Travels and treehouses

Dear Friends,

It is now raining again, so much so that in some parts of the country there has been flooding, though in other parts there has been drought. In the Dodoma area the harvest, though not brilliant, promises to be quite good this year relative to recent years. This picture shows the maize crop of one of our neighbours on the university campus.

Christine has recently been travelling to the dioceses of Mpwapwa and Kiteto to talk to diocesan and youth leaders to determine if one of these dioceses is suitable to start the next stage of our loans and savings scheme. Though we have not yet managed to find a grant to continue the project we have a little money which we can use to at least begin the project in one diocese. Please pray that more funds will come through for this project. The picture shows Christine and Beatrice with the Bishop and various youth leaders in Mpwapwa.

Paul, whilst taking a break from writing timetables and collating student results over the short break between semesters, has been very busy building a tree house in the garden which the boys and their friends love. Daniel loves reading and writing these days and now enjoys taking his books up in the tree house to read to himself or to Isaac. This is the house under construction and the boys in the not-quite-finished product. The long awaited Physics Teachers Network has at last met for the first time with a number of interested members from local schools. Please pray that the Network grows and becomes effective in improving the quality of Physics Teaching in Dodoma and that Paul gets the timetable ready in time for the new semester

We have several new mission partners at the university, including the Heaneys, a crosslinks family with a little boy called Sam, who is already Isaac’s best friend. They go to school together. It is lovely to have another family around.

We are beginning to think about our time of furlough which will begin in November this year for 6 months. We plan to be based in St. Austell but although we have a house there, we now have very good tenants who we do not want to lose. So, if they plan to stay we would need to find alternative accommodation. If any of our Cornwall friends have any ideas of somewhere we could stay for that time please let us know. Perhaps someone has a friend with a holiday let which would be quiet over the winter months and we could rent at low cost? Hopefully the boys will be going to Bishop Bronscombe School for a few months. We may also be looking to borrow a car, either for the whole time or just for some of our weekend link church visits, if anyone has any ideas?

This picture shows some of the girls from Revival choir who were cooking in our garden when we had some choir guests last weekend.

Below ore 3 videos - the first is a video of Daniel's birthday back in September. Second, you should find a video of our Christmas break, and finally a video of our English choir when we went to record an album in January. All have been reduced in size (and quality) to be uploadable.