Fundraising and Farewells

Dear all,

It’s been a little while since our last posting but it seems that an awful lot has happened since then so this one should be a bit longer than normal.

 The rains have now ended and the colour everywhere is turning from green to beige while the temperature has dropped enough for us to put a blanket on the bed. We celebrated Christine’s birthday in May with a trip to the pizzeria (requested by the boys) and managed to smuggle in our own birthday cake made by Paul & the boys seen here.

We thought it about time to change our profile picture so got a friend to take the following photo while on a walk at the dam on a public holiday – a favourite place of ours which has featured here before.

Paul has had a busy end to this semester with a few projects on the go on top of the usual teaching commitments. As part of the second year Physics laboratory classes we ran a 2 week IT workshop where the students had to perform 7 different datalogging experiments. We’ve been doing this for the last 2 years but having received some shiny new kit from Labaid and some new computers in the container over the past year, this year’s workshop was all whistles and bells like nothing ever seen before in Dodoma. The photo shows students analysing data from one of the experiments.

Paul’s main project over the past few weeks has been the fundraising event mentioned in the last post. An enormous amount of work was put into preparing for the event by the team Paul headed up especially immediately before the event when our guest of honour pulled out at short notice. Thankfully Professor Meshack, the retired Vice Chancellor of the university stepped in and despite their being a low turnout we rather miraculously still managed to raise over 5 million shillings (£2000). A great achievement but not an experience Paul wants to repeat in a hurry. The picture shows our guest singer Jennifer Mgendi who was a big hit with the other choirs who attended the event. The project will still be ongoing (but at a less frantic pace) as we seek to raise or borrow the remaining funds and start contacting building contractors. Your prayers are appreciated.

One weekend recently we decided to try to scale radio hill, a local hill that we once before tried to climb but at that time it was too much for the boys. This time, a little bigger and stronger they made it to the top (along with mum & dad of course) and the two pictures here were taken as the intrepid explorers made their way down to base camp (the car).

At work Christine has been busy planning for 2 big events, firstly a fundraising event for the studio project in July, and secondly a national youth conference in September which will be a huge event held here in Dodoma. Please pray for these events that they will be successful and glorify God. Please have a look at the ACT youth office blog on the link above for more information and also a video about my work.

The university year is now coming to an end and once again we have had to say goodbye to a large part of our English choir as some of our longstanding members graduate. A few weeks ago we had a lovely but quite sad party in our garden to see them off, as shown in this picture.

Lots of Love and Blessings,

Paul, Christine. Daniel and Isaac.xxx

Easter

We pray that you have all had a wonderful Easter time celebrating the ressurection of our Lord. We had a wonderful celebration here in Dodoma, starting with a procession with real palms fresh from the tree on Palm Sunday (I hope to post some video of this at a later date) This picture shows a gathering at our neighbours' house for lunch on Easter Sunday with fellow mission partners living at the university.

It has been a long time since our last blog but we hope many of you have received our link letter in between. If anyone would like to go onto our email list to receive our link letter please let us know. Thank you for your prayers for rain. We praise God that after the lull in the rainfall it did return in plenty, and though some crops were lost many were salvaged and this year the harvest is reasonable.

At the end of March Isaac celebrated his 6th birthday with his usual party in the garden. This year it had an "Angry Birds" theme (a computer game for those who are confused!) The picture shows him, with his Angry Birds cake. The boys are now on a 2 week school holiday following Easter and are very much enjoying the break.

At the end of term we were treated to the usual Easter production at school. This year a very straightforward gospel story acted out by the children, interspersed with songs, which was very powerful. This picture shows the boys preparing to sing with their classmates. Daniel was also presented with his certificate as the winner for his year of the school poetry competition. Here he is proudly displaying his certicate together with winners from other classes.


