Dear all,
We’re glad to be back in Tanzania again and settled back
into our home, work and school environments. We’d had a great time in the UK
visiting many of you and enjoying what the UK had to offer but it’s good to be
back home, to see friends again and to not be living out of suitcases any more.
Our last few weeks in the UK were spent enjoying Christmas and New Year with family around the country, and even seeing some snow in Derby, much to the boys delight, as they were able to tick off one of the final items on their "to do in England" list and build a snowman. We also had a final week in St. Austell to say our final farewells to all our wonderful friends there and to load the container and send it on it's way to Tanzania.
We’d like to thank all of you who helped in ways both large
and small toward the container project. It was packed and left the UK a few
days before we did, thanks to help from friends in the Besom Project St Austell
and is now in Dar-es-Salaam whilst the clearing process is being completed.
Your prayers for this please – we are looking forward to its arrival any day
now but are aware that things can very easily go wrong at this stage.Paul got back to the university as the first semester was closing and so has had a very gentle workload so far being mainly occupied with project marking, third year project supervision and the occasional visit from a school group. The photo shows a group of girls from Queen Esther School in Mpwapwa who came to do some laboratory practice at the university last week. It was good to meet the new Vice Chancellor Prof. Mbennah who started his position while we were back in the UK and during a difficult time for the university. He seems to be a Godly man with a vision for the university and we welcome your prayers as the university starts its next chapter under new management.
Paul is now planning for the forthcoming semester, which
will be a busy one, but is also excitedly looking at a few other opportunities
to start something new at the start of our new term of service to be hopefully revealed
in future posts.
Christine is back into the swing of things at work and enjoying working with the new General Secretary Dr. Johnson Chinyon'gole who again began in post whilst we were away. She is busy
developing plans for the coming year for the mission and evangelism department,
including seminars, conferences, training of evangelists and training of
worship leaders. Please pray for God’s blessing on this work and especially for
the funds and resources we need to make these projects possible.
Both Kikuyu Gospel Singers and the University English Choir
continue to go well despite some turnover of members in our absence and we are enjoying fellowship with them again. In January we were also involved with a video recording for our friend Amani Shabani who is a wonderful evangelist
and musician and the picture shows the boys dancing with him for the video.
The boys are glad to be back at school after a good break
and are loving their new teachers at Canon Andrea Mwaka School. Here is a
picture of them in their new school uniforms. Our household has also been
swelled recently by the arrival of four guinea pigs. The pressure was on for
Paul to build a hutch in time before our friends the Madindas, from whom they
came, left to travel to the UK. The boys are loving the novelty of feeding and looking
after George, Ginger, Prince and Shadow and will hopefully keep it up once the
novelty wears off.
Shortly after we returned we managed to find time to visit
our great friends the Kanunghas in Kilimatinde. It was great to see a very
active Zephaniah and to get chances to chat and catch up with Grace and Festo as
well as to meet up with other friends there.
With much love and blessings,
Christine, Paul, Daniel and Isaac.xxx
