Hair cuts and head cuts

Yes, Tim had a hair cut ... and I cut it!!! Now many of you reading this will know that there are very strict boundries around Tim's hair! I have never been able to touch it with a comb, let alone scissors! Well, with no local hairdressers out here, it called for drastic measures in a desperate situation! And so a few weeks ago, I was given clippers! I was doing really well, but then it all went terribly wrong. I forgot I had taken the guard off ... and proceeded to cut round his ears. Horror! Major oops! Andrew Wingfield came quickly to the rescue and Tim ended up with a very short haircut and a slight bald patch round his right ear. I thought for sure my life as Tim's hairdresser was over. But this weekend, I was given a second chance! And I think I passed this time. Judge for yourself, but not bad for a novice? Since then someone else has asked me to cut their hair, but I don't think I'm quite ready for a new career yet! This week Tim is cutting mine ... thankfully he's not one to take revenge ... (I hope!)

And as I practiced my hairdressing skills on Tim's hair cut, I also had to practice my first aid skills on Louisa's head cut today. Although my first aid skills are really not much better than my hairdressing skills, thankfully, all has ended up a lot better than it could have done on Louisa's head.

We had rather an eventful day today. We drove out to a small village (Lupembe) over an hour away to visit a church that EI is currently working with to help with a new church building (good for reasons you will see later!) When we arrived, Louisa jumped out of the Landcruiser, her skirt caught on the bumper and she fell head first to the ground, landing with her head on a sharp rock. She had a nasty cut on her forehead. It was rather worrying at that point, knowing we were very far away from any medical help. The pastor of the church held her as we cleaned her up with wipes and alcohol wipes (ouch!) It was not as deep as we had first thought, and thankfully we had a first aid kit and were able to glue her back together with steri-strips. And I thankfully, didn't pass out! With a calpol tablet and a bottle of fizzy fanta, she perked up pretty quickly. And Miriam (who is a nurse) checked and sorted her out when we got home this evening, and it looks ok, no stitches needed! We are so thankful as it could have been so much worse.



See, I'm ok!



After all the trauma of our arrival at the church, the service had its own excitement! It was a very small village church, made of mud with a grass roof and dirt floor. In the middle of the sermon, there was an incredibly heavy rainstorm! The rain blew in at the back and the floor got muddier and muddier. The rain came through the roof and it became harder and harder to find one of the low wooden benches to sit on that wasn't under a hole! The offering was soaked, the tablecloth on the alter was soaked, the floor had huge muddy puddles. Andrew was preaching and did an amazing job keeping going through it all! It made us realize how very good it is that we are building this new church building for them. Before this morning, I was thinking only how nice it would be to have a bigger building, I had no idea how important it was to get a roofed building.

To top off this eventful day, we got a puncture on the way home! Again, here we are in the middle of nowhere, this time so thankful to have a spare tire!

And so ends another week! We've been busy - Laura came to make a stove with me the other day, and this brings the total number to seven now. We've removed a huge dead rat from the ceiling (stinky!), had two consecutive days without running water, more power cuts, lost and found the bunnies and sadly lost one bunny to a dog's breakfast. We enjoyed an EI team skype with everyone at the UK EI Conference yesterday, and it was great to know their support for all of us. And we are looking forward to a camping weekend retreat as a team next weekend. Love from Tanzania!

Making a jiko with Laura