With the second semester in full swing at the university, Paul is back into the regular routine of labs and lectures but has managed to get Fridays off to focus on finishing off his masters dissertation. The English Service Choir is also back into action in good voice but still a little low on numbers. Please pray that it grows this semester before we lose a good proportion who will be graduating at the end of the year. June will also see the culmination of Paul's and many others' work in preparing a large fundraiser, Tanzanian style, for a student accomodation building project. This is a partnership between the university and the English Service and should be a great venture for all however there is still a lot of work to be done, you're prayers for which we would be very much appreciated.

Christine has been very busy at work. We held a second music and worship seminar in March in the southern zone of the country - this meant a  journey to Songea in the far South West of Tanzania, a very long but very beautiful journey. The seminar was a huge success and a great blessing to all involved. We have also just held elections for a new TAYO youth committee and an enthusiastic new committee has been chosen. They are pictured here together with the archbishop of Tanzania, the general secretary of the Anglican church of Tanzania and Rt.Rev Bill Atwood, an American bishop visiting from Nairobi. We praise God for the new committee which will be a huge help to Christine in her work. You can read more about both of these events on the TAYO blog. (http://tanzaniaanglicanyouth.blogspot.com)

At the end of March, Kikuyu Gospel Singers held a 3 day mission to the local community - a time of powerful preaching, prayer, music and worship. It was a wonderful and blessed time, many people gave their lives to Christ, and others were delivered from demons. These pictures show some of the crowd during a prayer time and another choir worshipping at the mission . Kikuyu Gopsel Singers are now preparing to record ourfirst music album in September. Please pray for us as we prepare and fundraise for this project.

With lots of love and blessings,
Christine, Paul, Daniel and Isaac. xxx

Parties, Parks and Pirates

Dear friends,

We wish you all a very happy new year if a little late!

We had a wonderful Christmas with friends from St. Austell visiting us. We had a dramatic start to their visit as Christine and the boys went to Dar-es-Salaam to meet them and spend a few days in the sun. In fact we had 3 days of continuous torrential rain in Dar which caused huge floods and disruption. Our return journey to Dodoma took 11 hours, starting by taking a long detour along dirt roads, and finishing driving hours through storms in the dark! We also had two very large speakers on the roof of the car which we had bought in Dar for Kikuyu Gospel Singers, following all our fundraising last year. We thank God we finally arrived home safely and the rain hadn't got into the speakers!

In general the rainy season started really well this year and in some areas people are already harvesting produce. However, there seems to have been a break in the rain for a while, and a little more is still needed, particularly in the Dodoma area. Please pray for more rain.

We spent Christmas itself in Dodoma and had a few days trip to Kilimatinde on boxing day. This picture shows Christmas dinner with our guests the Clearys (Ian, Marilyn, Lowenna and Samara), together with neighbours Graham and Alison, at the chinese restaurant in Dodoma, which was followed by

a swim in the open air pool!

On Christmas eve Christine became God-mother again, to Patricia shown in this picture with her dad , John who sings with Christine in Kikuyu Gospel Singers. It was a lovely service with about 15 infant baptisms and a fair few adult baptisms, followed by a party back at Patricia's home.

For new year we went with the Clearys to Mikumi National Park and had a lovely few days safari. We camped at a lovely site just outside the park. The pictures show the children washing vegetables ready for the camp fire and a sample of some of the wildlife.

The boys have a long school holiday at Christmas time and have only been back at school for a week and a half. They enjoyed their holidays playing with friends and enjoying their new Christmas presents. One of the highlights was a "Pirate party" pictured here.

Christine has been busy at work since Christmas. The small loans project is now well underway in the diocese of Mpwapwa and we have trained the groups and given out loans (see the ACT youth office blog on the link for more info). We are also planning to run another music and worship seminar in March in the South of Tanzania, and are planning and fundraising for a big national youth conference in September. Please pray for us as we develop all these different projects and try to raise the funds needed for them.

Paul reached the grand old age of 41 last week and celebrated by inviting a few friends over for nibbles in the garden. The highlight for the children was the new zip wire - our latest addition to the back garden adventure playground, that was until Ian, Daniel's best friend from next door fell off it with a horrible thud and got us all very worried as he was unconscious for a while. It turned out that it was just bumps and bruises praise God. Paul's keeping himself busy at work with issues such as the timetable for the new semester starting in a couple of weeks time and is constantly looking for distractions from the dreaded ongoing exam marking - the one part of teaching I never could bear.

