Skipton Baptist Church Blog

Hi
I am just working on the website at the moment trying to improve what we are doing

Hi
I’m just working on the web site to try and improve what we do

Rob

January 2010
What a diary you must have!
This from a friend who should know me better than to think I can do anything as organized as keep a regular diary. But so she’s not too disappointed, here are some notes from the diary that doesn’t exist…
A day in November 2009
My befuddled brain tried to work out which was worst – finding that I was sharing my bed with a lizard or 5 minutes later on my return from the bathroom, not being able to find the lizard ! Where had it gone? Would I wake up in the night to find it had returned? What kind of lizard was it anyway? Too tired to reach a satisfactory conclusion, rolled over and fell asleep almost immediately. Creatures were clearly on the move. Next morning there was a huge cockroach in my shoe – and cockroaches I do not like. I have tried really hard. I’ve even called them brown beetles, which helps a bit but not enough. I was in the end woken soon after 5am, not by the lizard but by one of the puppies outside, hollering for all it was worth. I crawled out of bed to prepare some warm milk. By the time the milk was ready and I’d made a cup of tea, the puppy had retreated into the kennel, joining the cozy heap of its sleeping siblings.
The next day …
Praise group took the roof off at church this morning with ‘Worthy is the Lamb’ sung in English then in Lingala. Lots of worship songs here are sung in 3 or 4 languages one after the other. It’s sometimes a challenge to know what language we’re singing in!
Guess what – he’s back! Why do I assume it’s a ‘he’? Smart stripy outfit and leering at me from the end of my bed. I refer, of course, to my ‘friend’ the lizard.
Youth group – a December afternoon – making garlands and Christmas cards. Something none of them had ever done. Although you do see Christmas cards in some of the shops in town, there’s no great custom of exchanging cards or gifts at Christmas here. On the other hand, the young people have yet to turn down the chance to do something creative. We had great fun, using all the bits and pieces I’d been able to put together, shapes cut out from old Christmas wrapping paper, glitter bequeathed by some teachers visiting from the UK, felt tips and some pastels that I got on Skipton market… plus oodles of glue! Even the templates got used. The end results were … not bad at all! I overheard one young boy proudly tell his neighbour ‘I don’t do technology at school but I can do this’. In schools here the orientation towards a career starts very young. Secondary school leavers may be primary school teachers the next day or set up their own tailoring, carpentry or car mechanic’s business. Subjects like art, music, drama fall by the wayside or never really happen and then it seems to me some part of who we were created to be remains under developed. At the end of the session, Papa Kas as we call Mr Kasongo, who’s in charge of Christian education at Kawama church, thanked God for his gift of creativity. It struck me that it was the first time I’d heard ‘creativity’ mentioned in a prayer since I came to Congo thirty some years ago!
Week before Christmas
I asked some friends if they’d be doing anything special for Christmas. Okende said that they would try to buy new clothes for the three youngest children in the family and that if there was enough money, they would buy rice for their meal. And, of course, he said, they would be going to church to thank God for having brought them safely through the year. Contrast with Mathy, a young hairdresser friend, who comes occasionally to talk English for an hour. Her family planned to buy rice, 3 kilos of beef, chickens, fish (tilapia), eggs and plenty to drink for everyone – and oh, of course, they would be going to Mass to thank God for having brought them safely through the year…
Christmas Day
Started the morning by joining Debbie and the church she’s part of at Luwowoshi, an area of new development on the edge of the city and a tented church in the middle of a great drift of long grass! The children’s choirs were well rehearsed and gave a lovely performance, far more confident than most children of their age in UK, while the young people did a simple re-telling of the story of the birth of Jesus, the visit of the shepherds and the wise men. Debbie had worked hard with them, including some overnight rehearsals and for once we didn’t finish up with the slaughter of the young children in the Bethlehem area, normally a highlight of local performances.
After church I joined a missionary family who live not too far away, with their two children and a Congolese friend, for a ‘traditional’ Christmas meal with all the trimmings, a Christmas tree (made from 3 upturned palm brooms), presents and lots of silly games!
New Year’s Day
I’d been invited to a service at a ‘Ministry’ in Kamalondo, across the other side of the city. Lubumbashi is awash with ‘Ministries’, small independent groups headed up variously by pastors, apostles, prophets and patriarchs! In this case the pastor is the brother of my good friend Esther, whose family I have got to know well. I picked up Esther and Eben-Ezer (her sister), in front of the Methodist centre and we made our way to another tent but this time one in the heart of a built up area. The service, which included the commissioning of Girls’ Brigade officers and the dedication of the first elders and deacons, started at 3pm or thereabouts and finished at 7pm. The early part of the service was accompanied by spasmodic explosions which had us all leaping out of and back into our skin – not gunfire, mercifully, but left over bangers from the night’s festivities which small children were taking great delight in doing what small children like to do with fireworks! Those who lasted the course of the lengthy service were rewarded with a soft drink and snacks – popcorn, peanuts and ‘crunchies’.
Shambuy came to the door this morning with a small bundle of sticks, dripping with resin. Firelighters Congo style! We’ve had another dearth of daytime power, so the charcoal brazier is back in use. With days and nights of drenching rain, there’s not a dry stick to be found so these will stop Anni having to come up with all sorts of ideas to persuade the charcoal to burn!
(We’ve since had a chance to use them. Amazing. Instant fire. I’ve never seen charcoal light so quickly!)
You probably need to have read this as a 3 part serial. I didn’t realize how long it had become. I should write more often!
Christmas and all your cards arrived again on 15 January. Much enjoyed! I should really take them down though…
Love and thanks for your support, prayers and love,

