A new year with new ideas.......

Hello everyone and a very Happy New Year to you all!  I hope that the new year brings you much joy and peace.

Today is a public holiday so I thought I would take the opportunity of updating the blog as I haven't done it since before Christmas.  On Christmas Eve I went to an African Nativity which was really quite well done, although due to the late start (African time) it went on late into the evening.  Here you can see Mary looking very perplexed as Joseph wants nothing to do with her after hearing she is pregnant!

and Joseph in a dilemma as he doesn't understand how Mary could have betrayed him as he loves her so much...

Of course no drama of the nativity is complete without angels...........

and being an African nativity, we had a few traditional dancers thrown in too!!

All in all it was a great show, and the traditional aspects really made it a true African nativity!

Christmas day dawned bright and sunny and as has become a sort of tradition I had a barbeque in the garden with some friends. Here you can see Luso and her family - with the baby Asimeye who is now grown up so much!!

Fidelis is with me for the holidays and he had some of his friends over on Christmas day too...

Asimenye is very busy carrying things to Dad...

When the children are there, we always have to play pin the tail on the donkey...this is Nicolas looking for the donkey which was stuck to this tree.....he did find it eventually!

And no this is not someone from the Taureg in North Africa come to visit us, but it is blessings with the blindfold tied on very creatively!

Pass the parcel is also a favourite and Pemphero got the prize which maybe was not what he would have wanted - a teddy bear!!

Well its now 2013 and Nicolas and I have been making plans for the first quarter of the year in terms of Early Childhood Development.  We are planning to have an induction ceremony for the ECD Board at the end of January and then they can assist us in planning. However, we hope to do some material making workshops with our trainers so that they can be more creative in the things they make with caregivers.  Thanks to people in Ireland sending scraps of material in the training boxes, we spent a couple of days this week looking at various soft toys we could make and then making them.  Even Nicolas made an elephant - you can see him here concentrating hard.........

a tortoise...

a funky chicken...

a frog or possibly a toad as it is quite large......

I am very fussy about the sewing that we do  because we want these toys to be sturdy enough for young children so that they don't pull them apart and eat the stuffing!!

and Nicolas's elephant.........

We have had some good rains in the last couple of weeks.  However, in the south of the country there has been a lot of flooding and many people have lost their homes and crops.    Here the maize is growing well and in my garden this week I have a lot of mushrooms growing - not advisable to eat them I think.  Many of the mushrooms here are edible but I am not sure which are and which are not so I just stay clear of them.  Every year we have many people admitted to hospital due to eating the wrong type of mushrooms.  I must say they do look beautiful in the garden though.

So, its a new year and although I did not make any new year resolutions, we have begun the year with new ideas for the Early Childhood office.  We will be visiting some Presbyteries to sensitize them on Early Childhood and how they can best assist us in congregations; we hope to have workshops with our trainers in material making; we hope to be able to complete another phase of our building project so that possible one class will be able to move to the new site.  In all of this we ask for God's guidance and provision and blessing on our work.  

I had the privilege of being the first person to preach in St Andrew's church on the first Sunday of 2013.  Our theme for the month is 'being sure of our calling and salvation'.  It is the first time I have been asked to preach (probably due to our new minister who I know quite well), but I did enjoy the experience very much.

I also hope to complete my studies in early 2013 and will spend the rest of today writing up my dissertation.  

I hope you also have good plans for 2013 and trust that God will bless you wherever you are.  Thanks for all the positive comments - please keep them coming.

Blessings and love,

Diane

New life at Christmas......

Hello everyone,

Hope you have all had a good week, no doubt full of shopping and frantic searching for Christmas gifts.  Yesterday, I found we have sparkling lights at our small roundabout here in Mzuzu - I think that is the total of the Christmas decorations here in Mzuzu!!

I had a busy week as usual but now am on holidays for two whole weeks!!    Nicolas and I travelled to Dwangwa this week to have a meeting with the Presbytery leaders (ministers and session clerks) about Early Childhood Development and how we can assist each other to support our ECD centres especially in the rural areas.  It was a terrible day weatherwise as it poured down all the way to Dwangwa (about a 3 hour drive) and we dodged the lightning or at least it seemed that way!  However, we arrived safely and had a good meeting.

After having heavy rains, there is much new life developing as everything grows at double the speed in the heat and damp.  Here you can see just a few pictures of the fruits from my garden!

lemons

avocados

guavas

pawpaw or papaya

oranges

and the flowers in the garden.........

and of course the rains bring out the bugs and the animals too.  This morning this friendly creature decided to come into the house...........there are so many snails around at the moment and they are enormous.  There is nothing worse than waking up in the morning, opening the curtain and finding this enormous snail sticking to your window!  Maybe something to think about for Christmas dinner instead of turkey!

On Friday, we had the last day at work and so a Christmas get together was organised with a women's netball match and a men's football match!  I was the photographer, never having played netball in my life!!  (I was a hockey player!)

Mrs Gausi the Deputy Education Secretary 

the ladies in action!

the men being very patriotic singing the National Anthem before they begin!

Of course, these big people playing football attracted a lot of children and they began to copy and have a game on their own!!

and we also had an acrobat show........

for those of you who know Nicolas, that's him on the left...

After the sports we had a party all together which was also great fun.  We had a

competition to see who could drink a bottle of soda the fastest.  On the left here is one of my teachers, Judy.  She did not win but another teacher Gift won!  

the eyes of victory!!

and so that you know I was actually there, here I am with Mirriam my good friend and mentor here in Malawi!!

I hope that wherever you are in the world you also have a time to celebrate as we celebrate the birth of Jesus.  I will  be getting together with some friends, going to church and having some food and fellowship together afterwards.

Wishing you a Christmas full of joy, love, peace and hope.

Blessings,

Diane x