Health Benefits of House Sitting

Last year I was not well. I had a heart problem and spent ages going to doctors, hospitals and specialists. By the latter part of the year I was feeling a lot better but because I had spent months just sitting around my weight was the highest it has ever been. Hardly good for my heart.

In November Marilyn and I went House Sitting in France. The place was out in the country in a lovely farming area. We looked after the house, 2 dogs and 4 cats. It was a good experience.

The dogs needed exercise and the owners suggested I may like to use their bicycle and ride through the fields with the dogs running alongside. I had not cycled for over 30 years but I am game to try most things.

It was great. By the time we came back home in February I had lost over a stone in weight, dropped my waist size by 3 inches and I have never felt better.

I now own a bike and ride almost every day.

I put my improved health down to house sitting.

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Unsung Heroes

Part of the reason we run Christian House Sitters is to raise funds for Christian work in South Africa. This money is channeled through Unsung Heroes a Christian ministry working  with Christians in a wide variety of areas.

I have just spent a few minutes looking at their web site to update myself on the many projects they are involved with.

Here is a brief summary of some of them.

The Love of Christ Ministries.

Type of Project:  Abandoned Babies (partner project)

Profile:  The Jarvis family started sheltering babies in 1993. The purpose of The Love of Christ Ministries  is to accept into it’s care any newborn infant (without exception) who has been abandoned or totally destitute. Thereafter, the Ministry undertakes to nurture with unconditional love such infants by providing them with a long term family environment within which to grow into adulthood.

The Love of Christ Ministries  also accepts into it’s care and provides a safe haven for terminally ill Aids babies.

Due to this family’s endeavours, to date over 300 babies have been adopted both within South Africa and overseas.

Some of their other projects include:

HIV/AIDS Home Based Care and Child Care – Gauteng

Job Creation, Children in Crisis, Rehabilitation of the Destitute Farming Programmes – Eastern Cape

Education and Primary Health Care – Eastern Cape

Special Needs Children – Gauteng

Early Childhood Development and Haven – North West

All this work needs money. Christian House Sitters is proud to be able to help. A minimum of 10% of all income (note income not profits) is donated to Unsung Heroes.

Our members therefore get a reduced price holiday, help other Christians and support the work of Unsung Heroes.

I love my job! 
 

Church Times Article

This morning the Church of England newspaper, called Church Times, carried a 2 page feature article on Christina House Sitters www.christian-housesitters,com .

I am very excited as they have a worldwide circulation of over 80,000 copies distributed each week.

We are expecting to get loads of new folk reading about our service. This should result in more houses being made available as people who are thinking of a holiday realise that they can have someone look after their house and their pets.

It should also bring in a new group of house sittters.

Please pray with us that God will bless and use this article.

This is exciting

This is exciting each time I turn on my computer I find messages of support from Christians all around the world. I never know where the next comment is going to come from. For example a couple of days ago I got a message from the Salvation Army HQ in New Zealand saying that they were sending out our details to all their branches. Fantastic.

The following day I was contacted by a Pastors wife in the mid-west of the USA chatting about her holiday needs.

People sometimes ask if we have a property available in a specific location. The joy of Christian House Sitters is that God knows what we need. He brings together the house sitters and house owners. My only advice to folk is register on the site. Ask the Lord to bring in the right sitter or property for your specific needs.

If you have any suggestions or comments I would love to hear them.

One question I have been asked is if this is a money making venture. No! It is not! I am paid a salary for the work I put in. At the moment I am doing an average of 5 hours a day work on the site so 30 to 35 hours per week. For this I draw a salary of £10 (ten pounds) per week. We used all our savings getting the site up and running. We want to serve God’s people and raise money for Christian work in South Africa. A minimum of 10% of all our income is going to this cause. Details are on the site.

Please continue to pray for this ministry and tell your friends about Christian House Sitters.

Ray

God’s Provision

When we started the Christian-housesitters website I had a reasonable understanding of codeing in html but that was as far as my knowledge went.

I soon discovered that I needed much more.

A content management system

A security system

A Database

PhP codeing etc etc. I was lost.

I spent ages searching the internet looking for suggestions and there is a lot out there but it is expensive and we had very limited funds. We prayed. Should have done that first.

I then sent an email to a company who sell content management systems asking for their advice. One of the owners offered to help me free of charge. He has spent days writing code, fixing bugs etc. Nothing is ever too much trouble. Marilyn and I have nicknamed him our ‘computer angel’

Without his help we could never have managed. As far as I am aware he makes no claim to being a Christian but he is more than happy to work free of charge to help establish this ministry. God is good!

 Shortly after the site went live we received an email from a lady.

She wrote:

“We were praying for a holiday but did not know how we could afford it because we have two cats. Your site is an answer to our prayers. We will now arrange our dates and then you can list our house. Thank you.”

As I said God is good!

More exciting stories to follow. Come back soon.

Site Open

Our Christian House Sitters website is now a reality. It has been live for just over 2 weeks and we have already had many hundreds of folk visit the site. It has been so exciting to find people from literally all over the world showing an interest.

The messages of support have been a blessing to both Marilyn and I.

(I wonder why so few people write anything in our guestbook)

We already have a few House Sitters and House Owners. Our prayer is that all our members will find the right match. House sitters will find their ideal house and house owners their ideal sitter.

We do need more houses. As it is free to register as a House Owner we wonder why there is not a flood of folk registering their homes. If anyone has any ideas please share them with us.

In a future post I will tell you how God provided amazing technical help with the site.

Come back and keep up to date with this exciting story.

Hello world!

Hi,

This is our first attempt at a blog.

It will follow our adventures as we launch our new service on an unsuspecting world. The service is called Christian House Sitters.

To get the ball rolling here is a litttle about us.

We are Marilyn & Ray White. A fun loving Christian couple aged 59 and 60 years old. We 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 for YfC in South Africa then went on to Bible College and Pastored a church.
24 Years ago we moved from South Africa to England
In addition to his theological training Ray has a PhD in Psychology and since moving to the UK he has lectured in Psychology, counselled for the NHS and 16 years ago we 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 500 people completed the training courses. Many are serving the Lord by working in or through their local churches.
We are now semi-retired but still run a secular Stress Management business called TLC Stress Management
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 details can be seen be clicking on the title. Let’s Get Serious He has also written a secular book on Stress Management called Stress Overcoming this Potential Killer
We recently did a 2 month House Sit in France. Whilst there we felt the Lord leading us to set up a Christian House Sitting service.

We believe this site will benefit many Christians around the world.

Pop in for a visit and tell your friends

http://www.Christian-HouseSitters.com