nothing really progressed for some time.
Throughout this time, God continued to birth a vision for chaplaincy in Bristol in both of us and as lockdown restrictions began to ease, our path changed again in a completely unexpected direction.
The events of Saturday 28th November 2020 will forever be etched in my memory. We were watching Jonathon Ross on the TV, while eating some mince pies when all of a sudden Lois had a bad headache. The pain was excruciating and I knew straight away this wasn’t a normal headache. I remember saying to Lois, “Shall I call and ambulance” and she responded “Yes” straight away but I did nothing. It was less than a minute later that Lois asked, “Did you call them yet?” and I knew that this was serious.
The ambulance arrived within 10 minutes, and after taking a sky high blood pressure reading, the ambulance left with Lois a few minutes later. It happened so quick and I remember standing there in shock, I couldn’t quite believe what had just happened. I managed to settle the kids into bed and phone my parents and Lois’ brother Chris and sat in the lounge to watch TV for a bit.
The timing is a little blurry as my head was a little all over the place, but I think about an hour and a half after she had left home, the phone rang and a consultant was on the other end of the line. He explained that Lois had lost consciousness while they were assessing her in A+E and that they had found an aneurysm on her brain that had burst. She was being taken into theatre for a drain to be put into her head to reduce the pressure on the brain and that i needed to prepare myself for some difficult news.
A grade 5 aneurysm was the worse kind and the prognosis was extremely poor.