Photos taken on the July - August trip (over 800)
New outfits for the Bethany Choir (34pics), Doing the chores (16pics), Line dancing! (96pics)
English Lessons (34pics), Skipping and Games (25pics), Groups of Children (14pics)
Individual children (56pics), Donated percussion Instruments (9pics), Letters received (46pics)
Letters sent (3pics), Letter writing (67pics), New children (12pics), Return trip (52pics)
Singing practice (137pics), Sunrise - sunsets (70pics), Donated towels & clothes (11pics)
Trip -outbound (38pics), Views from the water tank (14pics), Visiting Teams (70pics)
Wildlife (20pics)
REPORTS by visiting group members: Cathy Riley, Rebecca Dyer, Karen Ross,
July 24th to August 8th trip. This trip was 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 and Ann Logan, Tia Danning, Nicholas Hopkinson, Karen Ross, Daisy Nasimiyu and Edward Briggs. making a total of 19 visitors.
The trip went well and achieved everything it set out to achieve. The children gave the visitors a warm welcome and Onesmo our Tanz team leader had arranged for the children to have two weeks off Primary school to have two weeks intensive English lessons. Some of the young women slept in the girls dormitory to get first hand experience. 3 hours of English were taught each day to all standards 1 - 7. Interspersed with games, singing, dancing, letter writing and line dancing. The visitors visited a local church, another children’s home and the local market town (Magu) where they bought Kangas and other bit and pieces. Click the following headings to see the photos: English Lessons , Letter writing, Line dancing!
, Skipping and Games. We were fortunate on this trip to be able to fill ten 20 kilo bags with goods we have been unable to take to Bethany until now. This included a box full of donated percussion instruments and also many donated towels and clothes as well as tools, screws and other fittings.
Included on the web site are photos of the trip to and from Bethany: Trip -outbound, Return trip
Trip to England: Plans are well under way. The flights have been provisionally booked with Qatar airlines and the children are practicing upto 3 hours per day. They have learnt over 20 songs in English together with dance steps etc. They also know about 20 swahili songs and about 6 Sukuma tribal songs. The girls have new outfits and the boys new African shirts and trousers. Click on the following headings to see the photos: New outfits for the Bethany Choir, Singing practice
There is a separate web site dedicate to the trip - click here to view.
New children: 5 children have joined Bethany bringing the total to 105 children. They include 2 sisters (different fathers): Neema Bahati (DOB 15/03/1992) and sister Hollo William (DOB 08/08/1995). Neema and Hollo’s mother died in 2001(HIV) and their different fathers died approx a year later. After their fathers death they went to live with their uncle (mothers brother). Although comparatively wealthy (he owned many cows) he also liked to drink alcohol and often stopped the girls from going to school so that they could look after the cows. Eventually their uncles wife left him leaving Neema to look after the other members of the family. Eventually their mother’s sister took them away to live at Bethany. Another two sisters Anna (13yrs) and Happyness (11yrs) joined Bethany in August. Anna and Happyness’s mother and father had both died and were being looked after by their older sister. However their sister had no visible means of earning an income and they all slept in a room next to a room which was used for making and selling home brew. The neighbours who brewed the alcohol were concerned for the younger girls believing they would follow in their older sisters footsteps if they continued to live with their sister. Our new boy is Hoja Mathias (DOB 12/12/1996). Dickson was returned to his relatives village due to bad behaviour (bullying smaller children and stealing)
Building work: Due to the forthcoming children’s visit we are not planning to undertake any major developments until after they return. We still need to refurbish the boys dorm, provide volunteers accommodation and extend our classroom block to cater for 7 classrooms (now 3).
Children’s health: Generally good although lots of coughs and colds about. Power shortages continue throughout Tanzania due to the lack of rainfall needed to provide power for the hydroelectric generators. Monthly Supporters / Enquirers Meetings: The dates for the next three meetings which are all on Saturdays and are: 2nd Sept, 7th Oct and 4th Nov. 2006, . They are held at the Hope Centre, Ossy. 10am-noon. Everyone welcome. (click here for details)
Future trips -----------------------------
The next trip out will be on the 13th September 2006 and consist of Graham Pountain, Jemma Turner, Eddie Marshall and Deborah. Graham and Jemma will accompany the children back to the UK and Eddie and Deborah will stay at Bethany to give support to the reduced team looking after the remaining 75 + children. The trip after the children’s visit will start in December 2006 and various trips will be planned throughout 2007. If you are interested then please email me. 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 teams help write letters for the children. Click on the headings to see the photos: Letters received, Letters sent, Letter writing
Click here to see the web site and apply to join.
Sponsorship web site: Shana who runs our Penpals web site is also hosting 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). _____________________________________________________________________________
Money boxes: As you can see our total collected from the money boxes is over £2,434 as of 7th July 2006. We initially intended running the money box scheme for 12 months (May 2005 to May 2006) but have now decided to continue the boxes with new labels for the tins for another 12 months to coincide with the children’s visit. Cathy Riley is now looking after the new money boxes, both issuing them, banking the proceeds and issuing receipts. If you want one email Bex and she will pass on your request to Cathy.
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.
Satellite Internet: No further news
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)
UPDATE JULY 21st: Eddie, Rachel and Abigail returned safely on Thursday 20th July. Eddie had helped put the finishing touches to the toilet block - and it should now be ready for our 19 visitors who travel out on Monday the 24th July. He also helped encourage the older children to work hard as well as going through the various policies adhered to by Bethany and the reasons for them. Rachel and Abigail spent many hours teaching the children English as well as getting involved with games and drama’s etc. Unfortunately Rachel was unwell during the last few days of her stay but with many prayers said for her she made the trip back safely to the UK where she is now recovering at home in comfort. Our thanks to Rachel and Abigail for their efforts as this trip had been planned since they first met some of the children at Spring Harvest back in March 2004. Eddie who had not been out since 2003 has now seen the new Kitchen and dining room, the new girls dorm and the refurbished clinic all completed since his last visit.
Photos taken on the July trip:
Letters received, (53pics), General interest (24pics)
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