Rain and Recording

Dear all,

A few weeks ago the rain started. We thought it had come early and it looked very promising. The boys went straight out to play in their wellies! However, after a week or so of heavy rain, we have had a couple of weeks now with none at all and people are concerned it was a false alarm and are not sure whether or not to start planting. In the mean time it’s all very hot and very sticky. Please pray that the rains will start properly soon and last long enough to produce a good harvest this year.

At the end of October we enjoyed a visit from our friends from Kettering, the Aylings, who are thinking of coming to Tanzania as mission partners. We had a lovely few days with them, though sadly too short! Please pray for them as they make plans for the future, and thank God that their children loved their time here after being very apprehensive. The picture shows Stewart and Michelle with their children Jack, Harry and Robyn, together with the head and deputy head at a local primary school.

We also welcomed home from Nairobi our friends, the Garrets, with their new baby Christiana Danielle, shown here with Wendy her mum.








At the beginning of November we attended a CMS “Partners in Mission” conference at a lovely Catholic Retreat centre in Veyula just outside Dodoma. We got together with all the CMS UK mission partners in Tanzania, Tim and Steve from the UK office and Sarah from the CMS Africa office in Nairobi, for a wonderful time of sharing, encouraging and praying for one another. This picture shows nearly everyone who attended.

Last week Christine went to Dar-es-Salaam to record a CD with Revival choir after 2 hard weeks of rehearsing every day. We had a good trip and the CD is excellent though was very hard work especially due to lack of air conditioning in a small sealed studio in the hot season in Dar-es-Salaam! These pictures shows Venace recording the keyboard in the studio and Mama Glory relaxing outside the studio.

Christine’s workload has become much easier now. We are now mainly trying to find ways to fundraise for the various projects we have in the pipeline. Please pray that some of these projects and ideas will be successful and especially that we find a way to fund Beatrice’s salary as we only have a few months of money left.

Despite the heavy number of contact hours this semester Paul is fairly chipper, enjoying the teaching and finding time to devote to work issues, helping others out, the masters course and of course home and family commitments. The pergola at the back of the house has been the latest weekend project – all we need to do now is wait for the vines and passion plants, currently about 10cm tall, to grow up and over it to get some shade – may be some time.

We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas. Unfortunately we missed the deadline to get a link letter out before Christmas but watch this space for a special Christmas blog!

Lots of love and blessings,
Christine, Paul, Daniel and Isaac.xxx