Testimony of Grace

Neema taking her first steps again 

Below is a link to a video of a little girl Neema (meaning Grace), taking her first steps for 2 years after contracting 'tuberculoses of the bones'. Cathy, Our volunteer Physio at Neema Crafts had never seen a case like Neema's before, but after some research tried a number of techniques to help her to straighten both legs. After seeing some success from casts and various exercises, the video shows Neema using a walking frame to walk about independently. Due to her sickness Neema (an orphan) has not been able to attend school school for two years and had to be carried around the house by her grandmother (in background).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tjV2XzcGPUM

We hope that after a couple more months of treatment Neema will be able to attend school again and even (we are praying) walk without using walking aids. Seeing stories like Neema's unfolding really encourages us all at Neema Crafts that we are not working in vain.

Latest video blog...

A few things have happened since our last post including Andy and Susie's house (soon to be ours) half burning down and acting in a movie. I will expand upon  these in our next Link Letter, until then, have a look at our latest video blog by clicking on the link below:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/49469363/Neema%20Nov%202011.m4v

You can also view the video of our guest house opening by clicking on this link:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/49469363/B%26KRAYVidBlog.m4v

If you would like downloadable versions of these videos, please sign up to 'Dropbox' and send me your dropbox address.

Love to you all,

Ben and Katy X

Charred remains of A&S's office

I knew I shouldn't have worn that old German Army costume here

...the spice of life

The thing I love most about our work at Neema is the variety. Today for example, I started by drilling holes into plywood birds. This was for Susie who was fulfilling an order being sent to a boutiquey shop in Dar es Salaam called the Green Room. I then had to review the books for our Guest House; which seems to be doing well in its first fledgling months. 


After resolving some personnel issues, at 10am I collected two of our volunteers: Amanda, a Physiotherapist from Oz and Mark, a ceramicist from New York and took them to meet the Bishop of Ruaha. As we went I explained appropriate etiquette for greeting a Tanzanian of senior position. On my return I had a chance to view Mark's intermediate technology potter's wheel in action. Made from an old off-road tire filled with concrete, a couple of bearings and a wooden frame. The weight and diameter of the wheel means it has enough circular momentum to keep going for a while once you have given it a kick. Mark swiftly demonstrated how easy it was to make a pot on his homespun machine...well, easy that is if you're Mark.

Mark at his newly made wheel

a minute later...

Voila!

Mark is looking forward to training Ahazi one of our deaf collegues in using this with locally sourced clay and then firing it in our 'Bottles to Beads' kiln.


I returned to conduct my first Tanzanian interview for the post of Guest House Manageress and Office Assistant. We were interrupted once, when I had to add a dimension to an ergonomic table I had drawn up for Josphat in the paper-making workshop (as strictly instructed by Mim, an Occupational Therapist volunteer). As this was conducted next to the cafe I soon found myself fixing the coffee machine - before ordering one of course!. Back downstairs I was able to continue my 'QuickBooks' training with Destory (yes that is his name) our invaluable accountant. By the time I had replied to a few emails from volunteers from various countries across Europe, it was time to help Katy and Susie pack up their order for the Green Room on which they had been slaving away all day along with our tailoring staff. We raced down to the bus station with with just one minute to spare and narrowly managed to get our three large boxes stuffed with bespoke cushions etc onto the next Sumry bus headed for Dar. This was not without Susie making a scene by literally throwing the large boxes up and down in the cramped bookings office (to prove how light they were), so we could get a haggled down price of 10,000Tsh!


By the time we pushed off for home Katy and I were cycling back in the dark (again) with only one headlight between us. This is not a good idea on potholed roads as you tend not to see the larger crevices. I soon found this out when rolled my bike over into one! Pulling myself off the dusty road I thought how different the evening had been from the previous night when we were in the sanitised studio of a local radio station talking about the work of Neema in perfect, unbroken Swahili- well Susie was. My contribution was 'Habari za jioni, ninaitwa Benjamin' Good evening, my name is Benjamin' and at the end of the half hour interview, 'Kwaheri', 'Goodbye'.

