Crafts at Bath Spa

Some Raku Results

The last three days at Bath Spa Uni have been great fun. I'm not used to being all arty and experimental, but I was forced to be by our excellent ceramics teacher as he showed us just how many possibilities there are with slip casting and Raku.

Katy and I now need to figure out an appropriate technology version of slip-casting for Neema as some of the resources (such as deflocculant!) may be hard to come by.  Raku firing definitely seemed more appropriate however, and we are looking forward to seeing what we can do with Neema's mud kiln. 

Katy's day of book-binding went well, with very professional looking results. If anyone has an old bookbinding press lying around then we'd love to find a use for it! Otherwise I'm sure can make our own out there.

I have just added a links section to this blog. Katy's website is worth a look >>>

Prayer Update – August 2010

Hi and welcome to our first blog! We hope to keep you updated each month with what's been going on and what you can pray for as we look to move to Neema Crafts, Tanzania in April. 


Latest News

Some of the Core Trainees 

In July, we completed our ‘Core Training’ with CMS at All Nations Christian College in Hertfordshire. This was an intense fortnight of workshops and seminars that focussed on understanding different cultural value systems (and reflecting on our own) , creating successful communities and giving us practical advice for mission.

One of the best aspects of the fortnight was to live in community with other partners in mission and to hear their testimonies. Throughout the week we broke into smaller prayer groups and we were staggered by the number of specific prayer requests for each other we saw answered.

The Neema Crafts Stall 

Having finished our Core training, Katy and I headed north to Newark, where we spent the week selling Neema Crafts products at the market place. It was great to see how popular the Neema products were. The highlight of the week was spending each evening with Andy and Susie Hart (the founders of Neema) and hearing their incredible stories from Tanzania. The low point came when our two man tent flooded very early one morning! Fortunately, a couple from St Marks, Harrogate rescued us with a more waterproof one.

Theo (2) and Amy (9)

Katy and I have since been in Cornwall for a week with my family where we spent nearly every day on the beach playing cricket and digging holes with our nieces and nephews.

The Next Few Weeks

On Friday, Katy and I will meet with our new committee members to discuss future plans for Neema. It will be really important that this is group is able to have the vision and wisdom to guide Neema in the directions God would have it go in the future. 

My No.7 Plane 

Next week we will be going to Bath Spa University to learn about slip casting, book-binding and raku-firing; all useful practical training for Neema! I will then complete my final week cabinet making at Williams and Cleal and Katy will finish her screen-prints for her business - www.katyray.co.uk. After this we have a 3 day Business Link course to attend and on the 22^nd of September we will be moving to All Nations to begin our ‘En Route’ missions training.

Prayer points:

Please pray with us...

• That we can have a successful first committee meeting and the new members can feel inspired and excited about helping us to steer Neema in the future.
• That we have teachable spirits and pick up useful skills for Neema.
• That God can lead us into making the right decision on the future of Katy’s business
  
• That our move to All Nations goes smoothly

Thank you for you support.