Another week, another blog...

Hopefully by now most of you (at least you English-based folk) should have received our quarterly newsletter. Please let us know if not, so we can make sure you get added to MAF's mailing list.

It was a bit odd writing a newsletter, after having blogged most of the things we've done as we've gone along! Hope it's still of interest though.

Sorry to those of you who might have tried to contact us this week. As parliament is no longer in session here in Dodoma, it's back to power cut land. In theory we should be without power Thursday and Saturday, but even though there's a published schedule, it tends to be a bit random as to which days the power goes off!

Also, the network was down most of this week, so we couldn't get on line to do computerey stuff. It's a bit scary how desolate this makes us feel - internet access is a it like air over here (OK, maybe not that necessary - but its nice to have!)

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Sarah, one of our houseladies, has asked us to mention two of her nephews, Philip and Nelson. They were two of the children of her sister, who died some time ago. They have been living with her since her sister died, but they keep running away to live on the street. It seems that they like the freedom of the 'street-life'. However, there's not a lot of future in it, and stupid decisions made at this age (12 and 14) will have serious repercussions for the rest of their lives. Education is about the only way out of the cycle of poverty that most Tanzanians live in, and if they're not at home, they're not at school.

Please pray that these two would come to their senses, and realise the benefits of living with Sarah. Please also pray for Sarah to have wisdom in dealing with them when they do come back, and that we would be able to help where we can.

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Congratulations to Steve & Rachel, Clive and Megan and Ant & Mel - who have all managed to produce baby girls in the last few weeks. It must be girl season I think. We hope you all manage to get some sleep!