Apologies for the delay

Sorry for the delay in the blog - for some reason we couldn't get the site to open at home, so I am uploading this at work. Hope it works :)
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Hot, hot, hot, swim, swim, swim. That about sums up what’s going on with us. We even have the fans out at night we are sweating so much. The rainy season started for about a day and stopped again and so the humidity remains. So every afternoon we head to the pool just to cool down.

Things are pretty busy here at the moment. We’ve had prayer meetings and staff meetings and management meeting and personal mediation meetings. Thursday night we passed like ships in the night as I arrived in from a school board meeting (more issues) at 7:45pm and Daniel left for the MAF staff meeting at 8pm. The MAF team has lots of ‘issues’ that they are working through right now. Some are personal and very emotional and others are just to do with strategy. We had a day of prayer and discussion last Friday starting at 8am and finishing at 10pm and next week we have a whole day planning strategy for the year ahead. Daniel is very much involved in all of these things and it has been a stressful week for him. On top of which we have the tax issues hanging over us and this week we appealed against the millions of shillings that the government say we owe.

Today we had some sad news, the death of the baby of Joshua’s teacher from last year, Liz Williamson. She had returned to New Zealand and given birth to Nathan at 24 weeks. He was doing well and was growing but on Thursday caught a serious infection and died on Friday. Please pray for Liz and Mark Williamson if you can. I know it is difficult to pray for people you don’t know, but maybe this will help a bit. http://nathan.zebrafish.co.nz

I narrowly escaped tear gas on Thursday whilst cycling through town. The government had promised a number of plots of land for sale and people had been camping out all night to try ensure their place in the queue. However, when the number of plots that had been promised didn’t work out there was a bit of a riot. I cycled through crowds of people and thought if was a bit strange, but apparently a bit later the police came out and started firing tear gas to quell the riot.

On Friday I went with Sarah and the pastor of the Safina project to check out the story of John (whom I mentioned before, his parents have died of aids and he has his younger brothers and sisters to support) We knew he was lying to us, but weren’t sure how much. Anyway it turns out he was lying quite a lot to us and to his step father. This is very frustrating as he seems to have done 'I don’t know what’ with our money.

The safina project plan to do some Christmas thing with the street children. I am trying to arrange to play some Christian DVD for them. Maybe the Jesus film or something else. MAF have a big truck that is used to drive out to the villages to play the Jesus film, it has all the equipment and a screen to play films on a big screen.

Rainy season again

A few recent photos of the children my sister took when she was here.

Two good things happened this week (well not just two). One it started raining, two weeks earlier than usual and without the usual bug fest that accompanies the start of the rains, maybe we have that joy to come. The other good thing was that the MAF swimming pool (see picture)is finally re-opening today. These two things are not necessarily compatible but having woken up to sunshine and blue skies, it looks like there will be no rain today and we will be good to swim.

I seem to be busier than ever since Caleb started school. I am officially starting to work in December (work permit permitting)to cover the maternity leave of the Partnership and Development Manager. However even now I seem pretty busy. On Monday I spent most of the morning with John (the teenager whose parents died of aids) I want to help him, but I can never tell whether or not he is lying to me or not. I won't go into all the details of his situation, but suffice to say I was pretty fed up with him by lunch time.(he arrived at 9am!!!) However read on and you will see how God worked later on in the week.

Tuesday I had Children's club, next time will be my last one as I am stopping it to concentrate on Work.

Wednesday was my ladies group.

Thursday I went into the office to work with the lady I am taking over from to try and get up to speed with everything. We also had a visitor from MAF UK for lunch.

On Friday I spend the morning with a pastor from the street children project (Safina project) and Sarah. We went to visit the mothers and grandmother of the boys we support.Yohanna is having a problem at school and one of the teachers said he is turning up drunk. He is so hungry that he drinks the left over pombe (alcohol) from the mother who doesn't notice because she is blind. Every time I go there I feel like levelling the whole place and starting again it is just awful. There are so many small children running around absolutely filthy. It's just a breeding ground for disease. Sarah said if cholera ever came to that area of town they would have no chance. I know they are poor, but they do have water (free) from the church to wash and they don't need to use the whole place as a public toilet. Children just squat to wee and poo wherever they like.Sorry I am off on a rant, but how do I start to help people who have essentially given up and spend what little money they have on alcohol. Anyway the Safina project is keen that children stay with their mothers whenever possible and said they will partner with me to help these families. I will still be financing them, but they will help with the counselling and practical things. It is such a blessing to work with Tanzanians who have a heart for their own people.

Anyway when we were driving back to town I told the pastor about John and he said he was happy to help. I asked him to come back to my house just to see if John was there and of course he was waiting for me by the gate. I had other things to do and so I left John and the Pastor and Sarah talking for well over an hour. The result of which is that the Pastor said he is happy to help John, he will visit the family and he will work out the best way to help him and we will work together to come to a good solution. He also said that if John needs someone to talk to he can always go to the street kid centre in town and talk to him. This is great for me a)because it makes much more sense for him to talk to a Tanzanian man and also b) because John likes to talk and often comes for visits that go on for hours.

Birthday girl

We are all sweating here and waiting for the rains to come. The humidity has also increased and we even got a fan out last night. The thought of some snow is quite appealing.

Caleb has had some strange rash this week so I have had the opportunity to check out the brand new hospital that is being build up the hill about 15 minutes from out house. It is very clean, has good medicine, good doctors and is a real answer to prayer. You do have to pay, but it is only £2 for a consultation. Saying that though they didn't know what was wrong with Caleb, so I have been back to my usual Internet research! I do this carefully trying to not let my eyes stray to conditions I never knew existed and definitely don't want to have.

Daniel spent 3 days in Dar on a tax seminar and was able to talk to some helpful guy from Deloitte Consulting who said he is happy to help Daniel with his current disagreement with the Tanzanian Tax Authority.

Saturday was Bethany's 6th birthday party. We had a lot of fun, but it was very hot, so we went through an awful lot of water. I managed to buy these cool sparkler type candles that kind of exploded. I've never seen them before but maybe they are not legal in the UK.