It can't be almost christmas; it's 30'!

Tuesday and Wednesday where very average school days although there was a sense of urgency stemming from the cloud (that is exams) hanging over their heads. I managed to learn all (ok fine only up to Habakkuk) of the bible books in order on Tuesday because my teacher decided to have a ‘let’s say nothing but write on the board and get them to copy’ day. Oh and I ate a chilli. Mainly just for the sake of it but also because I had been given it by one of the widows the day before and wanted to see just how hot it was. It was pretty hot. Wednesday afternoon all the children had singing practice which was a good break from revision but at the same time they did have exams the following week. Anna and I decided to go to LTW again that night and had a great time trying to think up a 2^nd part to the lifehouse skit (if you haven’t watched it, look it up) which was interesting because we all agreed it had quite a definite ending.

Not much happened on Thursday, we had a nice relaxed morning before splitting to go visit families around the slum areas. We prayed with a good few families and although it was hard hearing tales of bosses not paying and lack of money for school fees etc we felt like we were helping them unburden. When the others went to LTW and Choir, Jon and I returned home and, making use of having the kitchen all to ourselves, decided to attempt chapattis (a cross between a pancake and nan bread.) Although they didn’t taste as good as the ones you get from the side of the road, they where free and pretty decent.

Friday was a strange day as we were practicing for the children’s club Christmas production. Being very hot and listening to Christmas music whilst rehearsing a play that you only normally do at church or school (but most importantly in England) is a very weird experience. I was engrossed in making Angel headbands so I only starred as the inn keepers assistant and a Sheppard who had no lines (I was awesome though, totally got into my roles.) My back stories, as every actor needs one for their characters, where that I had once been a humble sweeper before I was spotted by the inn keeper as a hard worker and offered a job as bed maker. From there I worked my way up until my master trusted me enough to start with the accounting. He took me under his wing and taught me numbers and letters as payment for my labor. The day Mary and Joseph came was my first day on the job as a fully fledged assistant. As for the character of the Sheppard that is slightly more complicated. I had been the son of a rich merchant before he had died and the business had fallen onto me to. I was his only son but he had two twin’s girls and our mother had died giving birth to them. So it was me and my sisters trying to keep the company operational on our own. An old friend of my father’s persuaded me to let him help and lulled me into a false sense of security before disbanding the operation and running off with the money. With nowhere else to turn I used to help the Sheppard’s out for the odd bit of money here and there to try and keep me and my sisters alive. I was watching a friend’s herd for them when the angels appeared.

...Sorry about that, it’s a Sunday evening and I’m a little bored. Anyhow.... later that day we went to kids club in which (if you trust my counting) we had 101 children! It is now almost a sure thing now at FBC that at least one of us will be weed on by a baby. This Friday was my turn and typically it was the one day that I forgot my change of clothes it didn’t matter though, Africa is a hot country and I soon dried off. We went to LTW after that, taught some ballet (the positions, step ball change, flick step ball change and circular spring) and actually made a start on Lifehouse P2. We joined the others next for a group called TGIF (Thank God it’s Friday) and spend the next two hours or so singing strange national anthems and being asked whether we where single. OK that makes TGIF sound really weird but it’s not, well not that much as it is a load of Uni students coming together to have fun.

Saturday morning came with exclamations of ‘guess what time it is?’ ‘It’s 10 o’clock!’ We had had a great lie in and all felt refreshed ready for the day... which consisted of doing pretty much nothing (depending on whether you count watching Miranda) until six when we went shopping. Saturday was a good day.

Sunday was, well Sunday. Did a few chores after church but mostly relaxed and apparently I came up with a back story for my characters...

Monday was rather relaxed although involved a lot of walking. We went to visit a widow that lived around an hour away which is really just a stroll apart from the fact that it was a baking hot day! We gave her the gifts which were from the school children that they didn’t manage to get to her because she was so out of the way. She was very grateful and shook our hands a good many times.

On Tuesday we had an... interesting... discussion with the teachers at school. This day and the one after we also read aloud so many badly written exam questions that we were close to despairing, especially as we saw the children put the wrong answer and where powerless to stop it. Not a nice feeling.
Wednesday for a few of us consisted of sorting out many boxes full of general shoebox items into an organized mess rather than a disorganized one.

Thursday was building. The word building, you must understand, in this context translated as ‘moving a massive pile of bricks from one position to another’. We had quite a lot of fun getting completely covered in brick dust. The Church we were helping out at is the same ‘Blessed Word’ which one of our children’s clubs are held and by the time we are finished here, God willing, they will have a roof over their head. After being fed by the pastors wife and chilling for about an hour at home, we where back out again for LTW and Choir. Anna and I continued with our interesting LH part 2 skit choreography with a bit more success. We were all knackered by the end of this and most of us slept a lot that night.

Friday was manic. After managing to design four Christmas card so that the children can have a chose we made our way to photocopy them. Getting down to the main road, however, we realized that there was no power. We headed off, leaving Moses behind to wait for power, and had to deal with around 80 odd hyper children for a while until he got there. When he did it was even more mayhem trying to hand out cards, finding crayons (after we ran around for ages as we hadn’t brought them with us) and distributing them, as well as sticking the finished ones onto the card. It was extremely tiring to say the least but Anna and I still dragged ourselves to LTW where I learned a few interesting street moves :L

My design, greatly improved by this child at FBC.

Saturday was nice and relaxed compared to the day before. Shopping, washing and getting an awesome package from my mum pretty much sums it up. Which takes us to today which has consisted of Church in the morning before coming back and doing even more washing. We have, however, just finished watching... The 50^th Anniversary of DW!!!!!!!

I won’t go into how awesome it was now, If you want to quiz me on what I liked/disliked about it give
me a shout. Believe me I would love to talk about it! There aren’t many fanatics out here.

Once again thank you for your support and Prayer, I hope you are enjoying the snow, send some over to us if you want :P