June Update

Well, as usual this month has been another full of it’s flexibilities, changes, excitements and oddities!! We have been able to go to the East more this month which has been nice, it seems to still be a little wetter there than I remember and have been told that it would be, and it even rained about 3 minutes this time, which is wonderful and cooling, though…there is still the same amount of sweat being produced!! We have changed location. We are now based at the other side of the village, amongst a new community of Hindus who are quite intrigued by us and Zoë’s whiteness!! We are in a church, well, it’s just a brick little building, no windows, bricks missing, and a sand floor, but really we had quite a nice nights rest, apart from the fact that we are first awoken at 5.30am, when the others wake up, though to keep to my routine…I still only get up at 7am, and there was a funny whining animal outside, we don’t know what it was, but it was loud!! The pastor of this church even got a toilet made for us and seems that we are the only ones using it, well it’s just the hole…but it’s quite welcome, I mean, in the morning…we were greeted by people looking in though the holes in the walls and the door, even older men…and all through the day to so I don’t really want to imagine what it would be like if we didn’t have a sort of closed toilet!!

The teaching is going well, there are still children coming so that is always a blessing and they are getting friendlier and friendlier with us too so that is great and they enjoy coming and we enjoy being with them! For nursery class we came loaded with toothbrushes as most of these kids don’t have one or know how to use one and their teeth are in a pitiful state...and the lollipops that we have been given them are surely not going to improve the state of them. Seems that word spread in the village and several people asked me for another toothbrush for their other children…good job I took extras. For the afternoon class someone produced a football and so there was a really fun game of that….so I was able to show them a few of my moves…which for some reason shocked and amazed them…I have to say… that I did come away with some aches and pains…especially as you don’t wear shoes! But it was fun!

We are quite happy at the fact that we have been placed in the church. It gives us the opportunity to be with others as well as keeping up the other relationships of course, but these people we hadn’t seen before and it seems as though they are also more Hindu too. The Christian lady who cooks with us didn’t want to bring her child far up the road to catch up with us because she doesn’t usually go there because they don’t like Christians, and there is the Hindu temple there also. But so far they have been quite welcoming to us and have even cooked for us a couple of times and come and sit outside and chat. I must say…that this time, despite this great opportunity…I spent most of the time sad and grumpy…leaving most of the work to Zoë, who did a great job in spite of my silliness. I found out that I had gotten more money stolen again, and it just got me down, as I was thinking that after all this time, well, that they were like friends and they respected us and stuff and to our faces they are happy to see us and everything but then behind my back they are still stealing so it was a little bit of a disappointment for me and I let it have the better of me, wondering whether anything had changed, or if what I was doing was having any fruit or doing anything.… so I must really learn now not to be moved by the circumstances in a negative way but to hold fast to my faith and focus on Jesus and still love the people even though I don’t always find it in me to, but I must find it in God. It’s not always easy, but as Zoë says, it’s a choice I have to make, not to be grumpy and not to listen to the lies of the devil!

We were able to talk and pray with one of the Hindu mothers of one of the girls in nursery who had a tumour in her leg removed and it left her limping quite badly, but she let us share and pray and it was a successful meeting, we just pray for miracles and God to move in these people so as to be a testimony to the others and so that they also will recognize the love and power of God…apart from this woman, we also went to a boy from nurseries house and were also able to pray and talk there too. So there are actually many new relationships being created, and also with the nursery teacher and her expansive family, who each time we met with them or even saw them, would make us sit and give us papaya or mangoes that they would just pull off the tree oblivious to whether they were ripe or not!! So, I guess, as I write this, I do actually see some fruit coming about, and that it’s not a waste of time and energy going to this area…we’ve been given a great opportunity….and must take advantage of the fact that we can go there, and see these people and share God with them, otherwise they just won’t know and it’s a good training ground for the other things to come.

This week we were supposed to go to Trincomalee, but I was told that someone was ready for me to meet them regarding starting an application for my passport…we were told Monday…and then Thursday…and now Saturday…so seems like we are stuck here for the week, which was a bit of a shame seeming as we cancelled the trip to Batticaloa for the meeting as it’s quite important really…and then so now, instead we got Zoë’s visa renewed, took our friend Shantana to Mc Donalds! And hopefully we will be using the week wisely!

The oddity is that we have found some nice big animals a bit like cats…but not like cats living in my room…they have been squatting here taking advantage of the space they can have whilst I am away…seems by the way that they were looking at us that they thought that we were the squatters. There used to be a mother of a meter long, and two babies, and now just the mother and baby because the other baby got caught and then given to a friend for them to eat…a human friend…they are also called, I am told, the golden palm civet.

ps. will put the pics up next time I get time!