Monday 29 June 2015

Servers, Singida and Seminars




Much has happened since we wrote our last blog. The container finally arrived at St. John's shortly after, to much rejoicing. This picture shows the container after it was opened and before the hard work of unpacking, cataloging, testing and distributing it all which is still partly ongoing. The need for these items such as the computers was highlighted recently when in the middle of Paul's course on educational media and technology, which takes place 
largely on-line using the university's Moodle system, the server on which it was based suffered a fatal hardware fault and needed to be replaced with another which had come from England in a previous container. 

The picture shows Mr Kungura, Paul's friend and colleague doing emergency surgery on the servers before getting the system back up and running.
This semester Paul has been catching up from when we were away, teaching extra courses to the usual which has kept him busy but he has also found some time to work on getting a smartboard from the container working, writing some software for student examinations processing, 
getting stuck in to some electronics research together with an Indian lecturer from a neighbouring university and writing some presentation papers for an upcoming research conference. 

The picture shows the Physics lab in full swing during a practical session.
In March Christine went on a ladies retreat at the local catholic centre. This picture shows the group of missionary ladies and some of our Tanzanian friends who are involved in various forms of ministry here in Dodoma. It was a lovely relaxing and refreshing weekend. 


At the end of March Isaac turned 9 with a "minecraft" themed birthday party as those in the know will see from the cake!  We had a lovely time celebrating with him. 

Isaac has also been enjoying using his talents with his guitar and singing, helping us lead worship at our English service and also leading at a couple of services at Dodoma Cathedral which were led by the school. The picture shows one of these services. 




During the school Easter break we were able to have a short holiday on the beach in Bagamoyo, near Dar-es-Salaam, which was a lovely break. 

Christine and the boys also had a trip to Singida to visit our dear friend Musa Njagamba and his lovely family who can be seen in these pictures.



The English choir is going strong. We have new choir robes, and also managed to buy a new sound system for the chapel with the proceeds from the CDs we sold in the UK. A few weeks ago we were invited to sing at a service at UDOM, another university in Dodoma which was a great time of fellowship. We also recently had our "graduation" party for those choir members who will be graduating from the university and leaving us this year - an annual event which is always a great celebration but a sad time too. 
The picture shows us with the 3 graduating members this year. Though the choir is doing well, the English congregation, is shrinking significantly and we would value your prayers, that God would show us how to go forward in the future.




Kikuyu Gospel Singers (Swahili choir) is also doing some good work. The pictures show our open air mission event which we held in April this year in the local community - a wonderful time of outreach to the local community. Also we have recently recorded our second CD which is now in the process of editing and finishing.


At work, Christine organised the annual conference of diocesan mission and evangelism coordinators in May which was a great success and a great encouragement to all who attended. A few weeks ago was the annual week of prayer and evangelism of the Anglican Church of Tanzania during which Christians across the country joined together in prayer for the church, the community, the country and the world as well as planning many seminars, missions and prayer vigils. Christine is also busy with plans for the development of an Anglican Church radio station. Please pray for the development of this project.

With love
Christine, Paul, Daniel and Isaac. xxx