1st Video Blog!

Hi, I can't quite believe we've managed to upload such a big file from out here, but if you click on the link you'll see our first short video blog. Sorry the sound quality isn't great at times...

July News Letter

Mmmm... lunch

This was the week I killed my first chicken. I won’t go into too many details, but the Tanzanian way allows the bird a slower death than we would normally go for. According to our instructor it ‘allows the spirits to return to the earth’. On our last day of Kiswahili training at the campsite, Katy, I and the other students were treated to Tanzanian cookery course hence the need for a sacrificial chicken or two. During this we learnt to use a special device to scrape out coconut shells for making coconut rice, how to make mandazi - a traditional ball shaped donut, and how to cook pillau - a spicy rice dish that is usually reserved for special occasions. Oh and we did also have to pluck and gut the chickens.

Katy plucking the chicken

We have now sadly bid farewell to the RiverValley campsite and the other trainee missionaries we befriended there including three SIL students - Michael and Bev Harrah from the US and Danielle from Canada. We will really miss our little cabin perched on the hill and enjoying friendly banter over delicious meals that we didn’t have to cook ourselves!

The Lord has blessed us with some lovely accommodation for the next stage of our journey towards taking over from Andy and Susie Hart at Neema. The first six weeks we will be living with Andy and Angela a couple serving with Emmanuel International out here, Andy is a water engineer and Angela teaches English. They are both from London so the regional accents are making me feel right at home. After this we will be house sitting for another EI couple Andy and Miriam while they travel back to have their third child back in England. They have a five bedroom house - so we will have plenty of space for guests! In fact we are already expecting at least five visitors to join  us there between August and September.

My first chapati

Last week we had the fantastic news that our air freight had arrived safely and all in one piece in Iringa - Bwana Asifewe! It did take us five weeks and many hours of phone calls and favours from friends in Dar es Salaam; but we still couldn't quite believe it when we saw our ten boxes stacked up in a corridor at Neema. I don't think we'd try it again though.

This morning we visited the Iringa Cathedral for the first time and we were pleasantly surprised by how much of the sermon we were able to understand with our newly learnt Kiswahili. It was a particularly encouraging message for us as it was taken from Psalm 121 ’I lift my eyes up to the hills- where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth’  The best part of the service however, had to be the beautifully harmonious choir, who’s master had the most incredible voice. We are not yet sure which church we will become established in, but the cathedral may be a good choice as it is right next door to Neema.

Tomorrow we have our very first day at the Neema Centre where we will start to work our way around each of the various workshops, finding out how each process works and carrying out a mental SWOT analysis on each area so we can start to assemble our plans for the future.

Please pray for:
> Good observations skills and that we would be able to pick up as much knowledge of the project as we can before Andy and Susie leave
> That we would establish good relationships with the staff
> That our Kiswahili continues to improve as we move to just two hours  a day
> That we would find learning sign language straightforward
> That the Neema guest house is ready for its grand opening in two weeks time!


Praise God for:
- Our new home with Angela and Andrew
- The welcome Andy and Susie Hart have given us
- Having our airfreight - including an incredibly luxurious latte maker - bought by our friends Amy & Pete
- The opportunity of working for such a brilliant, God ordained project.

With much love,

Ben and Katy XXX

Arrival in Tanzania

We have arrived safely in Tanzania and have now completed our first week of language training! I am writing to you from our 'banda' or log cabin at the Rivervalley campsite, a few miles down the Ruaha River from Iringa. We will be staying here for the next five weeks while we get to grips with Kiswahili, which all the Tanzanians say is 'rahisi'. We are currently working our way through the eight noun classes and picking up about twenty five new words a day so we feel it is more 'gumu' than they keep making out.

Our classroom!

