There and back again!

We're ho-ome! Did you miss us!? Maybe we saw you?!...there and back again (sounds like a Hobbit tale!), sadly missed out seeing many friends on our UK trip, namely Devon folk...but soooooo enjoyed time with others....sharing with new, praying friends at Copthorne Chapel and All Saints' Crawley Down (oh we've never been advertised before, golly!)

We also had opportunity to sleep in 8 different beds, kindly and lovingly provided by numerous precious folk in the middle 'belt' of the country, p'haps you recognise Grandma or one of these fab friends:

We thoroughly enjoyed our combined birthday trip/treat to see stage show musical The Lion King with the added treat of a backstage tour....Asher on stage+under the lights, lol!

.....with a "high tea" and cake treat at the lovely Marheinekes afterwards. This set the scene for an extended family weekend in beautiful weather/location with time for some to swim, kayak, walk 'n' blackberry pick, cycle (tandem and trike!)... and eating fine English fayre, mostly thanks to the baking-queen: Louise-Erskine-Designs!

In addition to celebrating birthdays, the main purpose of our trip back to the UK at this time was to attend the Regional Managers Conference, an opportunity for Programme Managers from Africa to join hearts, heads and prayers in strategic thinking and planning. It was here we had hoped to make next step decision after our project here in Dodoma is completed, but we didn't and therefore prayer is ongoing. One possibility is South Sudan, this shows a MAF plane over Juba, the capital.

We're now back 'home' to a decidedly quiet, empty MAF Dodoma compound, with a long-time friend Simon, all the way from England to keep us company for a few days. Here's our return journey from Dar es Salaam where we met up.

You can see how things look here in this long, dry season... the river beds haven't seen rain for several months now. Thankfully we have had a few days in Arusha, to adjust to soaring temperatures (currently low 30's C), it being slightly cooler up in the north of Tanzania, with the MAF Arusha team: more of that next blog.






Amazingly it was exactly a year ago that we left (then returned for 3 months to) beautiful Sweden for a look-see visit at the work here; this is what it looks like now in YWAM Restenas, not dissimilar to the spectacular array of colours we enjoyed in the UK where it was a real treat to enjoy some glorious autumnal weather, particularly knowing we were coming back to summer rather than having winter to .. er.. look forward to. Colours there contrasting with colours here!

This final picture shows a real "timone and pumba" on the plains of the Serengeti!! We have two pilots/planes working in that region, reaching the isolated communities, including Maasi tribes... you can see more of that next week.

Time to go, lots to be getting on with here, such as the bank run: as we've no staff in the finance office I've been withdrawing millions to pay our casual workers (its rather like Monopoly money!).
Bye for now then, until next week...
Jez and Carina xx