It's been a long time...

Where to start!!!! Sorry this update has taken so long to sit down and write! I think the last 3 months have been the toughest months since our return to Zimbabwe. Times of doubting our return to Zimbabwe, whether we were making the right decision going ahead with the scholarship programme when the funding isn’t in place, the stress of moving house twice in a month etc. We are riding the rollercoaster ride of living by faith and learning lots of lessons along the way. Our house has been full of people since the end of January and this has been fantastic, as this often jollied us along – they have had to muck in with all that was going on but good fun too!! Often hitting rock bottom with doubts and fears and then God sending a little golden moment for us to cling to and know we are not alone! When we are in the thick of it all and in survival mode we often have lost sight of the bigger picture and what God is doing – when we do finally see sense and do look back we are amazed at what we have accomplished and can see God moving and what a privilege it is to be a part of that!!!!! To those of you who have held us in your prayers, phoned to encourage us or just been people we can laugh or cry with – thank you!!!! We are truly blessed with very special friends, even if a lot of you are miles and miles away!!!!! So I hope to update you as briefly as possible with where we are at and the exciting A-level Scholarship Programme that is running.

General Family News
We’ve had a wonderful run of visitors and have had people staying since January when Mark’s mum was here. We so loved time with her and she got to stay our last few nights with us in our Bush house!!!

Grace arrived in February for a few weeks – one of Mark’s ex-students from Benenden. She came at a very busy manic time but we thoroughly loved having her around, squeezed into our temporary little cottage!! We took her away camping for a weekend and was able to share our work out at Turf with her – the lions got out the night we stayed at our old bush house – bit scary!!! Grace was also able to be part of some of the testing and selection process of students for the scholarship programme. Grace is now serving on a project in Tanzania for a few months. She also got an article printed in her local paper about her trip and experiences in Zimbabwe.

Rachel arrived just after Grace returned to the UK – she lived in the local village where we lived in England. Rachel stayed with us for 3 weeks and slotted into family life so easily. She volunteered at a local orphanage and helped us with the initial running of the boarding house. We had a really fun 1st games night with the 15 students with her. I was also able to take her out to Turf and she got involved with the primary work I do out there. Her little nursery school in England – Mr Noah’s raised an amazing amount of money and we were able to buy some much needed stationary for Grade O, as well as get an incredible wooden play frame made from wood – swings, slides, tunnels, house, sandpit! It gets fitted this next week!!! So exciting. Rachel also got taken on an Albertyn family camping trip!!! We have now done two camping trips as a family since being back in Zimbabwe and we are converted – we love camping and the kids love it too!! These two young ladies were incredibly brave to travel on their own during their gap years before Uni and we so loved sharing our lives with them. We love them both so much and miss having them around!!!

The Mansfield’s were our next visitors – they are a family of 4 and Steve, Amalia and Mark taught together for 5 years. They are good friends and it was soooooooooo special to have them in our home!! The kids all played so lovely together and we just enjoyed time with people we felt very comfortable with – we laughed and laughed! They were here 3 weeks. We jam packed their week with doing workshops at the boarding house and sport with the scholarship kids, we took them out to the rural areas and a day out at Grade 0 in Turf and even managed black board painting at rural schools, which Grace and Rachel enjoyed doing too. They so embraced everything in Zimbabwe and were so keen to try all that they could. They also had a wonderful holiday around Zimbabwe. Four days of which we joined them in the mountains of Zimbabwe. So amazing for us to get away to such a beautiful place, but also such fun being on holiday together. It was so hard saying good bye to them but Zimbabwe has left a permanent mark on their lives and we hope to welcome them back here again!!! We have many, many happy memories!!!

The kids have settled into their new home. We love being their parents. Matt chats endlessly and has an incredible imagination – he plays with his Thomas trains endlessly with elaborate story lines!!!! He is a cuddly little boy, who has a very sensitive heart!!! He was a little unsettled after our last move and kept checking that we were in this house for a long time but seems incredibly happy and loves riding his bike up and down the drive way!! He loves chasing visitors cars down the drive way shouting ‘Bye’ and waving furiously – Zoe joins in too!!! Zoe is a typical toddler into everything and fearless!!!! A real adventurer who doesn’t think before acting!!!! She has permanent scrapped knees!!! We have named her Miss Congeniality from the scene where Sandra Bullock is walking out of the warehouse and takes a tumble – it is so Zoe – she is pigeon toed and will be walking along confidently and then next minute hits the deck as she trips over her feet!!! Zoe has an eccentric way of sleeping – with every single soft toy in her cot and no room for her!! We are not allowed to move any out!!!!! It’s very sweet!!!


