This entry is being written from sunny Sheffield, for the moment at least, where we are just finalising things before starting our training with Wycliffe in 3 weeks time. Since we last wrote we have spent 4 weeks in Africa visiting friends and doing a bit of a reki! We had an exciting and fun-filled time and many experiences will stick in our minds for a long time yet (most involving African means of transport!). We started by spending a week with some good Sheffield friends (the Coopers) in South Africa, close to Cape Town. This was the proper ‘holiday’ bit of our trip, visiting a winery, eating good food and of course exploring Cape Town. Alongside this ‘sightseeing’ we also joined the Coopers in their work visiting the townships in Worcester as they led kids clubs and youth groups with local children. This was a real challenge – seeing how excited and happy so many of these kids were despite their lack of material goods. We then made the leap to Tanzania to stay with more friends where again we had a variety of experiences. We were fortunate enough to take a short safari, camp with our friends in the Maasai village they work with, spend some time at one of the offices where Wycliffe members work, visit a couple of Compassion projects and meet so many lovely Tanzanians. Over the course of our trip we were able to have many interesting and enlightening conversations about the joys and challenges of working and living in Africa.
Tanzania happens to be one of the places we are considering for our initial assignment so it was an excellent opportunity to get a feel of the place. We certainly experienced local life with many frustrations as well as laughs. As so many people kept telling us… if you don’t laugh you’d cry! How true a statement. The question we’ve been asked by many people on our return is ‘did it help us decide where to go?’ In short, not yet, however we need to make a decision before we start training on the 6th August so watch this space!
Now after 6 years in Sheffield we have 3 weeks left… lots of goodbyes, sorting our stuff out, support raising, and finishing jobs. We are looking forward to our literacy training and are ready to get started. As things get underway we will be posting news more regularly so keep an eye here. We’ve also put some photos from our trip online and you can use the slideshow link on the right-hand sidebar to view these.
Please stay in touch…email us, post comments here... whatever! We love to hear from you.
0 comments:
Post a Comment