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August News
Over 200 photographs taken by the group visiting from visit 18th July to 4th August 2005
Ian Kelly, Robert Skarratt, Gary Nolan, David Borland and Graham Pountain
Brathay Group visit (18 pics), Children preparing for Brathay visitors (19 pics),
Joiners, Robert, Gary and Ian together with David visit Bethany (19 pics)
Individual children (41 pics), New dorm outside (31 pics), New dorm inside (21 pics),
Children, washing, cleaning and sweeping (18 pics), Pen pals (34 pics)
Eccles Christian Fellowship ( 7 pics), Whalley School ( 10 pics),
Miscellaneous pics (15 pics)
The children are the most well behaved and loving children that I have ever encountered.
Quote from Ian Kelly’s report (click here to see full report)
July Group returns: Our work group returned safely from their two week visit on the 4th August. The group consisted of: Ian Kelly, Gary Nolan, Robert Skarratt, David Borland and Graham Pountain. Ian, Gary and Robert completed various tasks such as the plumbing ( 6 toilets, 4 washbasins and 6 showers), the joinery work, partitions, doors etc as well as helping complete the electrical installation. David helped and advised on the administration of Bethany. The whole team worked very hard and achieved a great deal and everyone at Bethany is very grateful for their work. Click here to see the team at work.
Ian and David have both written a short report about their experience. (Robert’s and Gary’s to follow shortly)
Click here for Ian Kelly’s report, Click here for David Borland’s report
Sponsorship - Finance: We are grateful to our faithful supporters who continue to support us. We are pleased to tell you that our monthly income is still about £700 per month. (about a third of the amount we need to maintain the work). We are grateful that other moneys come from individuals, schools, churches etc. Our Tanzanian team have been struggling to keep within the budget which has been set (i.e. £2,000 per month). David has been through the budget with them and certain areas have been identified as needing tightening up. As a result of this the children will be collecting fire wood in future for some of our cooking as charcoal is so expensive and wasteful. Replacement, clothes, shoes, bedding and mosquito nets will not be purchased until the deficit has been made good. Everyone at Bethany is hoping to make everything last that little bit longer and with a little more care we believe this can be achieved and hopefully within 6 months we will be back within budget.
Good news about our plans for a school at Bethany see below
Bunk Beds: A supporter has kindly donated finance for 8 new bunk beds at a cost of £60 each. These are now on order. We already have two new bunk beds and so will shortly have a third of the number we need ( 30 required for the new dorm). The old beds will not be wasted as they will be used by new children or sold to help pay for the new ones. We now need new foam mattresses at a cost of £7.50p each together with new sheets. The list goes on! Little by little we will get there!
Sponsorship, Supporting Bethany.
Money boxes: As you can see our total collected from the money boxes as we publish this August/Sept update is over £400. We have also managed to buy (for £1 each) another 200 boxes so please don’t be shy at asking for one of these boxes or swopping a full one for a brand new empty one!
Monthly meeting: Our next meeting will be Saturday 3rd September 2005. Click here for more details
Tanz staff changes: Mr. Matiku is now our projects manager and will be organising various activities for the children at weekends as well as after school throughout the week.
UK team changes: David Borland has agreed to join us and we are confident our administration will improve as David applies his expertise to the various administrative tasks.
News from Darwen Moorlands High School: No news (click here for Rafikizetu web site)
Eccles Christian Fellowship; Our thanks to them for sending banners and gifts for the children via our visiting joiners. The gifts will be awarded to children who make the most progress in different walks of life (e.g. their behaviour , schoolwork etc.)
Click here to see the banners and gifts etc.
New publicity cards: Supporters often ask for flyers to give to people they know to raise an awareness of Bethany. We have just printed 10,000 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.) 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.
Brathay group visit: As we publish this update Bethany is preparing to welcome 18 young people from various walks of life who are journeying through Tanzania and hope to spend a few days at Bethany. They are hoping to teach and do some drama as well as organise a sports day.
Click here to see pictures of the visiting students.
Click here to see groups of children preparing and praying for each and every member of the Brathay group.
Click here to visit the Brathay web site.
Pen pals group founded: For those of you who would like to encourage our children with letters or cards etc you may be interested in joining a group set up especially for this purpose run by ‘Shana’.
Click here to see the web site and apply to join.
Click here to see some of the postcards and letters received by the children at Bethany.
Whalley Primary School: Many of you may know that David Borland is chair of governors at Whalley school and the school were enthusiastic about the link already established between Whalley school and Bethany and gave David various activities for the children at Bethany. Our thanks for their efforts from the children at Bethany.
Click here to see some of the activities (finger puppets etc.)
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.