Poor Zoe had a nasty fall from a chair that broke and looked like she had decapitated herself – it was so scary but thank goodness she is so young and her bones so soft the x-rays show no damage and all she had was a sore stiff neck for a few days!!!! I had all these terrible thoughts running through my head on the way to the hospital – thank goodness we were confronted with none of them!!!

A Matthew Quote: Driving along in the car one day with Rachel, “Mummy, the clouds are dirty, God needs to wash them and send some rain!”

We have also welcomed another nephew into the world – Samuel West!! We can’t wait to meet the third addition to Pete and Jo’s little family!!!

So now onto some project updates!!!
February was a frantic month with two house moves and the setting up of the Scholarship Programme. We were madly renovating our rental house so we could move into it (it had had chickens living in it and we temporarily lived in a tiny cottage on the property), doing up the boarding house, fundraising with local companies, starting up my own business, sorting out school uniforms, teachers, text books, going through the gruelling task of selecting just 15 scholarship students from 150 applicants etc. It’s probably the hardest we have worked in months, working till 2am most nights and trying to juggle kids with all that was going on. We look back and wonder how we survived that month!! Grace was with us during this time. She was great, she saw us at our worst and just loved us and helped out with the kids. We also had great fears of actually committing to the A-level Scholarship programme without full funding in place for the first year and this was something we wrestled with during the selection process – will we mess these kids lives up more if the scheme crumbles around us! But God was faithful as during this month he gave us little glimmers that this was right. One of those instances was when Mark was in a very hustle bustle crazy part of the city looking for cheap school uniforms. In the craziness of the traffic and very few road rules a car stopped where Mark was walking on the pavement and out hopped a student that Mark taught 10 years previously. Mark and him chatted and he was excited by what we were doing and took us into the crowd and into the back of a little shop where he introduced us to his Mum. She heard what we were doing and as they make components for leather shoes she said they would donate all the school shoes!!!

So the boarding house is set up and been running since the 1st of March. We have 15 incredible students – you can read more here about their personal stories, a wonderful House Mother who has a passion for these precious kids and they all call her mum now, my business is running – all be it rather slow and we are in our new home. Mark is teaching all the Physics and Maths lessons, as well as coaching sport and we have a Chemistry teacher and two Biology teachers.

To give you an idea of how a day runs

8am - Breakfast
Mornings - spent either at the boarding house for personal study time or sport or a lecture on something different (i.e. a language, craft etc)
12noon - Lunch and then catch a bus to the school which we use their facilities for teaching during the afternoon
1.30-5.30pm - Lessons
7pm - Dinner

They are weekly boarders, arriving at 5pm on Sunday night and leaving Friday afternoon after lessons.

This 1st term has been a steep learning curve for us in running a boarding house and school but we did it and we know this next term will run much smoother!! We have run games nights, language workshops, History of Art workshops, played volleyball, tennis, basketball, football and golf with all 15 kids and hosted a BBQ at the house with some of our friends. We are setting up a more structured co-curricular programme for this term. Sport on two mornings a week, one morning of fun lectures on varied topics (to expose the kids to different things) and then the other two mornings are free for study time.

Mark and I have adjusted to Harare life and finding where to find the cheapest food etc. We do a two monthly shop at this crazy wholesale place where you queue for two hours just to get in the door in a very dodgy part of town. But we have learnt that if you go on the last Sunday of the month it is not too crazy!! All fresh stuff is bought from a local supermarket. I have learnt the art of catering for 15 kids without wastage. Though have had a few laughs along the way – one being I taught the house mum how to bake cakes for them once a week and made a slight mistake when I wrote the recipe out. I wrote 3 tablespoons of baking powder instead of teaspoons and I got this frantic call saying that the cakes were exploding all over the oven!! We did have a good laugh about it!!!

