Some of the people we met in July - N.I.

During our time in N. Ireland, we caught up with many friends who we hadn't seen in years. We saw many people at the various meetings that we had, and then other times when we went to peoples homes, the park, and out for food to catch up with our friends. Maybe you'll see someone you know - maybe you'll even see yourself!


Joshua, Benjamin and Esther had a lot of fun at a friends home - a farm outside Moneymore. Here with their friends Emily, Holly and Peter Brown.


Some of the members of Bangor MAF Prayer Group.


A good friend from University days. Susanne and Hannah.


Some friends from the 80's in Tanzania - still interested in MAF. Great to have you along - still looking great!


Some quiet time in the Library!


Catching up with Paddington Bear at Paddington Station. We had to pass through here to get to Interhealth. Who said that medicals weren't exciting? The children were delighted to meet him, at his own station. We were there!

June in N. Ireland

The last 2 weeks of June were spent in Enniskillen, where we were based in a house out the Tempo Road. Joshua and Benjamin spent this time in school, and thoroughly enjoyed their time there. They settled in immediatley, remembering friends from previous trips, and they were remembered too - the boys from Africa! They loved their friends, their school and their teachers - even the uniform was a treat. What wasn't there to like!


Joshua was the most excited boy in the class when on his 3rd day there, they went on a class trip to Tesco's bakery. He had a great time, though some of the others didn't look just as thrilled as him. He returned home with a little sample parcel of pancakes, which he had for his lunch the next day. On his last day at school he showed a little slide show to his friends (power point) of his life in Tanzania. Boy, would I have liked to have been a fly on the wall in his classroom that day. His teacher said that he stood up at the front and was very confident - sharing about the pictures with the children gathered in front of him.

Benjamin had a great time at school too. He asked could they stay, as there was so much in the school - inside and out, and the toys were just great too. He seemed to have lots of friends to play with when we dropped him off in the morning, and he appeared to be the honey, with about 4 little girlie bees buzzing round him, ready to play a game.


One of the highlights for the children was the Fun Night at the Model Primary School. They all had a blast, with the fire and police services being there with engines and buses, bouncy castles, pony rides, cart and pony rides, face painting, nail painting, bbq, chocolate fountain, bric-a-brac stall, and lots more to be done and seen. They remembered going to it last year, and just couldn't wait for this year's event to begin.

N.I. to Tanzania - Return Journey

We have been out of Tanzania now for the past 4 weeks, and had a rather exhausting journey (and eventful too) returning to Dodoma. We arrived back quite late on Monday 19th July, and were welcomed by other MAF families, back to Tz. Someone had prepared food for us too, so that was also really lovely. It was great to be back again, and great for the children (and adults) to see their friends again. The time off compound was good, but you know they say it's good to get back home again, and it really is.

Our return journey began on Saturday morning, when we were told that we didn't have a 'through' ticket, but that it was 2 separate tickets - which meant that BMI didn't follow the allowance of luggage that BA had given us - costing us a lot of stress, effort (at Heathrow where we had to go and collect our luggage and check it in again) and money too! After standing at the check-in desk for about 45 minutes, where the ladies were very sorry, but neither they nor their management could do anything about it for us, we then hurried on through to the gate where there was a small 40 seater plane waiting for us, the last people to be boarded.

It was a challenging start to our journey, but we carried on regardless - we had another flight to catch you know. Well, once into Heathrow, we bagged our luggage, hauled it onto 3 trolleys (oops, there were only 2 adults) and went straight down to catch the train to get to Terminal 5. We had 11 large suitcases, 3 small trolley ones, 4 backpacks (relative to size of person) and one laptop bag. Once we reacher the posts through to the platform, we began running in and out (we still had to supervise the children who have no experience of public transport) between the trolleys and the platform. There was then an announcement that the train would be coming in at the far end of the platform, followed quickly by another one to say that passengers should stay away from the edge of the platform - guess where our little travellers had been peering - over the edge. Well, we legged it down the platform (I hope you're getting the picture) and got some help from a Russian sea captain for a big company that sails between N.I. and England - who was flying over. He helped us with our mammoth job, and we all finally made it onto the train, which arrived before we had got all the luggage to the end of the platform. In these days (in which we are now living) people are very cautious of children being left alone, but the challenge was really there - how do we do this without letting go of them - at least a little? Thank God, we did catch our train, and got more help at the other end too - getting off. We went up to Terminal 5 and continued our journey - the only other points worth mentioning were leaving a small child's backpack on the trolley at the other end of the tunnel, and losing a pink dolly, either on the train or whilst waiting for the missing bag. We went back both times!

We had a good night flight, and all the children slept fitfully. Needless to say, Mummy and Daddy were pretty tired in the morning.

After 1 night stop in Dar, we climbed into our car for the return journey (6-7 hours) to Dodoma. The cash point was being difficult that morning, and we found it rather a challenge to get some cash 9 and we live in a cash society!) Anyhow, we eventually got on the road, and were about 2 hours outside Dar when we had a blow out. Now to a person who knows very little about cars, it sounded like one of the hard plastic suitcases had dropped off the roofrack and still tied on, was banging along the road behind us. What a racket! We stopped as quickly as we could and emptied the car of people and luggage so that Glenn would be able to use our little jack to change the wheel. We were very thankful that God was with us and helped Glenn to hold onto the car - he had to fight to keep her on the road - and that we were able to stop safely, just off the road. With trucks and buses passing at high speeds, it was really good to be off that road. As it was, cars and horns were used as people passed by, thinking that we were too close to the road and warning us to stay off.

