"And it feels like his new life can start and it feels like heaven" Noah and the Whale

This week we announced some very exciting news at church which is why we feel like a new life can start...

We are moving to Mombassa in January!  As you can imagine this has not been an overnight decision but one where the story began a very long time ago. 

You have seen a glimpse of our time at Tumaini on this blog but more can be seen on www.educationforlife.net  Ever since Lynda was young and John was a little bit older we have wanted to go and serve in Africa.  Lynda went to Uganda at the age of 17 and John went to Nigeria in 2004.  We both have a passion for helping those who have not been as fortunate as us and both feel drawn to serve God on that Continent.  We reached a point of wanting to explore this further but not really being able to make any decisions until we knew how African life would suit the boys.  We were blown away when an amazing couple said they would pay for our trip so we could explore this decision further.  Before our trip  we prayed that God would reveal to us whether we should move out to Kenya for a longer period of time.  Amazingly He couldn’t have made it any clearer!  Mikey and David coped so well and actually it was them that settled first, crossing any cultural barriers with a football!  They made so many friends and loved their experience there.  These are some words written by a member of staff at Tumaini

“DearMikeDavid,
I just feel I have to say this words to you, you may not have realised that you have been a big blessing in Tumaini, I would like to say a big thank you for being disciplined to the elder people and young one's, you have just been lovely and you left a good record behind,Mike everyone around admires your intelligence, keep on blessing the world with your good behaviour, am sure God had a purpose for you coming here, it wasn't just a trip. My God Bless you in all you do and your future plans”

We don’t share those words to show off our boys (although we were very proud of them) but to give you some idea of quite how well the boys did settle in!  When we were there we saw so many things that confirmed that this was indeed part of God’s plan for us, and coming back and talking to people has helped us to come to the realisation that we are being drawn back to Tumaini.  Our decision to go to Kenya for 18months from January has been made!  We are so thankful that John’s boss has agreed to keep his job open for him.

Needless to say we are very excited about this opportunity and we are making plans to go rapidly (Lynda has gone a bit list crazy!).  We hope to go early January and the plan is that Lynda will work in the office.  This will support the founder missionaries Glyn and Jane so they can be released to do the many other things that they are called to.  John will be doing some staff training in the school, teaching Mikey and David and be greatly involved with the leadership of the church.

We hope you our loyal blog readers will share in our dream of working and living in Africa.  We hope our news encourages you as you read how God has been at work. Amazingly even though Education for Life is a relatively small charity we have links with the trustees – one couple being in our church at St Luke’s and another couple were like our surrogate parents at St Thomas’s when we were students in Lancaster.  It is incredible to think how God has been at work over all those years even when we didn’t know!

If you would like to receive a regular prayer update email please let us know as this would be greatly appreciated and valued above all things!  As we will be working for a charity we will receive no salary and so will be raising our own financial support.  We have complete faith that God will provide as we have been so blessed to see how He has provided for us in the past.  Of course if you would like to help us financially as well then that would be awesome.

When we were in Tumaini in the summer it felt like so many dreams were becoming a reality and now even more so!  I was reminded at church on Sunday how many years ago some friends prayed about my dreams of going to Africa.  At the time it seemed a total impossiblity as I was suffering badly with fybromyalgia and had very little children.... so how amazing is it that now it is actually going to happen and we are all thrilled!  As the reality kicks in the challenges do feel hard at times and the boys will be very sad to leave their friends in Nottingham.  However in moments of fear and doubt we remember all that we will be going to and all our friends at Tumaini and the excitement soon takes over again!