They have an incredibly smart uniform – which you can see in some of the photos and they all wear it with such pride! They made us laugh, as they chose their uniform and were so particular about what they wanted!!! We are so proud to have each one of them on this programme.

As many of them are orphans or have very tough family backgrounds we have been impressed with how they have adjusted to a structured ‘normal’ family life!!! They all have responsibilities around the home, which they participate happily in. Edwin walked me to the car the other night and told me that this is the happiest he has ever been and he now has people he can call family!!! This obviously brought a tear to both Mark and my eyes – this is defiantly worth fighting for. Peter (who we have blogged about before) is also part of the programme. He came and stayed with us for a few days to see if he wanted to be part of the programme. He did and started a little late but will be rewriting his A-levels and learning English! House rules – no Shona during the day!!! We have got to know Peter’s family well and I pop in and visit them every time I go out to Turf. Peter has adjusted well to living in a western house (lives in a mud hut village) and we have been very proud of him. All the kids work incredibly hard and their motivation is unbelievable. The Chemistry and Biology teachers all teach at private schools and they have said how refreshing it is to teach these guys, their passion and zeal to learn is amazing!!! Amalia did a Spanish workshop while she was here and the kids drank it up and were speaking Spanish all week and asking her for more and more stuff they could learn – she said that she had taught them more than she would be able to do in 8 lessons in the UK!

Matthew and Zoe also slot into boarding life well and Zoe has spent a few evening in a camp cot in one of the bedrooms sleeping while we do stuff at the house in the evenings. They have got to know the 15 kids well and it is lovely to see how comfortable they are just hanging out at the boarding house! Matthew had us in stitches the one games night when we played twister – he was calling out the moves and kind of got stuck on Left foot Yellow!!! I feel privileged to be exposing them to different cultures but also different class structures in Zimbabwe. I love kids as they are oblivious to the normal barriers that we see and embrace everyone so openly.

It is holiday time and time for us to catch up with life and get systems in place for next term.

Mobile library update: it is happening!! Mainly with our own books and kids from the boarding house but it is getting off the ground. Thanks to those of you who so generously donated books!!

Mark is an incredible man!!! There are moments in our 15 years together that I have been overwhelmed with pride – one of those being the birth of both our kids but these last few months I have again been blown away by him. The demands on him from every angle – fundraising, teaching, setting up a boarding house and school, personal financial pressure etc. We have had moments of complete exhaustion but have pushed through and I am so proud of Mark!!!! What an amazing man – striving for the best for these kids, as well as trying to provide a happy secure environment for his family!!!! I love you babe – we can do this!!!!

A quick update on the Zimbabwean Trust – KST – sadly this trust has gone totally bankrupt and in essence we are on our own! We are in the process of registering our own trust here – Makomborero Zimbabwe. Even though all we had returned to Zimbabwe for is totally different to the reality, we continue to believe that God has brought us here. It has been tough at times as it feels like we have done 180 degree turn and have nothing concrete but our hope is in God!! Chatting to Dave and Liz Holden (our pastors from England), they reminded us that we are living our dream of over 13 years and what we are living now is closer to our dream than what our lives out at Turf would have been!!!! So, funding is in place for 8 kids through the grants from Makomborero UK and various other sources and we trust for the rest! Keep knocking on doors, doing presentations and hoping we stumble across all the funding we need!!! Personal funding has been tough too but God is faithful!!!!!

Hope waits but does not sit. It strains with eager anticipation to see what may be coming on the horizon. Hope does not pacify; it does not make us docile and medicore. Instead it draws us to greater risk and perseverance. Dan Allender

See I am doing a new thing!! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wastelands. Isaiah 43:19

Thank you to those of you in the UK who are so generously fundraising for us for the scholarship programme. We have been humbled!!!! To our friends who continue to support us – thank you, thank you – words are not enough!!!!

Well, I will endeavour to write more regularly on this blog and share moments of joy and heart ache more openly!!! Thank you for being patient enough to catch up on our news!!! The next update won’t be soooo long and a little more regular!

Elephants come to visit on our camping trip




Sunset on our camping trip


Zoe helping with Laundry


These photos are for the benefit of the lovely ladies at Darrick Wood - these flowers are what you buy at Christmas in little pots!! I used to tell them they and were trees in Zim - well here is the pic of one of the ones in my garden!!! I miss and love you all!!

Happy New Year and a little of our news!

Happy New Year to all of you, we hope you had a great Christmas! I can’t believe we are half way through January already!

We had a busy few weeks leading up to Christmas. We finished up at each of our schools for the term, with a commitment to being out at Turf one day a week this year. We’ve had lots of visitors come and stay on and off leading up to Christmas, and loved catching up with people. One family in particular – The Davis Family. They were our cell leaders when we got married 10 years ago and we hadn’t seen them for 8 years. Really special to meet their great kids. So wonderful to pick friendships up where they left off so long ago. It felt like we had seen each other the other day – the only tell tell sign was that there are now a few little people running around!!!
Made me realise that so many of our friendships in England will be like that!!!

Christmas Fun with the kids!

I got a spider bite just before Christmas. I was terribly ill and had to go to A&E for intravenous antibios and for the rotting flesh to be removed. I really never knew how sick a spider bite could make you – hallucinations, fever, migraine, terrible pain in all my glands – lasting for a week! We were very impressed with the medical care I received – very 1st world!! Our medical aid covered everything including theatre. I am totally well now!!!

We celebrated 10 years of marriage in December and got away for a night just the two of us – thank you Dad and Mum – our 2nd night just the two of us in over 3 years. We enjoyed the luxury of getting out of bed in the morning later than normal! What a privilege it has been to share the last 10 years with Mark. He is truly my best friend. We have had some big mountains to climb, some amazing mountain tops, a few tough valleys but through it all I’m so glad I’ve journeyed with him!! He’s an amazing man who I am proud to call my husband! Thank you babe for being the best Daddy, Husband and friend anyone could wish for! You still make me laugh and life with you is fun!! 10 years of marriage and two kids - we're slightly bonkers!!!

Christmas was special. My brother, Richard and his wife, Anni came up from South Africa for two weeks. It was so lovely to spend quality time with them after such a long time. The kids enjoyed getting to know them again! We also were able to take them out to Turf to see what we have been doing and we stopped off at Peter’s village (see October entry about Peter). We had a lovely morning with his family and we were so humbled by the gift they gave us – a massive bucket of ground nuts (raw peanuts) and freshly harvested honey. This reduced me to tears, as we knew what a sacrifice a gift like this was to them as a family. It made the few packets of biscuits I gave them seem so insignificant. Here is a photo of us all outside their little village
Mark and I are hoping to have Peter live with us for the rest of this year and find little bits of work for him to do to try and help him save and find support to go to University.

Christmas was spent in Harare. What a treat to be somewhere which has more electricity than us. Had 6 weeks of no power!!!! Not much fun! Though am now a pro at hand washing and living without a fridge! The kids thoroughly enjoyed their time with my folks and their uncle and aunt. They loved opening presents!! We made good use of the swimming pool. So wonderful to spend Christmas with my family again.



We were able to get away for two nights to a cottage friends of ours lent us. It is on a lovely game park called Antelope Park. It was such a welcome break for the 4 of us. Really special family time! We swam in rivers, through stones into Dams, rode ponies, had picnics, went on walks etc. What a great place for kids, such freedom! Our cottage was surrounded by 70 lions (in cages) and that took a little getting used to – so so noisy!!! Antelope Park is an amazing lion sanctuary. http://www.antelopepark.co.zw/index.html

The rainy season is well and truly here!!! Just today we had 41cm of rain in 25 minutes! We have had weeks of wet days and very muddy children. I forgot how much it does rain in the rainy season!! It is beautiful and green everywhere. Over the last 5 months we are beginning to get our heads round buying things that are in season (you never have to think about it in England as you can buy everything all year round or nearly all year round). So one of my favourites – Mangos are in season!! Woo hoo!!!

Our precious little boy turned 3 on Thursday – boy does time fly!! What a joy it has been to parent him! He had a count down chart for the week leading to his birthday and did a little gig every morning when he could tick off a day!! He loved speaking to his Granparents, