We have been without electricity and water for the last two days!  It was nice to have so many emails when the power came back.

 

 I just can't believe how little time we have left here.  Every day I still see things that I never want to forget.  This morning we made those twirl snakes with the compassion kids, you know where you cut a circle into a spiral.  They couldn't believe what they were seeing when you lifted up the end of it and it all spiralled down!!  I won't forget the shrieks of laughter and smiles followed by the fascination with pencil crayons!  Such simple things....again it makes you think.

 

 Our relationships with the girls in the area are still growing and they are all coming this afternoon. I think we're going to make pasta necklaces with them.  We're already done things like Easter cards and modelling balloons. They love to come and we have to set times for them to come or they'd live here.

 

 Amharic is still on the up.  I feel quite comfortable with it now!!  A few days ago Lexi and I bought Amharic and English New Testaments!!  O.K. so we don't understand hardly a word of it but we are determined to have the Lord's prayer at least partially learnt in Amharic before we leave.  It's wonderful and such an eye opener to see how they have culturally translated it.  Instead of 'Give us today our daily bread," it says, "Give us today our daily injera," !!!!  Great huh?!  I love it!

 

 P.S.  Please pray that I stay disciplined in my quiet times.  I am so easily distracted.

We got back from Lalibella yesterday all totally safe and absolutely no hitches!! Praise the Lord!  We had a great time and saw some amazing sights! I'm telling you, the bus journey was something else!  The buses are like our public transport buses, well that style but not that standard!  It was three on a two-seater seat and two on a seat that comfortably seated one!  We travelled for almost nine hours on the bus yesterday and we only stopped once!!  It was so funny Lexi and I dared not drink anything in the morning for fear that we would have to have them stop the bus for us.  They would have stopped it right there and then and we would have had an audience!!  Anyway God gave us big bladders and we survived!  Half way down one only slightly bumpy road one of the bus window panes fell out!  Into the bus!  It was so funny as the driver didn't even stop and the guy sitting by the window just threw the smashed glass out of the...well..hole!! It's amazing this country, it makes me laugh!

I have had the most amazing time!!!!  I'm back totally safe, absolutely no hiccups and I am just praising God for how gracious he is to have blessed me so richly with everything, the people, the place, the experience.  Gambella was THE BEST totally relaxing and wonderful!! Please join in with me in praising God for his greatness!!!!

Hello Hello, yes the girls .... Helen and Lexi are, by all accounts, having a fantastic time down at the refugee camp in Bonga and were recently seen covered in paper mache just before an ambitious Easter presentation. There were due to come home today (Monday) but there were not allowed on their flight because they had no ID with them. The next flight is on Wednesday so they have sent a radio message to let us know that they will be back with us then. SIM Admin will fax them some ID. Meanwhile I can assure you that they are being well looked after by the SIM folk down there and they should be back on line on Wednesday. They will have lots of stories I'm sure. 

This morning we went to the church of the guy who is teaching us Amharic then we went to his house for lunch...enjera and dorro wat (chicken, a special occasion!)  I helped make the coffee right from roasting the beans that came form the tree in the garden, to drinking it!  The whole kit and caboodle!!  What an experience.

 

I had some wonderful post today. I got letters and birthday cards from Mum,  Auntie Linda, Sally, Jen, Debbie and the most wonderful letter from Ruth P with messages from everyone at the Oakes!!  They were all great!  And there's a parcel waiting for me at the P.O.  :-)  It just gets better and better!  Post is the most wonderful thing and I can't tell how grateful I am to everyone who has taken the time to write and stuff.

 

OK visa!!  Yes we now know the answer.  We are fine until beginning of April and then will be able to get another one month visa till early May. After that we will probably have to leave the country for a little while to get it sorted for the final two months.  That's OK though, we won't have to come home, we are looking at the possibilities of Egypt, Kenya or the Seychelles!!  It won't be too hard at all so that's an answer to prayer. OK hope that's clear enough, (yeah as mud....) anyway the gist of it is that it's all OK!! Thanks for your prayers.

 

I had a wonderful birthday!!  I got a load of post and parcels. Lexi sent me on a treasure hunt around Jimma to find my birthday presents, it was so fun!!  She's a love! I got the most amazing and different presents, things like CHEESE! which, if I was at home I would think they were crazy but here it's just GREAT!!  You appreciate everything so much more here, the smallest craziest things are what you really get excited about!
Because there are very few things like cards and wrapping paper here people can be very inventive.  The Baldwin kids all made me special little things like pop-up cards and 'Happy Birthday Club' membership cards!!  Josh gave me some seeds to plant in our garden and stuff like that, it was wonderful!  Maura made a cooked breakfast lunch with BACON!!  They don't eat pork in Ethiopia so to find bacon and get it to Jimma and then to eat it on my birthday is the best thing!!  Now you know what I'm like with fat but I tell you now, I wolfed it down!!!  I told you, "I'll eat it on my GAP year"!!!! Alfie and Phoebe were so hyper and Phoebe kept hugging me :-)
There was more to come.  In the evening Lexi and I went to Maura and David's for what I thought was a quite bit of cake but when I got there they had invited everyone!!  It was brill. We played silly party games and ate cake and Jelly and ice-cream, two other very big treats!!
So over all a wonderfully blessed day, God was very good!!

Let me tell you just a little more about the lovely weekend that I am having.  Last night we had pizza!  The most amazing treat!!  Diane made them with lots of special stuff that you have to save up for an occasion such as this.  Things such as cheese (almost home cheese but still not quite!),  sausage and salami (a real delicacy!!)  And for pud the 'piece-de-resistance' ice-cream (WOW WOW), home-made with warm chocolate sauce and strawberries from the garden!  It has to be the best meal I've eaten since being here.  Mind you, some of Maura's creations come very close!  You  know you're in Africa when you call that an amazing meal!!

 

Anyway tonight there are more treats as we have been invited out for a meal at the hotel where our Dutch friends are staying!!  It's just getting better and better.  We are also hosting church on Sunday which should be fun as the crowd is growing, Praise the Lord!