Bridget

Changing the world one life at a time

We will be running a Christians Against Poverty Money Course at the end of January. (Click button on home page for more information) Talking to the people at CAP, one of them was telling me that when someone comes to faith because of the help and friendship they have received a ships bell is rung in their office in Bradford. This is to let everyone who works there know the good news, Not only has someone got their debt under control they have also found a new life in Christ.

I liked the idea so much that I invited the church on the first Sunday of the New Year to do something similar. Being Baptist I didn’t think bells would quite work for us but everyone here is familiar with prayer sticks (over grown lolly pop sticks that you write the name of someone or some cause you want to pray for and carry it with you).

My suggestion was this, that as we journey into the New Year there will be people and places where we will want to make a difference because we love Jesus. So I suggested we wrote the names of those people or places on a stick and when we see God at work and a difference being made in their live or in those places we have named we bring the stick back and place it in the ‘love vase’ (a large heart shaped vase that will be at the front of the church). I told people they could then take another stick and over the course of the year I hoped we would have the joy of seeing the jar filled to overflowing - a testimony to God at work changing lives, one life at a time.

The difference can be big or small it doesn’t matter, it’s just that I believe we as church can make a difference in this world and in our community one life at a time and in doing so change the world.

Rob

Back in June this year I was fortunate enough to be given a three montn sabbatical by the church. During that time I decided that it would be good to do some theological thinking and a little practical work.

The practical work was to learn how to design and build a new website for the church as our old one was getting a little creeky round the edges.

Two months of intensive labour went on during the summer to get the basic site into place and then when I was back in the office things slowed down as I began to fill the site with information.

I am glad to say that as of today it is done, well that is until everyone lets me know what needs to be changed from typo’s to information.

