
I am naturally always interested to read about House Sitting so when I found out about a book called “A Diary of House-Sitting Tails” by Carolyn Slingsby I downloaded a copy from Amazon.
I was thrilled to read about our ministry in this book!
Here is an extract from the first couple of pages:
At the end of November 2008, after living and working in Spain for six years, my husband and I suddenly and devastatingly lost everything, and had no choice but to head back to the UK.
Brian and I had gone to Spain six years previously in 2002, knowing nobody there at all, and we began totally from scratch. I knew I had to find my feet, so I quickly became resourceful in finding jobs, mainly in the property market. At one time, I helped a company to sell villas and apartments, focusing mainly on marketing, but I had other duties, too. Once, I had to do a complete ‘makeover’ on a property, which turned out to be a total full cleaning and fumigation exercise. The property in question was in a terrible condition, covered in excrement and filth which stank to high heaven; he had kept five dogs there, and hadn’t done much in the way of cleaning! Eventually –after hours of cleaning and sorting –I managed to find a buyer, but it still smelled if you were downwind! It was only months later that I realised why I was so ill after that experience.
We loved Spain and its people, and it was our fantastic church community who helped us through the very traumatic ending to our lifestyle there, when –due to the economic climate –we lost our villa and all our money, and had only forty-eight hours to leave and hand the keys back to the bank.
Our compassionate congregation bought all our furniture, including the wood burning stove and very large satellite dish (which went off on the roof of an estate car!), to raise us enough money for petrol to drive back to the UK. We stored ten boxes, containing our various small everyday goods, in the under-house storage of one of those kind church folk, where it ended up staying for two years!
So, back in the UK and having to start again from scratch, we knew we had to survive and get a roof over our heads whilst we worked out what direction life was taking us in.
This was when God led us to The Christian House Sitters website! We found two separate house sits in France on our way back to the UK in December and January 2008-2009, and so began our ‘Tails of House Sitting’ –adventures and experiences we would have missed out on if not for the traumatic ending of our life in Spain!
The book is a lot of fun and well worth reading.
If you have interesting stories about House Sitting please share them with me.
Would you like a break from your normal daily grind. Time to getaway, relax, renew relationships, rest, have fun and generally recharge your inner batteries.
We can help.
We offer rent-free vacations all over the world and, if necessary, we can also arrange for someone reliable to look after your home and pets free-of-charge while you are away
If you would like to benefit from our service please have a look at the website. CLICK HERE.
God bless you,
Ray
Christian House Sitters
is part of the registered charity
TLC Children’s Trust
UK Charity number 1156786
www.tlc-childrenstrust.org
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Author: housesitters
ABOUT Christian House Sitters
Christian House Sitters is a Worldwide ministry that started in order to provide holidays for Christians and sitters for owners who needed a reliable Christian to look after their home, pets and garden. House owners do not pay anything to have their property listed. House sitters are only charged £25 per year and in return for this some enjoy numerous holidays each year.
All fees from membership go to sponsor food for children at the Home of Peace Children’s Home in Kenya. This only supplies about a quarter of what is needed to feed the children so we urgently need sponsors.
All funds go via our Registered Charity TLC Children’s Trust Charity Number 1156786 website http://www.tlc-childrenstrust.org
N.B. Joining Christian House Sitters does NOT commit you to sponsoring a child or giving any support beyond your membership fee to these children. Although naturally if you want to support that would be greatly appreciated. We have some regular sponsors and other people who give an occasional gift. All are greatly appreciated.
ABOUT RAY & MARILYN
We are Marilyn & Ray White. A fun loving Christian couple who have been in Christian work for over 30 years. Marilyn was born in England but moved to Zimbabwe as a baby. At the age of 16 she moved to South Africa. Ray was born in South Africa and grew up on a farm. We met in Johannesburg and got married in 1966.
Ray worked in business for many years then he worked for YfC in South Africa then went on to Bible College and Pastored a church.
In 1982 we moved from South Africa to England.
In addition to his theological training Ray trained in Psychology and since moving to the UK he has lectured in Psychology, counselled for the NHS and opened a Christian Counselling Centre.
Marilyn is also a trained counsellor and manager.
In addition to the counselling we trained Christian counsellors both in our local area and by invitation in other areas of the UK. In total over 700 people completed the training courses. Many are serving the Lord by working in or through their local churches.
We also ran a secular Stress Management business. We are now semi-retired and focus our time and attention on Christian House Sitters and Ray also serves as a member of our Church Leadership Team.
Ray also has an active preaching ministry and runs Christian seminars on subjects such as stress management for church groups.
He has written two books.
A Christian book that is a very practical workbook on Christian commitment as applied to real life. The book looks at how we can surrender ourselves more fully to God.
This is looked at under the headings of Physical, Mental, Social and Spiritual commitment. The book is called Let’s Get Serious.
He has also written a secular book on Stress Management called Stress Overcoming this Potential Killer. (Ray was previously Chair of the International Stress Management Association UK).
News Update This book has now been released as an e-book as well
A few years ago we did a 2 month House Sit in France. Whilst there we felt the Lord leading us to set up a Christian House Sitting service. Since then we have done a number of other house sits.
We believe this site will benefit many Christians around the world.
Feel free to contact us (BUT please no spam)
NOTE: If you want a fast reply the best way to contact us is via the contact page on the Christian House Sitters website www.christian-housesitters.com
God bless you,
Ray & Marilyn
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