In January we welcomed back our good friends Festo, from Kilimatinde and Grace, from St. Austell, who were married in November in St. Austell. We had wonderful party in Kilimatinde to receive them. We were honoured to be the "wadhamini" (sort of best man and best woman) even though it wasn't actually the wedding! This is a picture of us at the party, with two very sleepy boys (it was a late night!) and Grace's mum and dad in the background.

We were recently invited to be guests of honour at a big event for a choir in a village called Msemembo near Kilimatinde. This picture shows the event. It was a fun but tiring day.

The video clip below shows Kikuyu Gospel Singers practising our Christmas song in our back garden (minus Christine as she was filming!)

With much love and blessings to you all,
Christine, Paul, Daniel and Isaac.xxx

Happy Christmas to You all!

Dear friends,

This is just a brief post to wish you all a very happy and blessed Christmas. We thank you all for your prayers, encouragement and financial support over the past year and we pray that God blesses you all in 2012.

This Christmas is very different to last year - instead of building snowmen we will spend some time on the beach and on safari. Christmas day itself we will be at home with friends visiting from St. Austell.

We praise God that our English choir, which had become very small, has grown once again and we were invited to sing at the Cathedral "Carols by Candlelight" service last week. This video shows a little of that service.

We have also made a DVD of a selection of home videos made over the last 6 months which we have sent to some of you. If anyone else would like a copy please let us know.

With much love and blessings,

Christine, Paul, Daniel and Isaac.xxx

Graduations and gatherings

Dear Friends,

Oh dear it’s nearly 2 months since the last blog – sorry! We have been very busy!

In October we attended the CMS partners in mission conference in Nairobi. It was a great event with representatives from many different parts of Africa. It was a good time for fellowship and sharing with other mission partners. This picture shows Paul in one of the meetings.

One of the highlights was the kids programme led by a wonderful group of young Kenyans who took the children from 8am to 9pm every day! The children absolutely loved it. They had great fun and some great teaching too. They were a small group of just 7 children but they all got on very well with each other and their leaders. Here are the boys with friend James and leader Shaun (“the sheep”!)

The new semester at the University is into full swing now and Paul is stuck into teaching his courses in laboratory Physics and educational media and technology. Thankfully after years of waiting for the infrastructure Paul has managed to start some e-learning activities with a trial group of 50 students from one of his courses. The analysis of this trial will form the dissertation of Paul’s masters but he is also excited by opportunities to develop more e-learning at the university in the future. We recently got dressed up once more for the second ever graduation ceremony of the university. It was a day of great celebrations but tinged with sadness as one of Paul’s Physics students who was due to graduate tragically died in a bus accident 2 weeks before. He was awarded his degree posthumously.

Paul managed to attend another graduation earlier in October at St John’s Secondary, Kilimatinde where he used to teach. It was great to be a part of the celebrations and to meet up with old friends including Festo the Headmaster who is now in the UK – see later.

Though the previous person we selected was unable to take up the position, we have now employed a new project officer at Christine’s work called Justine, shown in this picture. It is great to have him with us. He is enthusiastic and hard working and will do a good job.  He will be working with Christine on all the projects of the youth office though his main role is running the small loans project. We have just begun this project in a new diocese, the diocese of Mpwapwa, and this picture shows Christine with the diocese loans committee at a recent seminar there.
We also recently held a successful seminar on youth bible study together with a meeting of the youth leaders from nearly all the dioceses (of which there are 26) across Tanzania. You can read more about this on my youth office blog http://Tanzaniaanglicanyouth.blogspot.com  Thank you to everyone who has been making donations for my work and making these projects possible. If you are able to make a contribution please see my just giving pages which can be accessed through the youth office blog. We will soon be having elections for a new committee of TAYO (the Tanzania Anglican youth Organisation) – please pray that the right people will be selected and also that God continues to provide the resources we need to keep our work going.