Hope you like what you see

Not a season for the house-proud!
Dear all
It’s still the dusty season here, although there have been a couple of very welcome storms which briefly brought the temperature down. I can’t stop sneezing and the layer of dust grows ever deeper throughout the house in spite of repeated dusting and daily washing of all the floors. Ah well! Just have to fix my eyes on something else – the crimson bougainvillea flowering on my garden wall, 8 little black puppies curled up in the corner of my living room, the amazing colours of the frangipani trees, pink, apricot and cream … definitely an improvement on dust.
There are mulberries to pick this morning. The mangoes are ripening on the trees all down one side of the orchard and some of the avocado trees are also starting to fruit. The little coffee tree is in blossom; maybe we’ll have coffee beans this year to add to our harvest of good things.
Please don’t check to see how long it’s been since I last wrote! The long college ‘holiday’ is coming to an end with the official opening this Saturday and courses set to begin on Monday. This year I will be teaching all 3 year groups both English and computers but for the first couple of months my classes will be on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday leaving Thursday and Friday free for other things (like admin, piano lessons, preparation for an SU ladies’ retreat, writing youth Bible reading notes etc). We hope to have a good intake in year 1 to make up for the smaller classes in year 2 and 3.
During the holiday I was able to run an ‘Introduction to text processing’ for a group of half a dozen young people, with a little jiggling of the programme to accommodate power cuts! This term I’m hoping to fit in an afternoon course for another group, particularly for those who have learned typing in the past but would like to adapt their skills to the computer. Our computers need a bit of an overhaul but hopefully that can be done fairly soon by someone who knows about these things.
It had long been my intention to try and get to Kolwezi to visit friends – a former student, Kheke Kalombo, his wife Francine and their family. The dry season is the best and the worst time to undertake such a trip which takes approximately 7 hours by bus. Less chance of the bus embedding itself in a miry hole for several days but more chance of inhaling several litres of dust and being covered in it from head to toe plus all the nooks and crannies. I made it, though and was able to have time to read, relax and enjoy playing with the children. I had planned ahead and taken games and puzzles as well as puppets to make so we had lots of fun. On the Tuesday afternoon I’d been invited to speak to a ladies’ group at Kheke’s church. By then I’d acquired something resembling flu so struggled a bit but was glad to have gone. At the end of the meeting the leader asked if anyone had prayer requests and just about everyone stood up and said they’d left everyone at home ill! Must be the season for colds, coughs and flu so I didn’t feel quite so bad. The pastor’s wife kindly visited me several times, bearing gifts of lemons, wild honey, oranges, bananas, potatoes, rice, eggs and a chicken! I felt very spoiled. At the end of my stay, Kheke wanted us to take the remaining eggs and the chicken back to Lubumbashi. I suggested they keep the chicken till it got bigger and let their family eat the eggs. I couldn’t quite see a tray of eggs surviving on my knee over the bumpy roads and the alternative didn’t bear thinking about! As it was, on the return journey we all had to get off the bus at the Lualaba bridge because the authorities weren’t sure the bridge could stand the combined weight of bus and passengers. At least I didn’t have to descend clutching my tray of eggs!
28 October
College is under way! All but 2 students reported in Year 2 and 3 classes and there’s an intake of 7 new students, with at least 4 more on the way. That’s more than in recent years so we’re encouraged. This weekend I’ll be taking some of the students to the Lutheran college at Kimbeimbe, on the airport side of the city, for a lecture on Christianity in the Third World given by a German professor who has worked in Cameroun and Tanzania. We seize every opportunity that comes our way for widening the knowledge base of the students (and our own‼)
With love to you all and thanks for every encouragement you send!

Bridget

Dear All

Nyota and I took our usual early morning walk just after 6 am and came across family members and friends of Pastor Mukala (one of the translators), armed with a machete and heading for one of two trees which have been home for many weeks to hundreds of caterpillars. The caterpillars holed up in amazingly sturdy cocoons and have dozed quietly now for some time. Apparently today was d-day. The grubs are seemingly delicious and eaten by the Basongye people but not by the local people here. Just as the caterpillars had lethal hairs all over their body, which cause serious itching, so, it turns out, the cocoons are still decidedly unfriendly. Touch one and you’ll itch all day. Furthermore, once a breeze gets up, the cocoons give off some kind of noxious fumes, which also cause itching, so they can only be collected when the atmosphere is completely still. The caterpillars follow one particular tree (the ‘mamba’) of which we have just two. The other one’s in my field. One young man climbed high up to knock the cocoons down and everyone else kept a safe distance. Then with the help of 2 sticks, the harvest was safely placed in a cardboard box and taken to the field to have the outer casing burnt off. The grubs, released from their fortresses, could now be taken home, fried and eaten. Having shared in the experience, I was given some to try. Anni looked horrified when I produced them but we will enjoy a new experience/challenge together when she comes on Monday. I’ll let you know how we go on.

This time of year, schools and colleges are busy with exams. The 6th year school finalists sit their last state exams between 22-25 June. The school on the centre has 23 candidates, taking 3 different options (education, business & administration and tailoring) Quite a few of the young people I know are either sitting the exams for the first or second time, hoping to be able to go on to higher education. I’ve been keeping a watchful eye on a group of six girls who came in as half-boarders in April so that they could concentrate on revision and catch up on courses where they had missed out because of illness earlier in the year. My friend Esther’s youngest sister, Ezer, is one of the group. Esther had to drop out of school for lack of finances after her father died and has made huge sacrifices to ensure the same thing doesn’t happen to her sister. Pray for Ezer, Caleb, Mudilo and all the other pupils that they’ll give a good account of themselves and that the exams themselves will pass off smoothly. There is huge pressure on parents, particularly those who have fallen behind with the payment of fees, as threats are made not to include their children’s names on the list of candidates. With the exams only days away, it doesn’t help the finalists either to know they may be excluded at the last minute!

