Barbara – on holiday in Norfolk
It was a beautiful summer here in the UK, but we are now well into the season of Autumn, and enjoying the rich reds, oranges, yellows and browns of the falling leaves. We continue to live in ‘the barn’ and are very grateful to God for His provision here (via some wonderful church friends!). And we did have a nice break in Norfolk for a week at the end of September – some pictures attached. However, life continues to be very difficult for members of our family, and they need ongoing support.
A lot has happened over the last few weeks, as you will see as you read on.
Mark – blackberrying
Barbara’s mother decided to go into a care home towards the end of August, and we helped her move into an excellent care home. We had hoped that she might be happy to stay there, but unfortunately, she has consistently said that she wants to go back to her own home, even though all the family think that she has become rather too frail to live there safely, even with carers coming in. Her ability to live back at home with carers has been assessed by Social Services, and it looks as if she’ll be returning home once a care package is in place. We would value your prayers for the best outcome for her wellbeing. If she does indeed go home, it will involve us preparing the house for her to live there as safely as possible, and we worry that she will fall again and end up back in hospital, as happened three times before she moved to the care home.
Enjoying a walk with our grandchildren
The circumstances surrounding other members of our family continue to unfold and be difficult. However, we are still trusting in God to accomplish what cannot be done in human strength and to continue to bring good out of these troubles. By God’s grace, we continue to offer them our support.
Tumaini
Mark has been able to continue working part-time for Tumaini, and remains the Clinical Team Leader, albeit from a distance. There are certainly tasks that cannot be done from the UK, but some of the administration, budgeting and planning can be done from here. We have gone a long way to clarifying the roles that Mark can fulfil, and those that do need to be done in Nairobi and Kampala.
With reasonable internet connections, we are able to not just communicate frequently by email, but to regularly ‘meet’ and talk online.
As the circumstances surrounding our family have unfolded, we have become clear that we need to remain based in the UK for the future. So, we are now in discussions with Africa Inland Mission about whether Mark can continue to work for Tumaini from a distance, and how this might work in practice. We hope to be able to formalise this within the next couple of months.
We had originally intended to be in Kenya from May 2016 until August 2017, but as far as we are concerned, this new arrangement could continue as long as it is useful.
Please pray for the Tumaini team and ourselves as we adjust to these changed plans, and for clarity over my continued involvement.
New clinical staff!
The Tumaini team
Great news! A new Swedish counsellor has just joined the team in Nairobi, and a recently licensed counsellor from the US has just flown to Kampala with his family to start work at Tumaini Kampala in the New Year. Please pray for both these new counsellors as they settle into living in Africa and begin to join the team.
Moreover, a therapist who currently works in a ‘creative access’ situation in Africa is interested in offering some time to Tumaini from her current location. This is exciting, but presents numerous logistical challenges to protect her security. Please pray that a way forward can be found, if this is God’s will.
Please continue to pray for God to send new people to join the team – they are losing two other counsellors at the moment, in addition to myself, so even with these new-comers starting, they are still short staffed and the need is great!
The residential counselling programme run at Tumaini in August went very well, and we were blessed by two therapists from the US who joined us short-term to help with leading the programme. The feedback we received from the participants was good, and we hope to run this programme again in 2017.
In connection with our changed plans, it looks very likely that we will continue to live in ‘the barn’ until August 2017 when we were originally due to finally return from Kenya and can return to our own home. We are so grateful for God’s provision of a place to stay.
Please pray with us
For praise:
- That Mark has been able to continue working part-time for Tumaini from the UK
- For the two new counsellors joining the Tumaini team
- That God has been faithful in providing us with a place to live
For prayer:
- For the discussions with Africa Inland Mission over Mark’s future role with Tumaini
- Further staff to be called to work at Tumaini, both in Nairobi and Kampala
- For discussions with the therapist working in a creative access situation, to see if this is feasible – for her, for Tumaini, and for potential missionary clients.
- For us as we continue to support family as they go through very difficult times.
Comma butterfly
And finally, our bug of the month, a beautiful comma butterfly, snapped in the local countryside a month or two ago.
Steps along the Way 