Christine has also been busy with the Kikuyu Gospel Singers. We recently held a very successful event to launch the new choir which has only been going since February, and to raise funds to buy new instruments for the choir. We were also invited to represent our diocese at an event of the neighbouring diocese of the Rift Valley in Manyoni and had a wonderful weekend there. This picture shows us (in the yellow shirts) during a procession through the town on the final day of the event. Christine has also recently been elected as “Katibu” (secretary) of the choir – a big job – in Tanzania the Katibu is the person who does everything! Please pray for us as we continue to grow and develop.

The boys are very happy and enjoying life and school. They are also very much enjoying their cat, Vanilla, pictured here with Isaac (due to the many requests for more pictures!) The weather is getting very hot now so they are particularly enjoying swimming and the paddling pool in the garden.  We had a lovely visit from our friends the Aylings from Dar recently and (for all the CTK crowd) here is a picture of the boys with the Ayling children on lion rock in Dodoma.

Finally we are very happy that our dear friends Festo from Kilimatinde and Grace from St. Austell were married last week. We can’t wait to see them when the return to Tanzania in January. Congratulations Mr. And Mrs Kanungha!

Go-goes galore

Dear  friends,

Thank you for your messages, prayers and encouragement which we really appreciate. You are all a great blessing to us.

We continue to enjoy life here in Tanzania. Vanilla is growing bigger rapidly, and as next door’s cat had tiny kittens on Sunday, Isaac has now decided we can no longer call Vanilla a kitten!

Daniel turned 8 on Sunday and had a lovely party at the local pizzeria/ crazy golf course (one of the few exciting places to go in Dodoma!) with 10 friends. The party had a “Gogo” theme. Though the Gogo is the name of the local tribe here in Dodoma the theme was based on a craze which many of you may be familiar with, of little plastic collectable figures called Gogos. They were introduced to the boys by their cousins when we were back in the UK. This picture shows the boys with the cake in the shape of Daniel’s favourite Gogo, with Gogo figures on top. Daniel and Isaac both recently participated in leading their class assemblies at school and did very well. Below is a video of Daniel’s assembly. Daniel is narrator.

The interviews for the project officer at Christine’s office went well and we have selected Geofrey Njama for the job. He will start at the beginning of October. He is an ex-student of St. John’s who we know very well as he helped us to run the English choir, so we also look forward to having him back to sing. Christine is currently busy planning a music and worship seminar for choir leaders from four dioceses in the central zone of the Anglican Church. We hope that the seminar will help choir leaders to develop their musical skills but also to develop an understanding of worship and how to write songs with a meaningful message. Please pray for this seminar which will take place in 2 weeks time. When Geofrey starts work we will also get going on the next phase of the small loans project. We need to choose a diocese to take part in this project so please pray that we select the right one. Last week we held a big event for choirs from 4 dioceses from the central zone of Tanzania. This picture shows a choir in traditional Gogo dress (this time the local tribe, not the toy!)

I have started a new blog specifically about my work and the projects that we are running, together with a Just Giving page which enables you to make contributions towards these projects. http://tanzaniaanglicanyouth.blogspot.com and http://www.justgiving.com/ACT-youth-projects Please have a look at these and please consider making a donation if you are able as we are surviving on a steady trickle of small donations. We are really grateful for those of you who have helped with my work, as much of what I am doing now would otherwise be impossible.

The diocesan youth event in which we participated with Kikuyu Gospel Singers went really well. 53 choirs participated in all over 3 days. It was held in a small village and the whole choir stayed in one small mud brick house. It was a great event and the choir is now known in the diocese, and since then we have had many invitations to participate in services and evangelistic meetings in other churches. We praise God for the way the choir has grown and developed from a difficult beginning earlier in the year. This picture shows Christine on stage with the choir.

Paul is gearing up for the new academic year -finishing off the prospectus, working on the timetable and preparing his e-learning study. This is the final part of his seemingly eternal Masters course and involves piloting a small e-learning initiative at the University replacing face to face seminars with on-line asynchronous discussion (bit like a more academic form of facebook), before analysing its impact. What with that and teaching 3 courses in the coming semester Paul’s quite busy at present but fairly content and leaving the question of “how will it all get done?” to God.