We’re gathering in grapefruit and oranges today after noticing that quite a few are going missing and they’re coming in by the barrowful. The smell is lovely – sorry I can’t send you any! From the sales we hope to be able to invest some of it back into improving the orchard which is in need of quite of lot of work and any extra will go into the Centre fund which helps pay wages, National Insurance and taxes or the Centre maintenance fund which has huge demands on it. For now, I’m leaving most of the fruit on my verandah so it can continue to ripen in the sun.

A couple of things coming up: next Saturday the Kawama youth group are meeting for a morning of prayer and worship; then the following Saturday they are having an away day at Chemchemi, a Roman Catholic centre a few kilometers out of town, where there is a farm, also a boys’ school and lots of fishponds. (I seem to be into ponds at the moment though not literally, of course!) Pray for the leaders as they try to build stronger relationships with the young people and get alongside them. I’ll be joining them for both events and it looks as though the lot has fallen to Chantal, Judith and me to organize the food and games. We expect around 40 young people to be at Chemchemi and have invited 3 different speakers.

With love to all

Bridget

Dear Friends
Having gone round the mulberry bushes lots of times, I’m now gathering nuts … in January! The ground is so wet that once the pods have exploded off the trees and burst open on the ground, the nuts quickly start to sprout. So collecting them is a matter of speed! Lunchtime today I had a couple of narrow escapes as the afternoon sun got to work on the remaining pods and cascaded them round my head. We’re all agreed they’re very good roasted and salted, though peeling them is quite a job. I’ve also experimented with roasting them with herbs and spices – they’re good too! I’ll take some Sunday night to a fellowship meeting, having been asked to provide some ‘finger food’ for afters.
Yesterday was the last in the series of 4 ladies’ meetings at Kawama church at which I had been asked to speak. We had a fun meeting, which also included learning about some herbs and their uses, both culinary and medicinal. Everyone went home with some new herbs to try and I think our herb garden is soon going to be providing plants for half the back yards of Ruashi! I was hugely embarrassed at the end when I was presented with a gift which when I arrived home and opened it, turned out to be a beautiful length of material (6 yards) – you never open gifts while the giver is still around here, since the giver and the relationship with that person is more important than any gift.
After the meeting, I’d stayed and talked with Tete, a young mother with one child. She explained that to make a living she takes orders from people for clothes, shoes and so on. She then goes to town on their behalf and chooses something for them, taking a small commission for her ‘buying’ services. That allows the person to repay the full amount for the article over a period of several weeks, where they could never have managed to buy the same article outright. A ‘mail order’ service without the mail (the postal system still doesn’t work properly…)!
Sunday 1 February
Fresh pumpkin leaves from my garden today for lunch. Actually they’re from my flower garden not the vegetable garden. They self-seeded themselves and it seemed a shame to uproot them. However, they’ve now wandered all over the garden, up the fence, through the fence and are meandering in the general direction of the main road! It appears if you pick the leaves to eat, you don’t then get pumpkins and a friend who had no vegetables one day, had already asked if she could gather pumpkin leaves, so I thought I might as well do likewise!. We have some more pumpkins growing up in the field which, hopefully, will bear fruit. Someone gave me half a huge pumpkin the other day so I’ll enjoy that in the meanwhile. We’re also starting to harvest beans. The rains have been so heavy that some of the beans are already sprouting before we’ve picked them. We’ll put them back in the ground and hope for a second crop.
Sunday 15 February
Esther called in on her way to youth group this afternoon. 2 pieces of good news! The family were facing eviction but against all the odds have managed to find somewhere to live and moved in a couple of days ago. I say ‘against all the odds’ because there is huge pressure on housing here with large numbers of people migrating from other provinces in search of work. The house is near the centre of town, which should help all the family as they scatter to different areas of the city for school and work. The second piece of news was that a high court decision has ruled in favour of the family who have been fighting to get back their property which was illegally occupied before the death of Esther’s father. Her widowed mother has persisted in her quest for justice, going back and back to the courts in spite of the large bribes changing hands (her adversary is a wealthy business man, with several wives and several properties). We hold our breath as to what happens next because the long haul won’t be over until it’s over!
A young married man, Matthieu Mwamba, who recently started working at the Living Waters Centre brought his wife to meet me on Friday. Attractive, self-assured and painfully thin, Therese is determined to make a better life for her family. They are among the economic migrants from neighbouring Kasai province. They had come with enough money to settle their two older children in school (around $5.5 per month and per child) and to begin doing some trading. Then first Therese then two of the children fell ill and all their savings went on medical bills. It’s those unplanned ‘events’ which send people here tumbling down into abject poverty. Much of the time, they can just about scrape through and put at least one meal a day in front of their family but the unexpected drains their meagre reserves. There are no safety nets, no state benefits, and no health insurance.
My neighbour’s daughter, Nicole, is getting married next Saturday. The wedding was deferred because of 2 family funerals. Nicole’s fiancé is among those affected by redundancies as a big eye clinic in town has just laid off several of its staff. Not an easy start to married life. Nicole herself recently completed a university diploma in business administration but doesn’t have a job either. The wedding and the reception will both be here at the centre – her brothers have been busy cutting the grass and making everything look spick and span for her big day! I hope to go to the church service and the reception but will pass on the civil ceremony in the morning as the registry office is not known for its time-keeping and an 8 o’clock wedding is just as likely to happen at 2pm as at 8am.
It’s good to be kept in the loop of things that are happening at church and in your lives, so thank you everyone who has me on their mailing list. Keep them coming!
With love

