Zambia 1

First of all a big thank you to Sue for driving me to terminal 5 where I met up with Ruth and Ian and Jemma who like me are all on the staff team. After a very uneventful journey we arrived safely at Lusaka Airport early on Monday morning. As usual I didn't manage to sleep very much on the plane, I was much too excited!

Geoff (MD country manager) and the Nigh's Canadian SIM missionary's met us at the airport - as we had so much luggage we needed two vehicles – BA were fantastic and gave us a baggage allowance of 63 kilos, mine only came to 46 kilo's so I could have had a bigger third case !

Once back at Chamba Valley it felt just like coming home, I'm in the same bungalow and in the same bed, just as I remember it, not too comfortable (the bed I mean) but I will get used to it. After breakfast we had a walk around the compound, calling in to see old friends – Bishop Paul was the first person we bumped into – my first big Zambian hug, as you can imagine I've been enjoying lots of hugs and even tears as I've been reunited with such dear friends. Cosmas and Benson are both away so I hope to see them later in the week.

The staff team has been out visiting partners: So far we have been to see:

Dorothy Nswma – Works of Faith Bible Church and the site for her new school, the caretakers house is started and some of her home based caregivers have started digging up some to the land at the bottom of the plot so that they can grow vegetables which will help to feed some of the poorer families. She has put in for some funding to help buy seeds, tools and a pump so that she can pump water up from the stream to irrigate the crops – hopefully it will be approved soon so that they can get planting.

Garden School, a CAZ project this school had to be knocked down as it was built without foundations so we are partnering with CAZ to provide 2 classrooms this year for grades 7 & 8 who will be coming from local feeder schools, eventually it will be extended to provide more classrooms. This is a very poor community which suffered greatly from the heavy rain that Lusaka experienced this year.

The House of Moses where we had a chance to cuddle the babies and toddlers. There were 2 very small twins which had been brought down from the copper belt, they think they were about 3 weeks old. So tiny but really wonderful to know that they were in a safe place where they are being so well looked after.

Bill and Bettie Bryant's the follow on home (2-4 yrs) from the House of Moses, here I met up again with several children that were there last year. They had just moved into there new home, in a much better neighbourhood then the previous home, they are in the process of building a school room in the garden – this does mean the garden will be out of bounds until its completed but once everything is cleared up it will be wonderful for the children to be able to run around and play out of doors. They still need lots of things, so I'm looking forward to giving them the money Horley Methodist Church Toddler group collected for them.

Kumbayah School was our visit at lunch time today, we arrived just on lunch time – every week day they give the children some soya porridge and what looked like beans and vegetables at lunch time, there was as usual a long queue and as lots of non Kumbayah School children had come there wasn't enough for them as well. These poor families live in what is called an unplanned community which means that houses are built all over the place, which shared pit latrines and water being brought from standpipes. What was wonderful was to see so many children who recognised Geoff and myself and many had on the red checked dresses that some folk brought out last year. One of the children who didn't get fed was Moses, a youngster who used to live at the Fountain of Hope, he had been sent to this community to live with his grandmother by his mother who he had been reunited with. It seemed that it had all gone wrong for him so we rang Vasco who said we could take him back to Fountain with us.

So lastly to Fountain of Hope, what joy and what hugs from Vasco and Kenny, most of the boys as well as Moses, Kennedy and a few others were there, I had never seen so few boys, the team had been working really hard at reuniting these children with extended families, we pray that they will be happy in their new homes. This leaves the outreach team able to build on relationships they have been building with boys still living on the streets so that they can be offered places at Fountain now that they have the beds.

I'm now down at Arcades in the internet cafe, my first time online.

We have just visited the vocational training centre at EFZ, they have now started a work shop making school uniforms, it was wonderful to see so many machines being used, although they do have more waiting to go into operation once the orders start rolling in. there are five ladies in the tailoring training facility about six in the woodwork training, all sponsored at least in part by folk who came out with MD last year.

Time is limited so I must close now, please pray for a good journey for the first team and that the staff team continue to bond and grow together.

Serve one another in love is our verse today