Ups and Downs

This week has not been such an easy week. It has had its share of frustrations and sadness. We felt very far away for the funeral on Wednesday of our dear friend, Janet Field, who recently passed away after a tough battle with cancer. Our little frustrations here pale in comparison. But we have been frustrated with language learning and changing lesson schedules! And frustrated with our ongoing failure to get any internet – we miss being in good communication with people, but more particularly for the girls’ school I had am missing the accessibility I had counted on for online resources! The three girls have not been too well – Louisa came down poorly first last weekend and Amisadai and I followed. Nothing much, just tummy upsets, feeling generally grotty! And when I was feeling most disgruntled about it all, the power went out and then when I felt even more disgruntled, the water turned off. So I should learn not to get disgruntled! Really, we have so very much to be grateful for, but I do regretfully sometimes forget!

We had a lovely time Saturday evening with our gardener/day watchman, Spedito and his family who came for a meal. He and his wife have three children, and Amisadai and Louisa had a great time playing (and practicing their Swahili) with the older two, Roberta and Raymond.

On Sunday we went to the nearby Pentecostal Church in Iringa. We had phoned to say we would be going to visit the church, and somewhere in translation lost a few things! We arrived at 9am to discover that they had been waiting since 7:30am for Tim to preach. So while Tim put a sermon together in his head, I took the girls out to the Sunday School where I then found myself teaching (in attempted Swahili) a class of children ranging from age 2 to 16! We returned at 10:30am to find the adult Sunday School finishing and the Swahili service starting, in which Tim preached very well (with a translator). We left at about 1:30 to go with a lovely family for lunch at their home. They were so hospitable, generous and kind and would not let us leave without giving us one of their chickens. This I had to carry home on my lap as the girls who were in the boot (as we had others needing a lift in the back seat) did not want it flapping about with them back there! We felt very welcomed by the whole church and are hoping to make this our church home!

And to finish off with some more good news, Tim has completed 4 stoves and has started the kiln this week. And … we got our first lemon from our lemon tree so lemon bread today!

We will try and add some photos later!