Bridget

December 2008 / January 2009

Dear Friends
I’ve been doing my ‘secret garden’ thing, only in this case it’s not a matter of looking for a few bulbs poking up through the ground but of trying to locate groundnut plants, currently swathed in 3 feet of grass. Fortunately, although they look fragile plants with small orange-yellow flowers and delicate stems, they’re actually quite sturdy and hang in while I wrench out great clumps of grass and weeds. Anni has nobly volunteered to do 2 hours’ weeding in the mornings to try and speed things up.
Next it was time to go ‘round and round’ the mulberry bushes.
Whatever the supposed origin of the children’s song’, I’m sure there has to be some connection with the number of times you go round each bush picking fruit. The leaves are huge, the ripe fruit, either black or deep purple, hide in the shadows, under the low branches trailing the ground or high up almost out of reach. Each time you go round the bush you spot a few more. With all the stretching and stooping, I call it my aerobic exercise for the day. One consolation, I don’t have to do pick mulberries on cold and frosty mornings! We have quite a glut this year, some new trees fruiting for the first time, some older ones having given up and keeled over in the recent storms, aided and abetted by termites.
I’m seriously ‘off’ termites at the moment. I went to the cupboard to get a shirt and discovered that the termites had been there before me and had eaten their way from one sleeve, across the back to the other sleeve. I was even more gutted when I discovered they’d done the same to a new blouse I’d only worn a few times. We have to constantly check behind cupboards, inside cupboards, around the window frames, behind the cooker to limit their damage.
One day we hope to be able to develop more of the land at the Living Waters Centre but in the meantime it’s good to see so much of it under cultivation. College and centre staff members who live here, Bible college students and around 80 others all have small plots or bigger ones, planted with maize, beans, groundnuts and sweet potatoes. A good harvest would be a great boost as many people are struggling in the current climate of high inflation and rising unemployment (estimates suggest some 300 000 people would have lost jobs in the mining sector by the end of 2008 as many mining companies have pulled out of the province). There are no safety nets in place here in the form of benefits of any kind so those out of work become an additional responsibility for their already overstretched families.
Christmas Day was different this year. I spent almost half of it tucked up in bed, snoring. No, I wasn’t ill. Just recovering from the all-night service at church! By about 10pm on Christmas Eve, church was full of children, choirs, adults all looking forward to a night of worship, singing, preaching, praying and drama! The pastor drew the short straw as he preached last, at around 5am, by which time all the little people around me were fast asleep. The church has lots of choirs and each was allowed 2 songs. While the drama was being performed by the youth group, ladies came round with big mugs of sweet, milky tea and a large bread roll for everyone then came round a second time with additional doughnuts for the children.
And then it was the start of Term 2! A new student has joined the first year class bringing the total to 7 (better but short of the 20 we would have liked). Generally they seem keen and there is a good atmosphere around the college, with something going on in all the rooms most of the time. As of this week, the computer lab has 7 computers up and running so I now have 2 computer classes, one on Tuesday for first year students and another on Wednesday for the second years. That’s in addition to my English classes.
Towards the end of November I attended a Scripture Union Writers’ workshop organised by my friend Judith for around 15 new writers she hoped to have sign up to write Bible Reading notes for young people. We were able to use facilities at a Roman Catholic retreat centre and arranged for two ladies to prepare meals so that we could all keep up with the busy schedule. By the end of the weekend we had each been given a series of Bible readings around which to write the notes. A week on Thursday we will be meeting to update each other on how we’ve done so far and hopefully most will have completed their share, so that Judith (who now has her office in my house), can crack on with the collating, checking and typing.
The last 2 weeks I have been to a ladies’ group at a new church plant in Kawama, not too far from here. I was asked to be the speaker at their first 4 meetings, i.e. for the whole of January. This is definitely a new departure for me. I’ve hardly ever been to a ladies’ meeting and certainly never spoken at many that I can remember. So far it hasn’t gone too badly. The meetings are from 2.30 to around 4.30 pm. One of our colleagues, Kasongo Simon, an elder at the parent church here at Eau Vive, currently has the oversight of the new church. It‘s a big responsibility given all his other commitments but one to which he is giving his all.
Unbelievably, it’s now Sunday 18 January! After the first service this morning, I listened to – and was encouraged / challenged by - Lisa’s message of Jan 3rd, so I’m not too far behind the rest of you! I meant to say thank you too for all the cards, notes and email cards around Christmas and New Year. We had some before Christmas and some after New Year but it’s always great to hear from folk.
With love
Bridget

