Life in the UK

We have been back in the UK for two months now and things are going well, Kids are in school and enjoying it very much, Edith is volunteering two morning at Bupa home  and one afternoon at the school helping with reading in year 6. Gabbie  joined the school choir and also enjoying  her cheer and hoop dancing, John-luke  has sports on every Saturday and he loves it and he will be joining the guitar club soon.

 Paul is away for 6 weeks in Kenya and he will be back in November and its always funny when he is away because I think the kids found a way of dealing with his absence because when they talk to him instead of saying we miss you Daddy they only tell him to bring them Presents..
 The search for the house is still on so we would really appreciate your prayers on that issue.
Thank you again for all your prayers and support may the Good Lord bless you dearly.

Visa

Dear Family and Friends

Just a short post to give praise to the Lord, because on Monday we picked up Edith's passport with her new visa in it. So we have now booked our flights to return to the UK on 3rd July leaving on the 2nd.

With much thanks and love from us all

Paul, Edith, John-Luke and Gabriella

Visa Week

Dear Family and Friends

Last week John-Luke entered into a swimming gala at the international school of Tanganyika on behalf of HOPAC and he won the breaststroke race in his group. Paul flew to Dodoma to work up there for the week and then drove back on Saturday.

Last week we also heard from the agents for the high commission that Edith's passport has been returned so tomorrow we will go and pick it up God willing there hopefully will be a visa in it.

Next weekend most of the Dar International staff and the national staff other than guards will be travelling to Dodoma for a service and meal for the Tanzania team, this will be the final gathering of the present team before the Dar and Dodoma office close at the end of the month.

Have a great week.

God Bless and love from us all  

Final Month

Dear Friends and Family

We have now started the final month of MAF Tanzania Dar and Dodoma bases and these will be officially closed at the end of the month. Please pray especially for the Tanzanian staff and all others this will effect. The office in Dar will be handed back to the Landlord on the 1st June though there will still be some work happening in Dar, we may take over an office in the SIL building. Also in Dodoma there will be a number of staff taken on on short term contracts so that all the closing up and transferring to the Arusha base can be done. Please pray for all as national staff look for jobs and international staff either move to new countries, stay in Tanzania or return to their home countries.

The children continue to enjoy their school, John-Luke has an assembly coming up as well as taking part in a play and Gabriella also has an assembly in early June. Edith continues to help at the school mainly with the swimming. Paul will be in Dar this week starting to work on the April figures and doing other work that relates to the closure of the two bases.

Please also pray that we will soon get positive news from the UK immigration authorities over Edith's visa so that we can book our flights to the UK.

God Bless you all and thank you for your prayers.

Love from us all

Paul, Edith, John-Luke and Gabriella

Please Pray

Dear Family and Friends

Yesterday we managed to file for Edith UK settlement visa, so it is now in and all we can do is pray and wait. Please pray that there will be no problems and that we will be granted the visa as soon as possible and it does not get delayed in the system.

God Bless and love from us all

Paul, Edith, John-Luke and Gabriella.

Rain, Rain and More Rain

Dear Friends and Family

Here in Dar we have been having a fair amount of rain over the past month or so and some of this has caused a lot of flooding in areas. The back roads here have been getting worse with all the rain, we have to drive through a fair amount of water to get to our house, but at the house we have been fine. More on the rains later.

It has been a busy few weeks since we last wrote in many areas. The children are back in school with their last term at HOPAC and they have been doing well. Edith also continues to help at the school particularly with the swimming. Edith has also been busy at home starting to pack things for the move and to pass on things we will not be taking with us.

We had the Tanzanian Auditors in so that has now been done and Paul has also now filed the January and February accounts for this year. Paul had a trip to Dodoma on the 8th and during this week or so in addition to working on the March figures  he was involved in several meetings with the new programme manager and others to work of how things may look in the coming weeks with all the changes. Paul hopes to complete the March figures which he hopes to complete this week. He was also preparing figures for different possibilities for options for the future of MAF in Tanzania. Paul was due to travel back by road with Stewart Ayling on the 16th but due to the rain in Dar and the flooding, a number of bridges were having restrictions on crossing, normally in one direction at a time. This was adding a number of extra hours onto the journey so Stewart did not come up, so Paul ended up having to fly back down with one of the commercial operators.

