Feb/March Latest

Meeting Bishop Joseph

Bishop Joseph and his wife Lillian

A few weeks back now Katy and I were able to meet with our new boss, Bishop Joseph Mgomi, who is the newly enthroned Bishop of Ruaha. We were also pleased to meet with his wife Lillian, with whom we were able to practise our basic Kiswahili. It was an opportune time to see them while they were staying with St John’s Church, Egham for a couple of nights after a Bishops’ training conference in Canterbury. 

Bishop Joseph was very positive about the work of Neema Crafts and is excited about the prospect of having many new guests to the Diocese through the new Neema Guest House. He was also keen for visitors to go on Safari in the nearby Ruaha National Park.

It is a tough time for the Diocese as poor rains over the last few seasons have crippled the agricultural productivity in the region. This has meant that the mostly rural parishioners are having to survive on very little. Please pray for the region in the coming months and years that it would begin to see the regular rainfall that it used to.

Church Circus

Outside Broome Church, Norfolk

This month, Katy and I have visited St Mary’s church, Ealing; St Andrews Church, Chinnor; St Mary’s Church Sydenham; St James’ Church, Chipping Campden and St Michael’s Church, Broome (Norfolk).

We have been so blessed by the warm welcome received at each of these churches and really appreciate all of the encouragement folk have been through buying from the Neema stall and committing to pray for the work of the project.

We also spoke at the Putnoe Beaver-scout colony this Friday where my sister is known as ‘Eagle’. The beavers were most interested in the concept of paper made from elephant poo and discovering that the Lion King names were real Swahili words: E.g: Simba (Lion), Pumba (Warthog) and Rafiki (friend).

Tools for Tanzania

The Brick Hill Baptist Team and another container

I spent a couple of days this week driving around country with my brother-in-law and his ex-Parcel Force van. We were picking up the many and various woodworking tools, generously donated by folk from our link churches. We now have enough good quality tools to set-up a quite a decent workshop at Neema.

Another great answer to prayer this week was discovering ‘Operation Tanzania,’ an initiative run by volunteers from the Brick Hill Baptist Church in Bedford. This church send out a shipping container to Tanzania every 10 months, stuffed with useful supplies from medical equipment through to tools and toys.

I was amazed when I first contacted the project that they immediately agreed to send out all of our equipment directly to Iringa, for very little payment. They are even storing the equipment for me while I gather up the rest of what is needed, Praise the Lord!

Week 5 Already!

The term has been rolling on at quite a pace since our last blog post.

We now only have one week left of our development module, but we have found the reading and discussions really helpful. As I mentioned previously some of our study has been taken from Bryant Myer's book 'Walking with the Poor'. In this he proposes the idea that poverty is about broken relationships, broken relationships between us and others, our community, our environment, ourselves and ultimately God. In this sense we are all impoverished until we begin to put our trust in Jesus who is able to reconcile these relationships.

Bath Time

At the end of January we were back in Bath as we had an important presentation to make to our home church missions committee (the WiSE team). We also used the Sunday to feedback what we had been doing to the three services at Holy Trinity Combe Down. It was a great opportunity to catch up with friends from Monkton and our home church. We really enjoyed staying with the Udale Smiths who have an annex to their house especially for returning Mission Partners! We will be sure to find lots of reasons to come back to Bath now, especially as the annex includes an outside hot-tub!

A Good Year

A couple of weeks back we were able to attend the Neema Crafts UK trustees meeting. It was great to see how much interest and support for Neema has been generated this year in the UK and very exciting to read the Hart's review of the year which I include below:

“This has been a big year for Neema Crafts with visits from the BBC, The Times and the National Geographic Magazine as well as several Tanzanian government ministers and senior officials. Neema Crafts has been honoured with two major awards: Neema Crafts Restaurant was voted ‘Best Restaurant in the World’ in the Telegraph Newspaper ‘Best of British’ competition. Neema beat over 600 nominated establishments from all over the globe. This is a huge honour for a restaurant entirely run by deaf chefs and waiters who a few years ago had no training and no hope of employment. Susie Hart, founder of Neema Crafts, was named one of four ‘Women of the Year’ at the prestigious Women of the Year lunch at the Intercontinental Hotel in Park Lane, London, in front of a selected audience of 450 of the most influential women in the country. Susie was nominated for the award by Sandi Toksvig and Maureen Lipman in recognition of the work she and Andrew have done in Tanzania on behalf of the disabled community."

