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Photos from the April trip (over 550 photos)
New Children (13pics), Children at work (31pics), ‘100th Child’ party (50pics)
Building work-new classrooms etc. (28pics), Letters received (34pics),
Letter writing (12pics), Joinery work (50pics), Plumbing work (26pics),
Teaching the children (English) (17pics), Children’s tooth care (9pics), Play (27pics),
Games (14pics), New seesaw (21pics), Singers (30pics), Visiting team (43pics),
Sponsored children (28pics), Groups of children (35pics), Individual children (50pics),
Members of the July Trip (4pics), Sunrise/sets (29pics)
Reports on the trip by: John Brindle, Wendy Whitaker
and from a previous trip July 2005 by Gary Nolan
April Trip: This was a large group: Graham and Elaine Earnshaw, Gary Nolan, Ian Kelly, John Brindle Dave Thomas, Rebecca Smith, Naomi Bancroft, Sarah Duerden, Wendy Whittaker and Graham Pountain. Please see below for details of all the work accomplished.
Click here for pictures of the visiting group
New children: 11 new children joined Bethany in April 2006 making the number now cared for by Bethany = 100. The new children are: Mogaya Daudi, Zawadi Daudi and Ghati Daudi (brother and sisters), Samson Protas, Esther Thomas, Ramadhani Salu, Elizabeth Joseph, Kulwa Peter (girl). Balole Charles, Misoji Charles and Leah Charles (sisters). Further details to follow (ages and circumstances). Click here to see the new children
100th Child Celebration: We decided that it would be a good idea to have a party to celebrate the admission of our 100th Child into the Bethany Family. The last three to join were the three sisters: Balole, Misoji and Leah Charles. We have nicknamed Leah Charles - Leah Mia, (Mia is the swahili word for ‘100’) and she will always be remembered as our 100th child. The party included soda’s (bottles of fizzy pop) and is a favourite with the children.
Click here to see pics of the celebration party.
Building work:
The conversion of our old Clinic building into 3 new classrooms, storeroom, first-aid room and library is going according to plan just! The local Tanzanians have finished work on the main building and all the rooms are ready to be used. Graham E. and Graham P. together with Simon E (visited for a couple of days) installed the lighting. The new toilet and shower block now has its roof on and Dave Thomas (plumbing lecturer from Salford College) was busy installing all the toilets, washbasins and WC’s. John Brindle (joinery lecturer from Accrington College ) together with Ian Kelly and Gary Nolan ( joinery lecturers, both from Salford College) completed the task of making 6 ultra-strong bunk beds, 6 large collapsible desks and benches to match. They also did many other maintenance jobs around Bethany as well as making a seesaw for the children. Eddie Marshall visited for a few days and helped fix the new Inverter, the UV filter and the electronic valve (all damaged by the previous temporary inverter)
We have now to build the septic tank and complete the drainage system and finish work on the plumbing.
John Brindle has kindly given us a report on how he found Bethany on his first trip (click here to read). Also a report from Gary Nolan on his impressions of his first visit (click here to read)
Click here to see the pictures to the building work.
Click here to see pictures of the plumbing work.
Click here to see pictures of the joinery work.
Teaching of English: Elaine, Wendy, Bex, Sarah and Naomi got to grips with the task of teaching some English to our children. With the help of the older children they took all age groups from Standard 1 through to Standard 7. They involved the children in dramas and games and helped organise an input into the Sunday service. Sarah (dental hygienist) also helped the children understand the importance of tooth care. The visitors also visited the local primary school and gave an impromtu lesson.
Wendy Whitaker kindly wrote of her first impressions of Bethany (click here to read)
Click here to see pictures of the teaching.
Click here to see pictures of the games.
Children’s health: Malaria is still a problem and the children struggle to accept the importance of using their mossy nets. With so many children there are always some children needing some kind of treatment. We are often at the local Clinic!
Children Working: The planting is done and the rains continue - together with the villagers we will soon have crops to harvest.
Children’s singing: As ever the children practice as often as possible. I have put a CD of their latest recording on Ebay costing £2.50p including postage. If you would like to purchase one here is the link:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Africa-orphans-sing-Christian-gospel-songs-in-English_W0QQitemZ4872484696QQcategoryZ43650QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Return trip to England: We now have all the necessary birth certificates, we can now start to collect all the documentation for the passport applications. Once we have these we will apply for the visas. However, we still have no accommodation arranged and are still looking for FREE or nearly free accommodation for up to 30 children (plus 3 adults) for 6 weeks through mid September until the end of October. If there is anyone out there who knows of, or who owns a very large house or hotel/guest house and would consider the possibility of us using it then please let us know. It would need to be around the Blackburn area. email here.
Monthly Supporters / Enquirers Meetings: The dates for the next three meetings which are all on Saturdays and are: 6th May, 3rd June and 1st July 2006. They are held at the Hope Centre, Ossy. 10am-noon. Everyone welcome. (click here for details)
Future trips -----------------------------
May /June trip: Nothing yet booked (email me if you want to go)
July 2nd to 19th trip: Eddie Jeffery (UK team) is leading this trip and so far Rachel Louise Bacon and Abigail Barnsley are accompanying him. There is still time to book.
July 24th to August 8th trip. This is now fully booked and is made up of the following people:
Graham and Sheila Pountain, Joan Kearsley, Cathy Riley, Sharon Gerrard, plus the group from St. James Clitheroe: Joanna Pelllet, Daniel Hughes, Luke Dyer, Rebecca Dyer, Bethany Pickett, James Murdoch, Daniel Porter plus the group from Christ Church Accrington, Kevin Logan and Ann (soon to be Logan), Tia Danning, Nicholas Hopkinson, Karen Ross, Daisy Nasimiyu and Edward Briggs. Total of 19 visitors.
July Trip Preparation: We are pleased to report that the two church youth groups decided they would hold a preparation course over the May bank holiday weekend. This consisted of three days camping where they got used to being without some of the little luxuries of life. They also learnt some Swahili and were told what would be expected of them. The girls chose their own Kangas which they will wear and modeled them for a photograph.
Click here to see a photograph of some the group.
No further trips are planned due to the possibility of some of the children visiting Sept - Oct.
Staff changes: None
Pen pals group web site: This group continues to write to our children with letters of encouragement. Some pen pals are now becoming sponsors. Our visiting team helped write letters for the children
Click the following to see pics; Letters received etc,
Click here to see the web site and apply to join.
Sponsorship web site: Shana who runs our Pen pals web site has also started a web site dedicated to helping those who want to know more about sponsorship.
Click here to join the sponsorship web site.
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Sponsorship - Finance: As ever - finance is an ongoing concern. For those still considering sponsoring or co-sponsoring please see our list of names for sponsorship. Click here
To learn more about sponsorship we have produced a 4 page Question and Answer sheet (click here).
Supporting Bethany
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Money boxes: As you can see our total collected from the money boxes is over £1604 as of 23rd March 2006.
Publicity cards: We still have the postcard size flyers (financed by separate sponsorship). These are now available and are ideal to give to everyone (e.g. school children, congregations etc etc.) They are ideal in the sense that they advertise the web site address and show some photos of our children. Please E-mail me with how many you would like and I will either post them or bring them to you. Click here to see the cards.
Pen pals group: Going from strength to strength
Click here to see the web site and apply to join.
Proposed work
1) Refurbishment of the old dormitory not yet started.
2) Provision of accommodation for volunteers (visiting and permanent) and staff. Not yet started
3) New School. As mentioned above we have plans to convert our clinic to provide 3 classrooms. We hope this will be the start with more classrooms to follow.
Live Link: It is now possible for us to arrange a phone link (prearranged) whereby the children at Bethany could answer questions (in English) over the phone from children in the UK. The cost of the phone call using a special prefix number is 15p per minute. This may be suitable for all sorts of groups. Please remember that only the older children can speak English and we would need to have the questions beforehand. The day and time would have to be prearranged. (We can arrange this only because recently mobile phone coverage has been extended to cover our area and the Bethany team now have cheap mobile phones). We had applied for a ‘land line’ over ten years ago and now with the advent of mobile phone coverage it is unlikely that provision of land lines other than in the cities will be pursued.
Satellite Internet: No further news
Photo Album: Click here for details.
Possible bore hole: No further news.
Mains Power: No news, no change. Still patiently waiting
OTHER NEWS
And Finally: Thank you so much for being interested enough in our work to be reading this. Even more if by your donation you have made this work possible.
N.B. (Please note that this web site is accessible world wide and so we are very careful to only publish the bare facts as truthfully as possible. There are often circumstances upon which decisions have been made which we feel unable to publish. Please contact us directly if you need to know more)
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