Dear All
Did I really come to UK for 6 weeks? Less than 48 hours after arriving back in Lubumbashi it’s already starting to seem a little unreal! But I do remember how good it was to see you, to enjoy meals together, Sunday morning services, café church, even time for a church meeting! It was a relaxing time and I’m grateful for your generosity and many kindnesses.
After Helen dropped me off at Manchester airport, I did some last minute shopping for items like heavy chocolate which I hadn’t wanted included in my baggage allowance. I think my hand luggage ended up weighing almost as much as my rucksack and I tried to be very inconspicuous as I went through 3 lots of security checks in Manchester, Schippol and Nairobi. Only the Nairobi onward flight was slightly delayed - due to rain was the explanation given by the pilot. 3 flights were leaving from the same gate so it was standing room only for most of the passengers in the lounge area. I’d been one of the first to check through so had a seat and was greatly amused at the huge number of pilots who were going out through Gate 4. By the time I’d counted past 20 (do they really have so many pilots on 3 planes?) I’d decided that they were on some kind of carousel going out one door and coming back in through the other. When it was time to leave, a lady was standing at the door with pink plastic mackintoshes for all the passengers as it turned out we were going to have to hotfoot it across the apron to the most distant of all the aircraft waiting for take-off!
I was met at Lubumbashi airport by John and Ann Leese, together with a Congolese friend who helped with some of the formalities. We had a lovely get-together at David and Julie’s house in the evening and yesterday it was back to work – well almost! Lots of people came by to greet me and in between times I worked on English courses for college. 1 November is the official opening and classes start on Monday 3 November. I will have more teaching hours this year and while I’m looking forward to that, there’s no escaping the preparation! As of Monday, for 10 days, I’m going to be busy interpreting (English to French) for some primary school teachers’ workshops, at the request of another church. I’m looking forward to it, even if I do feel a bit rusty.
A surprise invitation to lunch yesterday from my friend, Judith, had 3 of us – 2 of us former Scripture Union staff and Judith who still works for SU – enjoying a catch up on news for several hours non-stop! Hélène, who used to work for SU Kinshasa, is visiting Lubumbashi for the wedding of one of her brothers. She now runs an NGO which works with vulnerable and abandoned children as well as sex workers, still in Kinshasa. It was heart warming and heart breaking to listen to some of her stories. Judith has just returned from a long trip, part of which was spent in Benin at a writers’ workshop which produces Bible reading notes for children in Africa. The second book is ready to print and has now got the funding required to go ahead. I’ve been asked to be part of the writers’ group which will be based here in Lubumbashi and will contribute to the next 4 books. I’m looking forward to working with a dynamic group of young writers. Since most of them are working, we will expect to work at weekends but will have an initial meeting one Thursday evening in the next week or so.
Hélène has invited Judith and me to the wedding this afternoon. Not a clue what to wear, so I’d better go and investigate the wardrobe. It’s not till around 4pm… just as well, really as my outside thermometer is registering 480C and I’ve brought it indoors before it explodes. It’s at least 100C cooler indoors. ‘Swimming costume’ springs to mind but I can’t see that going down too well at a posh wedding. The brother works for Customs & Excise!
I hope the K3 team got back safely yesterday and felt their time was well spent. I’m sure it was!
Love

Bridget