Candles, Christmas and Ceremonys

Dear Friends,

Local walk with neighbours

We hope you are enjoying 2016 as we are! We are still enjoying a long rainy season here in Dodoma which is great news for all the farmers around the area - the harvest should be plentiful this year.
Unfortunately in some areas the good rains have led to flooding but here in Dodoma we are grateful for a productive year for the first time in many years.

We had a lovely Christmas here at home with friends Will and Claudia visiting from Kilimatinde.

The picture shows some of our English choir at the "Carols by Candlelight" service at the  cathedral.


The videos below show this choir and also the school choir which sang in a special school service and the annual school Christmas production, which as usual was a huge success and great blessing.

On new years eve we had a party at home with the Chance family, the younger generation shown in the picture.

With the Njagamba family in Singida

Then on New Year's day we headed up to Singida to visit Musa, Mama Merina and their lovely family

including their new baby boy Yohana Daniel.

Christine is now busy planning various seminars etc for 2016. Please pray for the plans and provision of funds for the annual mission and evangelism conference, music and worship training and training of lay evangelists.
Pray also for our project to develop an Anglican Church of Tanzania radio station, that we will succeed in gaining a licence and funding. Christine is also struggling to get her work permit as there are many new systems in place in Tanzania making things very difficult. Please pray for this situation to be resolved.

Paul has had a very busy semester having been made acting head of Physics and taking on some extra Physics teaching after the previous head left at short notice. Together with a very healthy intake of new 1st year trainee science teachers (very much an answer to prayer) and the long planned rollout of e-learning across the university, this has made for a lot of work for Paul but he is coping fine and is particularly enjoying his new digital electronics course.

The picture shows some of his students doing practical exercises during one of his lectures. December saw the annual graduation ceremony which is always a special time and this year was made more special by being held at rather grand and spacious conference centre in Dodoma.

Graduation Ceremony

The semester is now drawing to a close and, once marking is over, Paul will be looking forward to some student teaching practice observations before getting stuck into the timetable for the next semester.

Please pray for the boys' school which is going through a difficult time, especially for the provision of new well qualified teachers. Despite the difficulties, the boys still love being there and are both doing very well. They are also still enjoying their music. This is Isaac playing with some of the worship team at the cathedral and Daniel with his new electronic drum kit getting some valuable coaching from Will.

We are looking forward to a short trip to the UK to visit family at Easter. We are sorry as our time is short we will be unable to visit all our link churches. Please pray for us as we travel on Good Friday.

With much love and blessings

Christine, Paul, Daniel and Isaac. xxx

Video of CAMS school Choir singing "What kind of Greatness":  https://youtu.be/sYgXabUlbRs

Video of CAMS School Choir singing "Heaven invites you to a Party": https://youtu.be/v8C06CTCxFY

Video of St. John's English Choir singing "O Holy Night":

https://youtu.be/46o2ot_-fuY