Outreach weeks 6-8

we moved 30 mins down the road to Kikatiti and our school leader Misaki's brand new house which was probably the first African owned house I've been to that i could actually live in, it had tiled floor and everything! However a lack of outside space did mean we were very much on top of each other!!
The first week mininsty was at a church 40 mins down the road and the walk in the mid-day heat was not fun! However we got lunch and we helped complile and distribute chirstmas packages of basic foods for the local people! We also ran crusades at the church and really got to integrate with the local boys dancing african style, i really had a WOW i love Africa moment that night as i lookde out over the plains towards the mountains as the sun set- some things you just don't get in england!
Christmas in Africa was certainly an experience, chirstmas eve we stayed up doing hair and playing christmas songs till 2am! Christmas day we got up at 6am to clean the house, sort rice, seperating out stones and chaff and doing our daily duty of collecting a 20 litre bucket of water and carrying it on our head! We then spent 2 1/2 hours in church at a thanksgiving (not Christmas) service and then spent the rest of the day at the ceremonial opening of the house! Boxing day however was way more Christmasy, we had presents under the tree and did our secret santa!! i got a scarf, necklance and earings as well as a load of biscuits and sweets :) thank you Peacey :) A few of us then went to a hotel and laid buy the pool and got lasagne and garlic bread!! That evening we watched movies and relaxing which added to the chirstmas spirit!
Our second and third weeks we worked with the local church in town, we joined with them for our weekly prayer and fasting and it was really good to take sometime to specifically prayer for home :) We spent a few mornings spiritual mapping/ prayer walking. During wich i watched a boy chase a chicken, visitefd a clinic to pray with mums and babies and visited a catholi8c priest's house and ministry. We also did seminars in the church during the afternoons and had some more film shows.
We had our first storm since being in tanzania, boy did it rain we were running around outside trying to fill up barrells to collect the precious water, it did save a trip to collect wateer the next day!
We also visited an orphanage twice, they have 6 kids there all pre-school aged yet they sang and recited Biblle verses for us in English and swahili. The orphanage was really nice and the children really had their own space with only 2 in a room and they had wall alphabet charts in english and swahili!
New years eve was spent in church, we had prayer, worship, a skit and dance upto 11 and then me, Katie and Becca celebrated the new year with mountain dew and biscuits! We had no power but still we stayed up in the dark talking and stuff untill 3am (english new year!!) And we were back up at 8 for church! I managed to bust my shoulder during the skit on new years eve and so water collecting for the last week didn't happen for me!
Outreach ended with a Safari :) a group of 6 of us went to Arusha national park for the day and saw giraffes, zebras, buffalo, pumba, flamingo's, water buck, buch buck and a few other random animals and birds, as well as LOADS of monkeys :) it was an amazing way to finnish outreach even though we did get battered and bruised from standing up with our heads out the roof when it was so so bumpy! But we did get to eat our PB&J sandwiches with some giraffes at lunch time so it was deffinatly worth it!!
Our jouney back went smoothly it took 17 hours which was pretty good and most of it was over night so we could sleep! I can sucessfully say that i managed to put on a lot of wieght during outreach so much so that my jeans don't fit!! haha, me and Tess and litterally going to be running our butts of for the next few months!
Debrief week has been relaxing we've just been getting oragnaised and chilling out as we prepare for graduation on saturday!