This was taken from the Neema Crafts UK annual report which can be found on the charities commission website: http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/

You can also follow the latest news from Neema by signing up to the Neema Crafts group on Facebook.

First week back

Katy and I have now settled on our modules for this our second term at ANCC. Katy is studying 'The Hebrew Bible', I am looking at 'Bible in Mission' and we are both taking a course on 'Interpersonal Skills' which includes lessons in public speaking and listening to others - the latter being something Katy would love to see me develop.

Worth a read

Our main focus this term will be on the Development module, which is actually part of the MA course at ANCC, but we are able to sit in and 'audit'. We don't officially have to compete the assignment for this module, but we have decided that we'd like to use the  opportunity to research models and principles of development that might specifically apply to Neema, with the objective of arriving at a few proposals for the future of the project. Our first couple of days in this module have been fascinating. We are doubly blessed with knowledgeable and experienced teacher and fellow class-mates from six different nationalities - meaning we are never far from a lively debate.

Pray for Sudan

The college has been praying particularly for the referendum in Sudan this week and while the votes are now being counted we continue to pray for a peaceful outcome. Please join with us in prayer for wise decisions that may have to be made over oil resources and the administration of a new state.  Pray also for the church in northern Sudan as many Christians move south with the desire to build a better future.

Heart to Harts

Susie Hart and someone else 

On Tuesday evening we both travelled down to Kent to meet with Andy and Susie Hart before they flew off to Tanzania for their final term out there. Not surprisingly, we found them in the midst of a hundreds of bags of various states of packing, most filled with useful gadgets an oojamaflips to keep life running in the workshop, internet cafe and award winning restaurant. Both Susie and Andy have an uncanny ability to be utterly captivating in conversation and from the moment we stepped through the door we were drawn in to a world of adventures and tales from their past year or so; of the sort most people would spread out over a life time. During our time we were able to ask lots of questions about what we could expect when we arrive out there later this year. We also spent time together dreaming about the future of the project and where we might aim to take things over the next 5 - 10 years. One thing is for certain, there will be plenty more adventures to be had.

Yorkshire Tales


Friday afternoon we set off up the M1 to visit missionary friends of Katy's from her gap year in 2003. Here we reminisced about life in Tanz and later met Kathy Grace, a designer friend of theirs who had visited Neema recently. Kathy has offered to help us improve the style of our blog and Neema's web presence in the future.

Our stop off in Leeds was the first leg of a long weekend's itinerary that David Macha (an old friend) had planned for us in the Dales. Our first task was to run a craft activity for an unknown number of  kids in the local community hall. We decided to do some T-shirt printing with and African theme, and so using Katy's silk screens and large quantities of ink we set up the hall in hope of people coming. We weren't disappointed and in fact we had a more children than expected, but with the help of parents, some great prints were produced!

Shortly after this we were, driven off around many Postman Pat lanes to meet parishioners from St Michael's church Grassington. This was a lovely occasion and we were able to meet our advocate Cath who had travelled out to Neema earlier this year.

After we'd talked about Neema late into the night, we were back on duty early the following morning to visit two of David's seven churches. Apart from almost setting fire to the place with the projector, our first visit to St Peter's, Hebdon went well. We were then left with 15 minutes to get over to St Michaels (10mins away), leaving us very little time to set up. Nevertheless, the Lord helped everything to work and we really enjoyed speaking to a full church and following the special Kenyan liturgy that David had found for the day. The choir too, treated us to a round of 'There's no-one like Jesus' in Kiswahili - most impressive.