We also recently went to the “nane nane” agricultural show – an annual event here in Dodoma. It is a great event where people can learn new and efficient ways of growing fruit and vegetables and keeping livestock. There are also wild animals on show, including a lion. This picture shows the boys with their friend Prince on a display tractor.

Thank you all once more for all your support in so many ways and please keep praying as we are constantly aware that apart from God we can do nothing.

Much Love,

Paul, Christine, Daniel and Isaac

Cats, Containers and Chameleons

Dear friends,
On looking through our photos we realised we should have written a blog earlier – and there were many more we could have included! So be prepared for a long picture show this entry!

The boys have just started back at school after a month’s break. Isaac has now entered standard 1 and is very excited to be in the “big school” with Daniel who is now in standard 3. They enjoyed their holiday and had fun playing with friends. This picture shows them with neighbours Ema, K and P.

We had a lovely walk one evening up “lion rock,” one of the biggest hills in Dodoma with our new aussie neighbours, the Buchanans. This shows us near the top looking down over Dodoma.

Christine also took the boys for our regular holiday visit to Kilimatinde where we were able to relax for a few days with friends. This shows our friend Ema with his daughter Janeth (our God-daughter) in their new house which he has been hard at work building. It is coming on well but he still needs a roof which is always the difficult part both in terms of cost and expertise.

Monday this week was a very exciting day. Firstly the boys went back to school and into their new classes. Secondly we gained a new member of the family, Vanilla, a lovely kitten who you can see in this picture. Thirdly, the container which we have been waiting for finally arrived safely at the university. These pictures show the container being unloaded outside the main admin block at the university. So far everything seems to be in order and unbroken! We brought computers, books, lab equipment and furniture for the university which have all been well received. We also fitted in a few boxes of our own stuff and were all very happy to see it arrive – toys for the boys, a bike and a hammock for Paul, and a comfy deck chair and a ton of conditioner for Christine!

We’re at the end of the university year now with students already starting to leave after their exams. Staff are still busy marking, planning for the new year and developing research projects. Paul hopes to complete a few holiday jobs including supervising the laboratory air extraction system and bench resurfacing, building a projection and sound system for the main hall and (once more) painting out the badminton court.

Please continue to pray for Christine’s work. She is now receiving lots of applications for the job of youth projects officer to work alongside her. Please pray that we will find the right person and that the plans for various projects come together. Christine’s Swahili choir, Kikuyu Gospel Singers is doing well and was recently selected to be part of the diocese “tamasha” which is an event for youth choirs throughout the diocese – it is quite a privilege to be selected especially as we are such a new choir. Please pray for us as we go there next week. This picture shows Christine with the choir

Sadly we recently said goodbye to our good friends the Cousleys who have moved to Uganda to continue their work with MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship) The boys were particularly sad to see the Cousley boys, Joshua and Benjamin leave as they have been great friends over the last 3 years. Shortly before they left they came for a sleepover – this picture shows them all watching a DVD on the little sofa underneath Isaac’s new bed! We also said goodbye last week to Neville and Elspeth (our previous Aussie Neighbours!) who have been living next door since we arrived in Dodoma back in 2007 and are now returning to Australia. We were very sad to see them go.

As well as the goodbyes we were very happy to welcome the Aylings, good friends from “Christ the King” church in Kettering where we worshipped from 1996-2000 before going to Kilimatinde, and who still support us as a link church. The Aylings will be living in Dar-es-Salaam and working for MAF. In the last week of the school holidays we were able to spend a lovely few days with them in Dar, mostly playing on the beach. This picture shows Daniel and Isaac with their 3 children Jack, Harry and Robyn.

Our garden is flourishing and our bananas, papaya and passion are doing particularly well. This picture shows a chameleon trying to disguise itself as a banana.

With lots of love and blessings,
Paul, Christine, Daniel, Isaac and Vanilla.xxx