The campsite we are staying at is beautiful and our banda is perched on the side of a hill overlooking the river. The height we are at (1600m) means the climate here is so much better than when we spent a night in Dar es Salaam recently. It gets to about 25 degrees during the day and drops to around 12 degrees at night - I actually saw my breath this morning! As we are slightly more out in the sticks we do have to contend with a wide variety of 'wadudu' or insects, a large one of which we met yesterday... This also means there are some amazing birds and butterflies to be seen too. Last night we saw a Verreaux's Eagle Owl.


On Wednesday we visited the new Neema Crafts centre in Iringa for the first time and met with the staff. Susie introduced us as the new bosses which was a strange experience for both us and the staff! It was great to see again the range of different crafts they were busily working on and to see some familiar faces once more. Susie was in the midst of a last minute effort to make enough stock for two exhibitions this weekend, one that she is running in Dar and another we ran yesterday at the International School in Iringa.
It was amazing to see the many aspects of the new building and to see volunteers from St Mark's Harrogate painting and decorating the new guest house rooms. These need to be finished in time for our first guests in June so please pray that they are. A particular problem is finding enough wood in Iringa to make the ten doors needed!

I was also shown a sizeable upstairs room at the back of the centre where I will be setting up a carpentry workshop. It was exciting to see our workplace for the next few years and Katy and I are eager to get started once our language training is over.


There is a reasonably large ex-pat community here who have been very friendly to us since we have arrived and it was good to meet a number at the English speaking church service last week. The
family who run the campsite we are staying at have been particularly welcoming.


This morning Katy and I went to a local Lutheran church (as it was near the campsite) and we savoured hearing our first Swahili Gospel choir since arriving. In fact both of us were struggling to hold back the tears. After about an hour there was a short break in the service which was followed by another hour of just singing from various choirs and individuals. Of course, Katy and I as the only Wazungu there were asked to share a song. It was difficult to sing 'Lord I lift your Name on High' with no accompaniment but being able to do the actions helped!


Please praise God for:

* Our safe arrival – although we did see a number of overturned vehicles along the way
* A friendly local community
* Great language teachers
* God's provision for all our needs





Please pray for:

* Tanzania as it is about to undergo nationwide powercuts over the next ten days affecting businesses and homes alike
* Our take up of Kiswahili – that it would be quick and we would have plenty of opportunities to practise.
* That we would be able to get our air freight through clearing easily


With every blessing,

Benja na Katy X

Kwaherini!

'Goodbye Ben and Katy' 

It has been a while since we last blogged, but as we learnt on our 'en route' course we have been  sure to follow our own 'RAFT' plan before leaving for Tanzania. 

RAFT is an acronym for:

Reconcilliation - making every effort to restore relationships and situations that needed reconciling. 

Affirmation - Saying thank you to those who should be thanked and receiving encouragement.

Farewells - Taking time to say goodbye to those close to us and important places.

Time - Ensuring that we don't rush through each of the above

As part of this we have been travelling around the country an awful lot visiting friends and family members. So we hope you forgive us for not being in very good communication of late!

As we have been from place to place we have felt as if we have been on a raft of goodwill. People have been so generous with their time, encouraging words and gifts. In April, we had a beautiful concert organised by Katy's cellist sister Rachel in aid of Neema. This was followed by our commissioning service at our home church Holy Trinity Combe Down (a very moving occasion). Last weekend we also throughly enjoyed our leaving do at All Nations.

I would particularly like to thank all of the people who have contributed to the tools and equipment we will be taking with us to Neema. Especially, Hugh Davis, a plumber from Harrogate, who worked at Neema installing the showers in the new guest house a few months back. Since his return he has worked tirelessly, sourcing every conceivable carpentry tool I could think of of from suppliers who have often given enormous discounts on their equipment. It literally brought tears to my eyes when I saw the shipping container packed full of equipment destined for Neema. It will be so exciting when it arrives. Please do pray that we are able to get it all through customs without any going missing.  

Our worldly possessions

Katy and I have just had our final dinner with my parents before we fly off to Dar es Salaam tomorrow and as I write this my dear Mum is sticking on the last of the labels to our boxes for air freight. We will let you know how we get on when we finally arrive....