Joshua and his music

Joshua is continuing with his music lessons. A very kind German lady (a music teacher) takes him for a lesson every week. She teaches him guitar and recorder too. Although this makes his Wednesday afternoons very busy, it is really great for him, and he's busy trying to fit in lots of very short practices in each day - trying to harden up his finger tips.

Why guitar, you may ask?
Well, last year we had a couple of Canadian volunteers come to work in Tz for 6 months. Alice the young woman, brought a small travel guitar with her, and was very willing to take Joshua for one lesson each week. He loved these, but wasn't able to do any practicing for himself inbetween lessons, as we didn't a have a guitar. However, when he got to school holidays, she said that he could go to her house at 8.30am in the morning, and have a half hour music practise. What a brave lady. Then there was a N. Irish couple who very kindly gave us their little guitars, when we told them our story. Thanks - Diane and Lesley! We went into a music shop to find a suitable book, and then get some other stuff that we thought might be rather necessary for learning guitar - tuner, plektern, strings. What do we know? Glenn and I never took guitar lessons. We're delighted for Josuha. It's such a great opportunity! So now he has a teacher and a guitar.
How His plans work out so well!


Joshua and Angela concentrating on their music.

Benjamin's Birthday

The 20th May was Benjamin's birth date, but as I mentioned in the previous posting, there was already a party planned for that date. So, Benjamin went to that party (the opening of the Play Park) and his birthday party on the following day. He was very excited about both.


Saying that, he doesn't really look terribly happy or excited in this photo!

There were 19 children altogether - that included our 3 - and Joshua and Esther each had a special friend who came. With the addition of the new Play Park (which is located right next door to our garden) it was quite a simple party, with the usual games, hide and seek, musical bumps and pass the parcel. There were also the normal tears (of tiredness and disappointment when not winning) but all in all, I think most children injoyed the afternoon. There was also a little play time in the Play Park which was great for all. The MAF children (who the park was built for) had already been in it at the opening the previous day, but were excited to have another session, and those that weren't MAF, nor at the opening, were just excited to be at a play park as there are so few of those located in Tanzania.

We finished the party with a party tea (pizza, hot dogs, crisps, carrot and cucumber sticks and birthday cake) and then a game of hunting for the hidden sweets which the children either ate or took home.


Benjamin finally turned 6 years old - and got a new Brasil football t-shirt too (see below).


However, this was just a temporary gain - as it was edible.

Some of Benajmin's experiences

Benjamin had an eventful week, in early May. On Sunday he bravely pulled his own second baby tooth out of his mouth, by himself, on the advice of someone at church. This was very exciting for him, as the first one became loose and then as it wasn't pulled out, came out by itself and got lost (probably in his food and swallowed we think).


He also got a black toe nail, and was brave enough to have a hole drilled in it to relieve the pressure and the pain. Unbelievably this really helped - we just wish we'd done it the first night when he couldn't sleep and was in a lot of pain.

Last week was his 6th birthday, and this along with some other things, brought a lot of excitement for him and for his siblings too. Thursday 20th May was his big day, but we decided not to have the party for him then, as there was already a party planned for all the MAF children. This was because the little Play Park (that was being built by 2 volunteers from Switzerland) was to be opened that day.

Ronnie and Ben, the 2 Swiss volunteers who built the Play Park!

There was much excitement, but as usual, it was never as simple as planned. As the day unfolded (along with my headache, nausea and dizziness), we learned that there was a Finnish pilot (Juuso) who has been here for about 6 months, helping out with our shortage of pilots by flying in Arusha, who was going to fly in for the last time to Dodoma. So, many of the MAF folk went up to the airport to see him fly in and off again, so that they could say goodbye, give him a hastely signed card and a gift that had been preplanned! Phew - at least something had been preplanned! We managed to squeeze this in, and then had the Play Park Opening afterwards. The children were delighted with some jelly and ice cream, with meringues and shaped cookies. What fun!


Next, a child's name was chosen from the cowboy hat, so that they could be the one to cut the tape and open the park. Aleah was chosen - she's only 1 and a half, so Benjamin was asked to help her, as it was his birthday. Then it was onto the Play Park for everyone!




And what fun was had by all! Can you see all the girls? There was a while after we came to Tanzania (in 2005) when there were about 3 girls amongst all the MAF families.

MAF Conference

Although it is now into April, I need to digress and go back to March to write about our MAF conference. We had a great conference which we shared with national and international staff. There were over 100 people came and many children too. Our speaker was Steve Kingori from MAF Kenya, and he was really good, speaking on our Relationships within our work, with our family and with God. Steve and his wife who also came down for the conference.


The children had their own programme to follow and they were blessed to have a couple of young Australians to run the older group for them. The younger ones had lots of stories and painting and craft sessions, run by different mummies for each session, and assisted by a number of very willing Tanzanian ladies, who gave up their Saturday and Sunday to do this. Lots was learned by many, as the children also covered relationships, and learned about their bodies, and the adults looked at how we are all part of the one body.


With the marriage relationship section, it was very interesting with the cultural differences. Considering it's not cultural to show affection to your partner, holding hands, kissing, hugging are not things that are commonly done. Also, communication is not great.