At KOP it's been a busy time giving out various items of uniform and schools books. And I thought it was about time I shared some photos. On the left is Tekwaz and Janet in their uniforms. Getting them to smile was a challenge, so you'll just have to settle for a serious picture. They were very happy to receive their cardigans! Thank you so so much to all those who have been busy knitting! Your tireless efforts are very much appreciated!

This week we've started the mamouth task of giving out shoes. I can guarantee that tomorrow we will have massive queues and many (who have shoes) will turn up barefoot.....they don't realise that my record keeping has been quite good so I know exactly who is and who isn't entitled! Once again a huge thank you to those who have donated, I would like to particularly say thank you to the pupils of Wolverhampton Girls' High School - you are making a lot of people very happy - even tears of joy and thankfulness have been shed!!!
  
A container recently arrived from Denmark and we have been blessed with more clothes than I know what to do with. There are so many I don't have the space to keep them all in our office. Many many thanks to those of you who packed and sent them. Clothes distribution will begin when we have finished with the shoes. The carpenters here at Kaniki are busy building KOP new shelves so that I can organise all the clothes. 

For years I lived in Zambia and craved good ice-cream, there was one restaurant that used to sell good chocolate sundaes but even they suddenly stopped much to my disappointment.  Well, now things have changed... we have an ice-cream maker (actually a wedding present from my brother that only just made it out to Zambia) and a MasterChef cookbook and they are fantastic!  In fact we even have a food processor (a gift from Gemma's parents) so we are in full swing.  To the left is a picture of the richest, yummiest dessert I have ever made, let me talk you through it...  At the bottom is a chocolate rice-crispie cake made with chocolate and condensed milk, on top of that is chocolate mousse - but I don't think I whipped the cream enough when making it and so it was a little runnier than intended (If you have a MasterChef Kitchen Bible you can check out the recipe on page 214).  Anyway, seeing as the glass was still half-empty (I chose to look at it that way) I decided to add some of my homemade Indian Ice-cream as an extra layer and then added yet another layer of chocolate/coffee sorbet.  I have a good Ice-cream recipe book that I am also working my way through by the way.  Don't get me wrong, while our freezer does have 3 different types of ice-cream in it currently (the latest being extreme chocolate) I have only spent about £6 so far and am only eating any of it when we have guests for dinner which is less than once a week on average!  The point is I am loving my new toys and books!!

This weekend I also enjoyed trying out a telescopic fishing rod that Gemma's dad gave me. I don't have a great record on catching fish but on Sunday enjoyed some success.  I still want to catch much bigger fish but for just an hour's effort I felt that the 2 I caught were good enough.  Though small, they were big enough to grill and eat.  Actually there was enough for 6 of us to all have a taste.  Trying to gut them did appreciate afresh my mum's efforts in preparing 20 Mackrel that we caught sea-fishing when I was about 11 or 12.. she prepared them all in our tent with just a butter knife and a bowl of water!!  I still have many skills to learn, but it's a good start.

All the team bought Zambian shirts to watch the game and it was great to be part of what I think is the best final I have ever seen!  Our nephew, Zak, also wore his Zambian football shirt in celebration of this great victory.  After the whole Zambian football team died in 1993 in Gabon when their plane crashed, this victory in the same place holds special significance!!!!

The parties continued all through the night as Zambian won the African Cup of Nations. It was an amazing game,  with Zambia winning 8-7 on penalties. It was tense.... people even passing out from the stress - I kid you not!It was also great to see that their first response was to thank God and sing  'Kalombo Mwane'
It was great and many people are enjoying a day off to celebrate!

On Tuesday in the KOP office an elderly grandmother asked me if I could come and pray for her granddaughter who had been sick with a mystery illness for a few weeks. So on Tuesday afternoon I headed up to Kamalasha (a little township up the road which came about because of the ease of making money through smuggling stuff across the border into DR Congo) with two of the students from Kaniki. We met with Mrs Chumba (KOP volunteer and Kamalasha Village mother) and she took us to the house. The house was small, two-roomed and made from mud bricks. We went inside the darkroom - the only light coming in from a small triangular window about 20cm at the widest point. We prayed with the girl, nothing particularly eventful happened. but as we were finishing the heavens opened and an almighty thunderstorm began. Consequently we stayed in the house and were chatting with the girl and her grandmother, and that's when the story, and the root of the problem came out. It made me realise afresh how much of a different world we live in in the west.

The grandmother explained how last year her elder sister was murdered by her  twin brother as a satanic ritual sacrifice. I'll spare you many of the details of the tale as I don't think it's appropriate to write it here, but since this incident occurred there have been all kinds of crazy goings on.....such as coming home to find the house full of dead bodies, people who aren't real people (spirit beings which they can see) coming in and raping the granddaughter on a regular basis etc - things which are inconceivable to a western mindset. We agreed to come back today, Saturday.

We arrived at Mrs Chumba's house to find a lady trying to commit suicide with a knife - she had suspected her husband (who is a teacher at the local school) of having an affair. Something happened which made her decide that she was going to report it to the police. When she arrived at the police station she saw her husband canoodling with a female police officer - the lady she'd suspected! They came to Mrs Chumba's to sort it out, but there was a massive fight, her only conclusion was to take her own life.

I had to leave the students to come back for a birthday gathering, so I don't know what happened with the girl and her grandmother from Wednesday.....life here is just something else!

The AQ team has been taking packets of cement out to Kamfinsa this week to encourage the church to keep working on Pastor Albert's house.  Tim went out there on Wednesday to continue teaching the Freedom In Christ material after almost 3 months absence.  It was pretty encouraging as almost 20 adults turned up to join in the course and this was a really key session for them all to hear.  In the West the devil has worked hard to convince people he doesn't exist, in Zambia he has a different tactic - to convince everyone he is much more powerful than he really is.  The church was quite encouraged to hear that they actually can resist his schemes fairly easily - know the truth and the truth will set you free, then continue to stand in that truth and stay free!  I'm enjoying teaching them a lot.  Teaching with the AQ team and the KBUC students is also going really well.  This week I did 10 hours of teaching and about the same in preparation and marking - I'm only setting the KBUC students assignments but as there are 60 of them this year that's a fair bit to mark, the good thing is that I actually have time to mark it thoroughly here which is actually pretty satisfying. 

When we came home last year it would be fair to say that we were exhausted. The last two years have been draining physically, spiritually and emotionally. We'd been living life as a sprint. It doesn't take a genius to work out that you can't live life that way.