I our last blog we mentioned about waiting for a few items for Edith's visa, this did not come before Paul went to Dodoma but had arrived when he returned. Unfortunately the bank did not send six months of statements as requested there actually was less than a months. The bank then sent statement to our Ashford address and Paul's father scanned them and dropped them into drop box for us to print. We could not really wait for another month for these to be sent to Tanzania, so we hope that the immigration people will accept these scans instead. We have now filed on line the application for the visa and made the payment, we now have an appointment at 9.30am on Tuesday to file all the other papers and for them to send the visa to the immigration people. Please pray that we will find favour with the authorities and that Edith will be issued with a Settlement visa fairly quickly.

Please find following a couple of photos from the air of one main river that supplies water to Dar you will see how flooded it is. Also I have added two photos of a river here in Dar which about three hours before this picture was a fast flowing stream but then with an hour or so of rain you will see how fast this changed.

God Bless you all and much love form us all

Paul, Edith, John-Luke and Gabriella

A whole week in Dar

We had a great few days in Dodoma last week with the family and friends. Though we lived there for over a year we never managed to do the main tourist activity of climbing Lion rock, but we managed that this time, well Edith, John-Luke and Paul. Paul had done it once before when he was on a visit to Dodoma on another occasion. Whilst there we were able to see most of the staff as this may be the last time the family will see them. We had a good drive up and back with the Ayling family, so it was great to spend some time with them.

Last week we also had a change of programme manager. Andy and Margaret Stratton left after almost a year in the chair, Andy had also been in and out of the programme over the past few years in other roles. We welcomed to Tanzania and Jez & Carina Simpson who originally was due to come and take over from Paul, but is now going to take on the role of programme manager. This has made a change for Paul as with Andy leaving Paul has been made accountable manager for our air operators certificate due to his experience in Mongolia as PM and accountable manager.

The children are back at school this week so have started their last term at Hopac and continue to enjoy school. They our often ready around 6.30 am to head to school and if they do not arrive before 7am they say they are late. Edith continues to help with the swimming at the school as well as this week she was in the MAF office helping Paul with the staff wages preparation, which was a great help to Paul as he had two weeks of Dar work to catch up on.

This week Paul has to complete the TZ 2013 accounts for the Tanzanian auditors who will be in Dodoma this week. He then needs to finish off both the January and February accounts, though most of the work is done he has to complete the actual accounts pages and send them out. There is also a back log of emails from being off last week.

As for the news from MAF UK unfortunately that was not as we had hoped, but thanks to MAFI and EMIUK we will now be able to apply for Edith's visa, so we are now waiting for the items to come in the post so please pray that these will arrive very soon.

Thank you all for your prayer and support we would not manage without them.

God Bless and lots of love from us all.

Paul, Edith, John-Luke and Gabriella

Family Break to Dodoma

Dear family and friends

It has been rather busy for us over the past few weeks. Edith arrived safely back to Dar with her new passport which was great news and one step closer to sorting out her visa. On Edith's return we then had to make four trips to town to sort out further things required for her visa which are now also all complete. We are now waiting for a few items to arrive by post from the UK as the immigration authorities want originals and not copies of certain things. Please pray for us as we have one final item to sort out and this is hanging on a decision by MAF UK, which will either mean we will be able to get the visa or not, if we can not get it we have a big problem and we will not all be able to settle back into the UK.

During the last few weeks we have also received from MAFI the decision about the future of the work in Tanzania. It has been decided that the Dodoma and Dar bases will be closed as at 31st May. We would continue to operate from Arusha and with the SIL plane based in Mbeya. Paul has been involved in reviewing figures for the new operation and come up with figures for some adjustments which we are waiting to here on. Unfortunately the closure of the bases will mean a significant number of the national staff will be made redundant so please pray for them as they come to terms with this and have to look for new work.