St Michael's Church, Linton

It was great to meet folk after the service and as ever the Neema crafts proved a great hit. David and I were able to run off after the service to watch his son's rugby team Wharfedale see off the opposition with some ease.

At the end of our marathon weekend we were finally treated to time with the Macha family: David, Elaine, Sam, Jess and Jonny. We are so pleased to see that they are enjoying their new lives in Yorkshire having moved back from living in Tanz not too long ago.

We now have the deepest respect for rural C of E vicars who have to juggle the needs of so many churches!

Happy 2011!

We hope you had an enjoyable Christmas. Katy and I have spent the last month travelling around the country and spending good times with family and friends for our last Christmas before heading out to Tanzania (God willing).

Katy Cold Christmas Market Stall

Katy was back at her market stall in Greenwich in the run-up to Christmas and stood for many hours in the freezing cold enduring repetitive Christmas muzak. The snow disrupted what should have been the busiest shopping weekend of the year, but fortunately she didn’t make quite the losses of her competitors John Lewis and Selfridges.  If you are looking to decorate soon, we can give you a good deal on the website price list! Email: Katy@kjray.co.uk

Katy was un-able to join me on our visit to St James Hill, Sutton Coldfield as she had the coughing cold that seems to be going around. Nevertheless, I was given a warm welcome by folk at the church and was encouraged by the friendly conversations over our Neema Crafts stall.

Off sledging in Bradgate Park

This was the first year Katy and I have attempted to cook a family Christmas lunch. After 30+ years of  spending Christmas day in the kitchen we offered my Mum a well earned break. I couldn’t believe quite how much preparation and planning was involved. Fortunately, Katy took care of most of this. I was just careful to obey orders and offer a hand when the enormous turkey needed hoisting out of the oven – it had one of those pop-up timer things embedded in it which helped to ensure no one was poisoned. On reflection, Christmas day isn’t much of a holiday when you’re cooking and I think I’ll give it another 30 years before attempting it again.

Having celebrated Christmas Eve with my family, we headed up the motorway to Katy’s parents in Leicestershire. We were just in time to join John Woolmer (Katy’s Dad) give the midnight communion at the local parish church. I rubbed my inward hands with glee as I saw a few visitors wander in from the pub, quite unaware of the mind-blowing testimonies of angelic visitation and Christian conversion that would be shared later. John referred to his book ‘Encounters’ during a gospel-loaded sermon and we were pleased to see that all of the free copies of this book were taken at the end of the service.

It was so special for us to have a white Chistmas before we head out to Africa. We were able to go tobogganing twice on Christmas day in Bradgate Park. We were all shocked when my Mother-in-law Jane consistently overtook us on every hill….see video for evidence… she’s cutting the straight path down the middle! 

We spent New Year’s Eve with our close friends Pete and Amy who run Pulse Ministries – an organisation that runs childrens’ holiday clubs and events for training and youth and children’s leaders. See http://www.pulseministries.org.uk if your church might be interested,

Since then we have continued to travel across the country visiting friends and family. I have picked up two large boxes of tools in recent weeks that will be greatly appreciated at the Neema Crafts workshop. If you happen to know anyone else who is clearing their workshop we are looking for woodworking tools, specifically: chisels, hand-planes, marking gauges, tenon or dovetail saws and metal rulers. It would also be great to find a wood lathe!

We are now back at All Nations and I have already been persuaded to start training for a half-marathon... I don't know if Katy's committing yet, but watch this space to see which we do! 

December Prayer Update

Finishing Enroute

This Saturday Katy and I bid farewell to ten other members of our enroute course, who are all now heading off to their various places of calling, from Argentina to Ethiopia! We became very close to these guys over the last month and it was sad to see them go.

Katy was not so sad to say goodbye to the moustache I had been nurturing during the month of ‘Movember’ - I can't think why! 