New Children’s home: Ben and Amy Hathaway are still working on their new orphanage for babies 'Forever Angels', ( click here to visit their web site ). Their web site will bring you up to date with all the news. Bethany hopes to work closely with them in the future and Sheila and Graham have been to visit Amy whilst she visits home in the UK.
Volunteers: Our September trip is now fully booked but there is still time to book for our November trip - We already have four people wanting to go on this trip but we have room for more (the cost will probably be about £800). Please E-mail for details or to apply.
Satellite Internet: No further news
Photo Album: In our last update we gave details of how to produce an A4 photo album. We have carried forward the idea in this months update in case you missed reading the last update! It is hoped that this album will be great to show people just what sort of thing Bethany does. Click here for details.
Possible bore hole: No further news.
Mains Power: No news, no change. The posts have been erected, the transformers have arrived but there is no cable to connect the power too. The power company estimates up to three months (or did they mean 3 years)
CHILDREN
New children None, although we have a waiting list but are unable to admit more children until the new dorm is ready (Sept 05)
Village Primary School: All the children are doing well and working hard supplemented by extra education provided by Bethany after school
Secondary Education: We have recently decided that out seven children at Bulima secondary boarding school should return home each weekend. We have done this for two primary reasons. Firstly, our secondary school children had little to do at weekends and we believe that ‘the devil makes work for idle hands’. Secondly it will be good for our older children to return each weekend to help with the chores at Bethany including the cleaning cooking and field work (growing crops etc) and also in helping the younger children who are at primary school with their studies. We discussed this with the older children before implementation and only China voiced her reservations. The other 6 children were very keen. This last weekend will have been the first weekend at home and we hope that Graham and Elaine E. who are visiting at the moment have found it to be a positive experience.
Proposed New School: Great News, we have been awarded a grant from Spring Harvest of
£10,000. We can now start to draw up plans of how we will introduce full time education at Bethany.
Health: Angelina and Rehema J. have both spent a short spell in hospital with various ailments but we are happy to report that they are both recovered and back at Bethany.
Click here to see pictures of them both in hospital
Nyangeta: Nyangeta’s wound where she had her leg amputated is now healed so she is ready to have an artificial limb fitted. Graham and Elaine hope to look into the possibility of this on their trip August (they are at Bethany as I write this report.)
Bethany Choir: A supporter has sponsored a recording session at a cost of £60 so that the children can record 14 songs - two of which are sung in English, ‘My Jesus my Saviour’ and ‘I the Lord of Sea and Sky’.
Click here to download ‘My Jesus my Saviour’ led by Eliada and the chorus led by Emmakulatha
Click here to download ‘I the Lord of Sea and Sky’ sung by the children, verse one led by Emmakulatha, verse two by Minza and verse three by Eve.
The choir hope to make a few tapes to sell to other churches etc which will perhaps help Bethany funds over time !!
BUILDING WORK
The new girl’s dormitory: Very very nearly complete!. When the work team left on August 3rd, everything was working even the lights!. However many minor jobs needed to be done before occupation including varnishing all the woodwork in the toilets and showers, the fixing of the few remaining shutters, the finishing of the painting both inside and out, the cleaning up of all the tiles both wall and floor. The provision of a box to cover the waste pipes and the water pipes etc etc etc. We so far have 2 bunk beds with 8 more paid for on order. We need cabinets to be made to store the sheets, clothes and shoes. Boxes that will slide under the bunk beds. We would also like to make some small tables and benches to put in the dorms for homework. Even curtains would add a finishing touch! The next team visiting in September will help with these tasks as well as building a small adventure playground, football posts, nets and also an incinerator etc etc.. They are going to be busy!
Septic Tank: Completed
Roof repair dining room extension: Completed
Clothes Washing Area: Completed.
Crop growing: we are presently in the dry season so nothing is growing
OTHER NEWS
Trips planned for 2005:
August- Graham and Elaine Earnshaw are booked to visit the first two weeks in August and will be there to help organise the use of the new dorm as well as to continue helping the Tanz team with education and health issues
September: A trip by Graham Pountain, Paul Pountain, Rebecca Bell, Stanley and Rhona Burns, David Hitch and Timothy Coles. Still time to join this group if you are considering the possibility of going. The group hope to construct some form of adventure playground and to interact with the children and encourage the use of spoken English.
November trip: Nothing yet planned - please E-mail if you would like to be considered.
Children’s trip to the UK: We are now considering the possibility of a return trip by a group of the children (possibly up to 24) to once again raise the awareness of what is happening at Bethany. We need people who would be prepared to sponsor the visit as the total cost would be approx £27,000. We would not use money donated in the normal way as this is used for the day to day running of Bethany and for specific purposes (e.g. new dorm). If you would like to donate money specifically for the trip please contact me by E-mail for more information.
(click here to E-mail).
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.
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