Around a week after Edith returned Paul travelled to Dodoma for another week to work on his monthly work there and also to deal with some additional things as well, he returned to Dar on Saturday.

This week it is the end of term holiday so the children are off so Paul has taken a week of holiday as well as it may be the last chance for several months. We have decided to travel up to Dodoma tomorrow with the Ayling family (Stewart is the Dar base manager). This will be a chance for the family to say goodbye to those in Dodoma as it may be there last chance before leaving Tanzania as well as the base being closed at the end of May. We will come back on Saturday.

Please pray for safe travels for us all and also for the a good decision from MAF UK so we will be able to apply for the visa.

God Bless you all and thanks for your prayers and support.

With love from Paul, Edith, John-Luke and Gabriella.

Edith in Uganda Paul and children in Tanzania

Dear All

It has been a rather busy past couple of weeks, so sorry for no posting. After a week in Dodoma for Paul, Edith headed off for two weeks in Uganda so the children have had single parents for the last couple of weeks and one more to come.

Edith's passport is due to run out in June but as we are hoping we will be able to apply for a settlement visa for her in the UK we decided to renew the passport early otherwise the UK authorities will want further money to transfer the visa to the new passport. Having gone to the Uganda High Commission here in Dar es Salaam to apply for a renewal we were told that they do not do them here and Edith would have to return to Uganda to do this, so we had to arrange a trip very quickly. With Paul being in Dodoma and then Edith needing to be back in Dar for Saturday 8th March, it made things rather tight but God willing Edith will get her passport on Tuesday, in time to return on Friday. Whilst Edith is also in Uganda she will take the opportunity to visit family a sort of home assignment, we had been planning on doing this in April or May but had to change the plan very suddenly as in 9 years we have not had a home assignment in Uganda. With the move to the UK we have no idea when we will be able to visit Uganda again. So please pray that there is no problems with the passport being renewed and that Edith will get it on Tuesday without a problem. Please also pray for save travelling.

As for the children they continue on well at School and are still enjoying it. They seem to be surviving the single parent weeks and also Paul's cooking.

As for Paul, tomorrow the final version of the 2013 accounts needs to be sent in, Paul has one area still to look at and then it will be sent to Ashford. After this he will do the final work on the January figures and prepare the pages for that so hopefully that will be in by the end of the week, so that we can move on with February. Paul has also been involved in the preparing figures for some ideas for the future of the programme and this week we should hear what MAFI will back so hopefully there will be a known way forward by the end of the week. Please pray for all the changes that will be happening here in the Tanzania programme, there will be many changes and a loss of many jobs as well, international and national staff so please pray that we will see God's hand in all this change.

Well have a wonderful week and thank you for your interest in the work, thank you for your prayers and support.

God Bless and love from us all

Paul, Edith, John-Luke and Gabriella

Term 2 almost halfway though

Dear All

It is hard to believe that we are almost halfway through the 2nd term of the year, but on Friday the children will be off school, this holiday is all of one day long so we will not be going far!

Edith has started to do an after school activity she is running on a Wednesday afternoon an art class. Along with the swimming and other things she has been doing.

Paul is busy in the office with  a number of things. There is the day to day work for the Dar office along with trying to find sometime to do the final bits on the 2013 figures. Now being in February he is also working on the January figures and to add to that he has also been putting some figures together for the programme development team to try and come up with some thoughts on the future of the programme. This will continue over this week and next. Please continue to pray for the many who are involved in the coming few weeks to work out what the future of the Tanzania programme may look like, please pray that the Lord's will, will be done.

Paul will be travelling up to Dodoma next week to try and tie up as much as he can on the 2013 figures and also the January 2014 figures. Please pray for safe travels he will be driving the  minibus up with some items that have just cleared customs for one of the families based in Dodoma. Please also pray for Edith with the children back home, she will be on her own now as her sisters are all back in Uganda.

