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.
Thursday, 24 April 2014
Monday, 21 April 2014
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
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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
Wednesday, 2 April 2014
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
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
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