Christmas Market

We have been running Katy’s stall again down in a wintry Greenwich Market this week. It's been a great place to spot Christmas presents when business is slow. 

Link Visits

Veteran Cars outside Immanuel, Streatham

Last month we enjoyed our visits to two of our link churches Immanuel, Streatham and St Mary’s, Charnwood. We had a slow but entertaining journey through London on our way to Immanuel as we were caught up in the London to Brighton veteran car run. Despite an average speed of four miles an hour we were pulled over by the police on suspision of having stolen our car – it must have been the extra facial hair!

Neema on Vimeo

The Neema Crafts Centre

While back in the UK for their furlough, Andy and Susie Hart have been working tirelessly to raise the support they need for a new guesthouse at Neema Crafts. When they arrived back in September their target was £50K, they are now only £5K off this figure (PTL!). The guesthouse should encourage much-needed tourists through the centre.

It is well worth viewing the latest short videos about Neema Crafts on the Vimeo website: http://vimeo.com/15281476

If the link doesn’t work search for ‘Neema Crafts’ on www.vimeo.com

Prayer and Praise:

• Praise God for our tutors on the en route course who have supported us so well and for all of the top quality teaching we have received over the last 10 weeks
•  Praise God for helping Andy and Susie to raise money for the guesthouse.
•  Thank God for all the woodworking tools people have been generously passing on to us for the new workshop – pray this continues!

• Pray for all those heading out to their mission fields after Christmas, that they would be protected and sustained in their work.
• Pray for Andy and Susie Hart as they prepare to head back to Neema in January. 
• Pray we choose the right courses to study in our second term at ANCC.

Thank you for taking the time to pray for us and the work of Neema, you are a vital member of the team.

Love Ben and Katy X

Kirby Muxloe

This Sunday we really enjoyed our visit to St Andrew's church of the Kirby Muxloe Benefice. A friendlier congregation would be hard to find.

Speaking from the Anglican Lectionary was a new experience for me, but fortunately it was Ephesians 1 for All Saints Day which happens to be a favourite passage of mine. There were three ordained ministers on hand in case I slipped into heresy though.

Through a contact we made at Kirby Muxloe we hope to link up with 'Tools for Self Reliance' which is an organisation that collects old tools, repairs them and then sends them to developing world countries. However, if you happen to have any old chisels, planes or tenon saws that you don't mind sending on to Neema do let me know...the older they are the better.

Movember

All over campus this month men are disgruntling their wives by growing moustaches to raise money to fight prostate cancer. The annual event is called 'Movember' and has as one of its slogans 'every man deserves a little luxury' (see: http://www.uk.movember.com/). This is to appologise for any extra facial hair if we are visiting your church over the next few weeks.

 

Be still and know...  (from Katy)

Every term each pupil and staff member at All Nations College keeps the tradition of Week 5 ‘Quiet Day’. It’s just as you might expect, all the students are asked to keep this day in silence as a time for reflection prayer and Bible Study. All lessons, activities and duties are stopped for 24hrs, where even spouses are encouraged not to talk to one another. As you can imagine, some people find it harder than others!

As a ‘reflector’ on one of our latest personality type tests I embraced the day and loved the stillness and harmony of the campus. Just for a brief moment, all busyness and hurry stopped, as we took time to seek God. I just hope we are able to keep this important discipline once we have left All Nations.

Scarecut

The ultimate test of faith in one's marriage is to allow your spouse to cut your hair. As there will be few hairdressers trained in cutting 'wazungu' hair in Tanzania we are having a couple of practical lessons. This week it fell to me to give Katy's barnet a trim. After a brief demonstration from an experienced hairdresser, I was let us loose with the clippers.

While other couples around us got on with combing and cutting in quiet harmony, Katy was less assured of my capabilities as a coiffure. An hour of intense concentration followed, and not a small amount of front-seat driving, but I think you'll agree the style I have named the 'asymmetric bob' quite suits Katy.

Next week Katy gets her own back...