Exciting news about 2015!

In my last blog I mentioned something about making sure I take a proper break next year, so I guess I should begin this blog by explaining myself a little! The exciting news is that after going home for about a month in December I shall return to Tanzania in January 2015 to work another year with Rehema. I do not know when I consciously made this decision but I think deep down I always felt this would not just be a year commitment and more recently, as this year is coming to an end, I feel I have so much more to give and I just cannot imagine going home for Christmas and not coming back out. I absolutely love what I do here and the women I work with. Working at Rehema has been great fun and very rewarding in many ways but it also has been very challenging at times and these challenges I believe have actually been good in developing me as a person. It is exciting to see all that has happened at Rehema over this past year and how much potential to grow that it has and I really want to continue to be a part of that. I have also learnt so much more about God and I love being able to serve Him in this way. It has been tough at times when I’m surrounded by suffering and people constantly asking for help and it can seem a helpless situation. In these times the faith of the Tanzanians is truly inspiring.

 Many people tell me that I should be thinking about the future, going to university, working to save money and start a pension! These are all fair points but they are the world views rather than actually trusting and relying completely on God. There will be times in life when we want to make our own plans and follow our own path especially when that is the easier option but listening to God and following His plan for our lives will lead to far greater things than we can ever imagine. For those of you who know me well you will know that a couple of years ago the thought of me living in Tanzania would just have been laughed at and actually up until then the idea of living here never even occurred to me. God works in ways we would never imagine! 

Life is pretty good here at the moment. At Rehema we are busy preparing for Christmas and starting to plan a Christmas fair which is exciting! I have also been able to spend a bit of time with Go Mad which I love. There is a team of three out here at the moment and I get on really well with them. There is also a girl staying with the Vink family who I also get on well with so we have all been getting together for meals, crazy games of articulate and just hanging out together.  I feel so blessed to be able to meet so many new people and being able to make really good friendships with them.  Last week we went to the Market Garden which is a Go Mad project that I was involved with on my trip and it was amazing to see how much progress has been made and how well it is doing. It looked completely different to when I last saw it. Today we started a water tank and then went up to Kyamajoje. I had been wanting to go up there for some time as I kept hearing about what the teams were building and wanted to see it all! It was just incredible to see how much has been achieved. The health centre is looking amazing and the doctor’s houses, toilets and a big water tank are all underway.

The other exciting news is that we have a puppy! On Tuesday our little German shepherd puppy, Sarabi, arrived! She is so adorable! It’s good to have a dog in the house again. For some of you it may be more shocking to hear me say I have a dog than it is to hear I am going to live in Africa for another year!