Seasons Greetings!

Happy Christmas!

We returned from a 4 night break to Zomba mountain.  It was cold and we had log fires!  It's Christmas day now, and we are having a lovely day with Tom & Ali and their kids.  We are here for 2 nights, and while it's a bit weird as it's hot, it's been really great so far.  Santa got us a dart board!

Anyway, just a quick one to say: have a great day and I'll update you more after Christmas x x x

Farming again!

     (Rural Church Leaders Training with Dalitso)

      (Lusekero in a training session)

On Friday I visited hope missions, a Christian charity working in Educating rural Malawians much like ourselves.  They needed some Agricultural advice, as they recently purchased land to provide a meal a day in their nursery schools.  It was great to do some farming again, and over the next 3 weeks I will be visiting them once a week.  It works out well as the Dalitso team are on a 3 week break as from the end of the week.

I also visited the prison.  Emanuel visits once a week to teach and offer the Christians there some support.  It was tough.  The prison accommodates 800 prisoners, but there are 2200 there!  It means they all can't sleep at once because they can't all physically lye down at the same time!  They also have a food shortage, and for days at a time they go without food.  It was a bit scary, but I had a chance to talk from the bible, pray for and encourage about 200 of the prisoners.  It was a real privilege.

We've had some crazy storms here recently, we haven't seen the sun for a few days!  It means our phones and the internet have been down quite a bit.  

All our love x

Termite control, or Dog poison?

Some of you may know, due to our email updates, that our Dogs were poisoned on Friday night. they have survived, and are certainly on the mend.  The vet has told us that it's really common for this type of poisoning to occur, and the thieves use a substance which controls termites.  She also told us nearly all of the dogs die within 20 minutes, so we were really lucky.  No one was hurt in the break in, which was actually in our friends home.

I must apologise for the lack of Photo's and videos.  We have a bandwidth limit that means we cannot do media type things at them moment.  However, at some point we hope to get an unlimited account, and then the photo's and videos will follow!

We have nearly finished the fence to keep our dogs in, which is going to be really nice.  It's been a lot more costly than first anticipated, but we think it will be worth it.  It's really raining here now, and it's meant that the weather has cooled right down - it's really pleasant.

Work wise things are very much the same as in the last time I updated you.  It's really progressing well and I'm really excited about it.  Please pray for the families we will be working closely with, this will start after Christmas and is really looking positive.  Please also pray for our protection, over our home and over our health.  God has been so faithful to us, we are really grateful.

Loads of love and hugs x

 

Salt Water

I've been swimming in African Bible College's salt water pool 3 times a week to keep fit and help my knee out a bit, and I've been thinking why doesn't every pool have use saline solutions rather than chlorine?  Maybe it's more expensive, I don't know, but it's so much nicer than chlorine pools!

Things are still going really well here.  The Flood church side of things is progressing along nicely, with our first day in the village of Kudokow scheduled for Sunday.  This will be a great chance to meet some of the families we will be working with, and assess the situation there.  I have also been watching some of the football academies that Lusekero (1 of the leaders in Flood Church) runs, and we have decided to start a youth football team!  A life long ambition of mine will be realized a lot sooner than I imagined!  We are holding try-outs next week, and we are also going to be the only christian team in the league, so it will be interesting!  Especially because a lot of teams use superstions and black magic!  It makes me laugh watching the lengths players go to avoid "dew dew" as the call it.  They will often jump the fence to avoid the "cursed" gateway.  But we will be using the power of prayer!  We will also be doing some life skills training, and bible studies with the team.

I have also been attending Floods growth group for young men.  It's been really great, we spend the time sharing stories about life and praying for each other.  This week it's my turn to share, which will be very interesting as I'm a westerner sharing about life to a load of Malawians!  Lusekero started this group, and runs it, and it's helping me to get to know him even better, and something that I will be helping him with more and more. Jo attends the female equivalent, and I've heard great things about that too!     

I'm also involved in the Flood band!  I'm helping Guise the worship leader learn about all the stuff we use.  A few months ago a church in San-Diego gave us a load of equipment and money for equipment, which is wonderful, but obviously very new for these guys, so it's a real privilege to be able to help, as I was in a band for a few years!  Guise is a really anointed guy, who getting better and better each week!  I've developed a real heart for him and hope to able to spend more time with him, and go a bit deeper into the whole thing of worship.

Yesterday I was in Malingunde with Tom and the Dalitso staff.  It was a good day, and we had a real laugh as a team playing some games.  Limon is still away with his exams, and Christmas is coming up where they all get a few weeks off, so I'm not to sure when we will get started again with the families, but for now it's nice spending time with the Dalitso team again.  As you may know, Maryann and Emanuel will be leaving the Dalitso trust in a couple of weeks, which is really sad for us as they have become great friends, but for now Jo's babysat for them with their new baby a couple of times to get some practice!  She has also taken on an admin type role for Sean, the leader of Flood, and helping him with things like keeping a diary, and taking team meeting minutes.

So we are really enjoying things here, it's feeling more homely all the time, and we even have christmas decorations up!  We would appreciate your continuing prayers for our baby and Jo.  It's so exciting to know that our baby is growing in there!  Please also pray for the exchange rate.  With everything that going on our money has devalued here, and we are now receiving 2/3rds of what we were 4 months ago to the pound.  It's actually hit us really hard. Lastly for Sunday when we will be in Kudokow village for the 1st time. 

Be blessed!