It's bone dry!

Amazingly, after 2 weeks of dreadful rain, we've had 10 days of scorching heat.  This means that there is a mini drought going on in the villages.  It's just so difficult to predict the weather hear!

In my last post I mentioned how things had really got going since Christmas, that continues to be the case!  But don't worry I still find time to swim and I've even joined a volleyball team! Since swimming my knee has started to feel a lot better, so I'm praying that it will be able to take a bit more sport for the first time in years.

The village of Kudoko, "the Flood Church" village, has proved really welcoming.  This week the village headman, or chief, came to officially endorse what we are doing and even ask to part of it.  He's not even asked for 2 goats! (The usual offering you have to give to get the chiefs blessing).  This week was a great one.  We ran over by 2 hours!  People just had so many questions, and we couldn't leave until we felt we had chatted them through with everyone.  We have realised the need for a female member on the team.  So we are praying for one, but obviously volunteers, quality volunteers, are really hard to come by!

The 2 days a week with Dalitso in Malingunde are going really well.  I have officially started doing Community Health Evangelism with the families we have been working with, and they are taking it onboard really well.  We reckon it will be about 10 months until they start working within their villages themselves, but for now we are having a great time together.  I am still running some stuff for the team too.  After a good chat with Tom H about team building we decided we should dedicate a whole afternoon to growing together as a team.  This week was cut short by an old lady bringing in a "demon possessed" boy.  Long story short, we bought him into hospital and he had malnutrition, and had internal infections.  He's on the mend now.

Flood Church is embarking on a new stage of it's journey tomorrow!  We are changing the meeting time, announcing the new small groups and commissioning the band!  The band thing is something I have been working on with Guise (the worship leader) for a while now. However, he rang me this morning and has Malaria!  He sounded really bad.  Please pray for a speedy recovery for him.

Jo is great.  We felt the baby kick for the 1st time this week!  Very exciting.  She has taken to walking Chippy, the little Jack Russell we are thinking about adopting.  She is really enjoying the challenge of helping organise Flood church too!   

People have been asking for some pictures of our home, so hopefully i'll get one on soon - i've been trying for last hour, but can't get it to upload.  We love the house, we feel really blessed by it - the price is incredible, and we have space to use.  We even enjoy the carpentry shop out back, Father Christopher our Neighbor, and the 30 other students who live across from our house.  It's a real community feel - lively, noisy and far from being isolated.  

Speak soon

Lots of love x

Its raining and its pouring!

The rains are really here again!  So much so that you often can't talk as the sound of the rain on the roof drowns everything out.

Chippy the dog is still with us, he's a bit of a pest - but provides endless entertainment!

Work wise, my diary is really filling up now.  I have 3 full days in the villages, 3 flood church related evenings, and then various meeting that make up more than 2 more days worth!  I feel like I'm back in Sidcup!  It actually makes me feel more energetic though!!  Jo's working with Sean 2 mornings a week, and that seems like it's really gonna start helping the organisational side of Flood, and she's been running "Flood Kids" ie HQ Malawi style, for 8 or so weeks now.

Other than the general frustrations of living in Africa, which often just make us laugh! We thoroughly love being here.  We are so privileged to be doing this, and this time round we get to enjoy a lot more privileges, like water pressure, electricity, cold food and drinks!  It made such a difference for us to live without for 6 months.  At the moment we still remain really grateful for these things and hope our attitude in it continues.

We would ask you to pray for our relationship with God though.  We feel a little bit tested at times, and just feel a need for his protection in certain areas.  Recently the guys group I am involved with on Friday evenings seems to have taken on a new direction.  People have been sharing all kinds of things, some of which is very deep and difficult to deal with.  Often it involved church leaders abusing their power.  I think some of my advice and prayer with them has lead to some exposing of this, and we would love you to pray for the people involved.

The truck is running well again.  The damage was not bad at all, and we feel blessed not to have a massive bill on our hands!

Again, sorry for the lack of media like pictures and videos, but we don't have the internet connection for it right now.  We are looking into other options, so hopefully it won't be like this for ever.  Also, sorry for those who have been looking to skype, it has been almost impossible, and another reason we are assessing the internet options here!

We love you guys back home loads, Jo had a check up today and everything is fine.  Only 9 weeks now and we will be returning to he UK to have our baby!  (Although we will probably have to wait until June to actually have it!!)

Be blessed every day

Tom

 

2 shades of Christmas

     New Years Eve, setting up the fire works
      Our Christmas Tree!

      Hutch, a street begger that we have found a new love for!

Well after a wonderful Christmas and New year, things return to normal with our car engine pretty much blowing up 80k away from town!

Since Christmas has finished it has been interesting to reflect on what we have.  On Christmas eve we were giving a meal to kids and people who live on the street, and the very next morning opening presents, eating as much of whatever we wanted and generally going over the top!  It's a hard reality, one that you are faced with constantly here.  

Boxing day was spent with a lovely couple called Alex and Sara.  They are originally from Hertfordshire, and after working here in a similar fashion to us for the past 2 years, they are returning to England on Saturday.  It was great to have steak and chips and play board games. We even ate english chocolates and had crackers!  We will miss them when they return as they are close to our age, and have a lot of experience here for us to learn from.

New years eve was a very different occasion.  We held a party at Sean and Tapiwa's house, it was a bunch of young Malawians, and actually reminded me very much of young people back home.  The fire works were dodgy, the Fanta was cold, and the meat was very good.

Next week is the proper return to work, including Malingunde with Dalitso.  I'm lookiing forward to it, although with no car it might prove impossible!  We were taking 2 young girls from Wales to visit the lake, and when we were nearly there, the engine cut out!  We were stuck there for most of the day before a mechanic from town finally managed to find us and get us back home before it got dark.  We had rang the only break down recovery service in the country, but were quoted a minimum of £500! The truck had over heated, there was oil coming out of the engine and no water left.  There is some good news in that the mechanic said that it doesn't look as bad as he first thought, and hopefully may just need new hoses and a radiator cap.  But with money the way it is right now, and the exchange rate being so bad we have decided to see if we can sell the truck and buy a smaller car in better shape.  It's just costing us to much to run a big vehicle and we can't afford it right now.  Shame, I think, but Jo's pretty excited. The ironic thing is that I was so proud I had fixed the thermometer on my own - I obviously hadn't as it gave no indication the truck was about to explode!

One last piece of news - we are trying out a small Jack Russell, that we have called Chippy!  He was found by the Lilongwe animal sanctuary pretty beaten up by feral dogs and they asked Jo if she might like to take him.  So we agreed to try him out.  He is lovely, he's trained and he's not too yappy!

Lots and lots of love x

             Chippy, maybe he'll end up being ours.  (Certainly hope so)