UK Schedule - Easter 2014

We're here! We made it! 

Life is slightly surreal now as we adjust to the time, catch up on sleep after a couple of days travel and also adjust to living back in a totally different culture! Out shopping today the fashions on the high street made us feel very out of touch, middle aged and frumpy!

There are so many things that have excited us already in our first 48 hours ... smooth non-pot-holed roads, drinking tap water, soft toilet paper, escalators (Abigail called them 'moving ladders'), the list goes on! It really is the little things that you take for granted in every day life that are the highlights right now!

We've also enjoyed some foods that we haven't been able to get for the last 14 months, since we were last in the UK! Croissants, Ikea meatballs, nice non-bullet-like peas, fish finger sandwiches, Skips, cherry tomatoes, Crunchy nut cornflakes and more. We have many other goodies on our wish list that we can't wait sample too!

If you think we're home for a holiday, think again!! For those of you who would like to see us our timetable is pretty full with appointments (dentists, Interhealth etc) and other such exciting things. We have also scheduled in time with various churches and prayer groups to update you on life in Dodoma and what the future now looks like for us. Not bad considering this time last month we didn't even know we were coming to the UK this soon!

For those of you who haven't heard we are in the process of applying for visas to work with MAF in Mareeba, Queensland. Described as an outback town of about 8,000 people to us by Australian friends who live there (with lots of cowboys and rodeo's!), where the tarmac on the road runs out if you head west, there is an MAF hangar that services approximately 30 planes. These aircraft fly for MAF in Timor-Leste, Arnham Land, Papua New Guinea and Bangladesh and get all their heavy maintenance done from a central base in Australia. While we don't know exactly when yet, we do know now that, visa permitting, that is where we will be headed hopefully in the latter part of this year.

For our UK friends who would like a chance to see us over the coming month, here is the schedule of our main engagements ...

11th April - Friday - Sharing and Lunch at Christ Church, Orpington - 11am

13th April - Sunday - Purley Baptist Church - 9:30am, 11:15am, 7:15pm

16th April - Wednesday - Visit to MAF Offices, Folkestone

20th April - Sunday - Whyteleafe Church - 10:30am

24th April - Thursday - PBC Home group evening

26th April - Saturday - YCC group afternoon tea - 3pm

27th April - Sunday - Emmanuel Church, Weymouth - 10am

1st May - Thursday - West Wickham & Shirley Baptist Church, Mission Evening - 7:45pm

3rd May - Saturday - Rickstones Church, Essex - 4pm

4th May - Sunday - Croham Road Baptist Church and Bring & Share lunch - 10:30am

We will be based between Mark's parents in Biggin Hill and Jenny's mum in Warligham for our time here. Our contact numbers are Mark - 07914 973264 and Jenny - 07774 286581 ... although signal-wise things seem to be a bit dodgy and we're still working out just how the UK phone networks work!!!!

We really look forward to catching up with many of you over the next few weeks!

What's Going On?

It has been a while since we last wrote. Not because we have nothing to tell you ... but because we're still in the midst of processing all the things that have been going on regarding MAF here in Tanzania and where that leaves our future as a family.

We now know that the major changes within MAF Tanzania will involve closing both the Dar and Dodoma bases with all future engineering carried out in Kenya. We're also pleased that the high impact flying will be able to continue in the north of the country, with medical and evangelistic safari's. However, none of it will include us.

Here are some photo's of the hangar in Dodoma ... it seems sad to know that in just a few months, after almost 50 years, it won't be operated by MAF anymore.

When a building is constructed, there is a team of skilled workers to start from the foundations all the way to the day of completion. That team then move on to their next project. MAF have had the chance to start from the foundations here in Dodoma. That work is now completed and can be something that all involved can be proud of.

In the meantime we have been looking at what will happen for us as a family. Below is the latest Engineering Vacancies bulletin from MAF International ... we could end up living and working in any of these programmes by late 2014/early 2015. Daunting and Exciting! Right now MAF in the UK are talking to the Asia Pacific Office on our behalf, but there isn't much more to add to that right now.

For now our home (below) is still home ... and we are beginning to sort through our belongings once again. It only seems the other day that we were unpacking our container. To be honest the last thing we want to do is pack it up again, but that is the reality for us now. The timing and destination is still yet to be determined!

With the uncertainty that lays ahead, we know that committing to a Home Assignment trip to the UK in July is out of the question. Just a week ago we made the decision and got the go ahead to return to the UK for the month of April instead. We are in the process of contacting churches, supporters, friends and family to arrange our time there at very short notice.

So for those of you in the UK, we arrive on April 7th and leave on May 7th! Hope to catch up with some of you very soon and also to be able to answer some of your questions ... although on that we cannot promise anything, as we don't know many of the answers ourselves. One step at a time!