Travels and bruises....

Hello everyone,

Its been a long time since this was updated! I have been busy in so many ways and have also had a few health challenges along the way! I returned to Zambia mid November after a few weeks longer than I anticipated in Northern Ireland, due to a few health issues! As soon I got back I head to South Luangwa to meet two friends who were visiting - I spent a lovely two days in the bush with the animals, and my friends!!

In December I drove to Livingstone and Mazabuka to have meetings with teachers, committee members and the ministers of both congreagations, about how they should be running their ECD centre! It was a good trip but driving long distances takes its toll!!

The Ministry of Education produced a new competency based curriculum. Because it was not fully ready, it was decided that ECD classes would not start until February 10th! However, many of our centres opened on January 13th as per the old school calendar! I received the new syllabus, along with everyone else the Friday evening before schools were supposed to open! So teachers had no way of even looking at the new Syllabus to find out what they were supposed to teach on Monday! However, I hope to have training with teachers in April so that we can go through the new syllabus and see how best we can teach it! I headed to our school in Chipata in January - its mid rainy season so often there are challenges of flooding on the way! However, I reached Chipata safely and spent some days at the school. It rained continually for the days I was there (torrential rain), and so we had challenges when children wanted to go to the toilet, as the pit latrine is quite a bit away from the church building. Eventually I managed to find a bucket which we put in the session room for the children to use - it was either that or do it out the door!!! This church really needs a proper toilet block for the kids and so, together with the committee we are planning to begin building a toilet block after the rains, around April time.

I had a good time with the teachers and the children though but they really need a lot of help and support to make this a good place for children to come to!On the way home from Chipata, I heard that the Great East Road was closed as part of it had washed away over a river due to the heavy rains! However, there was an announcement on the radio that a bypass had been made, so I set off to try and get home. When I reached the area where the bypass was, it was around 4pm and I was about an hour and a half outside Lusaka. I was told the road was impassable. There is nowhere to stay near where I was so I had to drive 4 hours back again to find accommodation for the night! As I was being shown to my room, I fell flat on my face in the darkness and hurt myself quite badly - my right arm and hand was badly cut and both knees were cut, but the right knee was especially bad! Of course, the lodge did not hae a first aid kit but a lovely lady came to my help and sourced some surgical spirits - she tried to clean the wounds and at least cover them to stop the bleeding! She gave me painkillers and I went to bed! The next day I was in agony, especially my knees but I could not go home because the road was still closed! On the third day, I heard that the bypass was open and it had not rained that day, so I thought I would try and drive home and get to a doctor to treat my wounds! I came to the bypass and, although it was challenging as it was narrow, and very muddy in places, I managed to get through and went to the hospital where my wounds were treated! That was on 1 February - today as I write on 28 February, my knee is almost healed - it has been a long slow process of visiting the hospital to have it dressed! I am thankful that it was not badly infected! In February, I headed on an international visit to CCAP Synod of Harare in Zimbabwe and then CCAP Synod of Blantyre in Malawi. I was going to see what these two Synods were doing in Early Childhood! I had 2 great visits, went to a lot of schools and saw the work our sister Synods are doing! A few photos from Zimbabwe...

and a few photos from Malawi...

Last year Zambia had a really bad drought so we prayed for rain. This year we have had rain, rain and more rain - in fact Lusaka city has been flooded quite a few times now and people have been displaced - even as I write, it is raining! So, God answered our prayers and we have a few hours more electricity now that we have had previously! However, too much rain also causes destruction with crops washed away, houses washed away and even people losing their lives in the flood water!

Now, as we head into March, I hope to visit our school project in the Copperbelt, where we are building a school and visit Chililabombwe where we were building toilets in anticipation of opening an ECD centre. I hope to visit Livingstone and Mazabuka again too! A few photos from the garden to finish this episode with...

Thank you for reading my blog - for your prayerful support - much appreciated! Much love, Diane xx