Well that brings you up to date I hope, thank you for your prayers and support.

God Bless and love from us all

Paul, Edith, John-Luke and Gabriella

The last few weeks, please pray

Sorry for not writing in the past couple of weeks but things have been rather busy and there has been a fair amount of travelling.

The children have settled back into school life and it's great to see them so eager to go to school. Edith has continued helping out with the swimming for the primary classes in the school and has now offered and starts this week leading/teaching an after school art class along with her work at the Nuru centre.

Paul went for the interview with MAFI but unfortunately did not get the job, so it seems the Lord is telling us to move on. We thank the Lord though for a possibility of working with another mission, who are very interested in having us work with them, we will tell you more about this as things become clearer. It may be possible for us to be seconded by MAF to this other mission as there is already some partnerships between MAF and this mission, in one case they have sent a staff member to work with MAF in Southern Sudan. Or we may be able to remain with MAF for a period of time whilst we settle into the new work. This would be great as it would help us with Edith's visa situation if not we could have some problems in obtaining her visa so please pray that something will work out so we do not end up with further difficulties. Please pray that we will see the Lord's hand in this uncertain future after being with MAF for almost 19 years now it's an unsettling time but we know the Lord has a plan.

Last week Paul travelled to Dodoma to work on the year end figures. He had a good week last week and will remain in Dodoma until Wednesday this week. Please pray that he will be able to complete the remaining jobs during Monday and Tuesday.

Last week a bridge was washed away due to heavy rain full on the Dodoma Dar road which was going to make it  hard for Paul to drive back, though there was another route it would be on dirt roads which are rather wet at present. Amazingly though with the help of the Army and three construction companies they were able to rebuild this bridge in two days, working 24 hours a day and so we hear that the bridge is opened again, Paul should hear later today if all is OK from a friend who is passing that way.

This week we have a visit from a number of people from MAFI as we learn more about the future of the programme here, the actual decision though has been delayed again and we will not be known exactly what will happen until in March. Please ray for good meetings during these days.

Please pray for friends Ryan and Amanda Van Geest and family. Ryan is the only pilot in Mongolia, he joined the programme when we were still there, he is also interim programme manager. We received sad news on Saturday that their youngest daughter passed away during the night she had just turned 1 year old. Please pray for this family at this difficult time as they lean on the Lord for strength and comfort.

Therefore this week please pray for the Van Geest family, for the Tanzania programme in these uncertain days and for ourselves in the uncertain future that we will all know the Lord guiding, strength and comfort.

God Bless you all with lots of love from us all.

Paul, Edith, John-Luke and Gabriella   

School starts again

Dear Family and Friends

This week school restarts here in Dar es Salaam, so the Children and Edith will be back into full swing this week.

Paul will only be in the office on Monday up to 2.30pm as he will be travelling to the airport at 5pm to catch a flight to England, he should arrive Tuesday Morning and then on Wednesday he will be having an interview with MAFI for a possible job at the Ashford office. The interview starts around 9.30am and should be over by 3pm and has several different sections. On Thursday he will meeting with MAF UK HR Department and Friday he has another meeting near Brentwood. Saturday he hopes to spend most of the Day with his Dad and then Sunday will be church and leaving around 1.30am Monday morning to catch a 6am flight back to Dar es Salaam.

Please would you pray that the family are kept safe whilst Paul is away, for safe travels for Paul and good meetings and that the Lord's will will be done as far as the interview is concerned.

God Bless you all and many thanks for your prayers and Support as we move into 2014, which will be a year of change for us.

Love from Paul, Edith, John-Luke and Gabriella.

Happy New Year

Dear Family and Friends

Just a quick post to wish you all a very Happy New Year and may you all know the Lord's richest blessings on your lives during 2014.

God Bless and lots of love from us all

Paul, Edith, John-Luke and Gabriella