January 2010

We met the REAP trustees last night, which was really helpful. Amazing to see to faithful support and prayers and interest from a small group of people here in the UK.

REAP trustees

One lady, Cheryl, has a box of visual aids: seeds, rope made from plastic bags etc, which can help to share and promote the work which REAP undertakes.

An advert for REAP

It felt exciting to be focusing on REAP and life in Kenya, rather than the practical things here and now. One of the trustees kindly offered to look over our WHSmith DIY will kit this week, which seems to have been on the to- do list since the summer. Have attempted packing this morning, I was panicking that everything was over 25kg... until David pointed out I was looking at the pounds measurement on the luggage scales, quite a relief...

Not much to report this week: more goodbyes to close friends, more fairly dull admin jobs, getting to know more people at Greyfriars, beginning to tire of the Iraq war enquiry being watched every day by my Dad, and feeling a little bit excited that this time next week we'll hopefully be in Kenya...

We were once again touched by peoples' interest and encouragement this week, and feel blessed with some great friends.
Feel a bit as though we're 'chomping at the bit' and are keen to get stuck into life in Kenya- whatever shape or form that takes. We hopefully have a house to stay in now which is quite reassuring, and some structure for our first week in Nairobi so hopefully things are fitting into place. We still need to re-pack now that we have less luggage allowance than previously advertised, but that'll probably wait until Thursday. Happy days.

Heather Oats in a smart coat

Coles and Craigs and Cowburn

Disappearing before our eyes

We've had a busy week since our last post, we went to visit friends in Wales last weekend which was great. We saw my heavily pregnant childhood friend, Bex, and her husband, and their adorable 2 year old son. Then we visited our friends from Edinburgh, the Storms who are working with World Horizons in the south of Wales. Really encouraging to catch up and reconnect with old friends.

Bex, Phil & Z

We've been meeting lots of people at Greyfriars church, which has been really encouraging (and slightly exhausting). People have seemed genuinely interested in us, and supportive of our next steps. There is so much going on at Greyfriars, various activities and groups for all ages and stages- you could make it a full time job getting to know people there!

Our packing and repacking continues, as do the various admin tasks, we now have visas, our passports back and international driving permits, so now I guess we can get into the country and drive around. Accommodation not yet sorted, but hopefully in the pipeline...

Hi from a very snowy Reading! Since our last post we've left Edinburgh and are a few hundred miles nearer to Kisumu... We had a good, but very busy final week in Edinburgh, seeing people, sorting out forms, packing, re- packing, having dentist appointments, doctors appointments, getting malaria prescription etc etc. The family we were staying with whisked us away from our chores one day and took us sledging up near Pitlochry, (which as you can imagine was very dull compared to the wildly exciting tax forms to complete.) We had a lovely ceilidh send off on Saturday and a commissioning service at our church, Bellevue on Sunday night.

We have appreciated Edinburgh even more than normal in the past few weeks, looking at the beautiful snowy skyline and all the places we will miss, not to mention the people.

We managed to take all 9 suitcases and rucksacks on the train from Edinburgh yesterday with less stress than anticipated. At one point David's rucksack on his back and the one on his front made a kind of strait jacket, and he couldn't move, which was funnier now I remember it than at the time! I was thinking that it would be very helpful to be an octopus in these situations with plenty of arms to carry everything...
http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/cga0160l.jpg

So now we are in Reading for a few weeks, and the main point of this time is to get to know Greyfriars church, who are also supporting us. The added benefits from being home are my Mum's cooking, seeing my little sister, and a bit longer to sort ourselves out and repack (again).

Just a quick one from David's parents in Glasgow, (making the most of the wifi...) with some pics of our time over Christmas. We had an untraditional Christmas day, after church we spent 4 hours in a squashed car heading down to Cornwall, followed by lasagne.
Lucy and Jon joined us on Boxing day and we had our second Christmas day then which was lovely.

Bodmin Moor

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Snowy Reading

We enjoyed lots of coastal walks, hearty meals and the log fire in Cornwall, and are now back in Scotland visiting David's family around Glasgow.
This next week is our last week in Edinburgh, which is sad and probably quite stressful as I expect we won't get to spend a decent amount of time with our friends, alongside packing and organising ourselves.
Hope you had a good start to 2010, wherever you are, and hope this is a good year ahead for you.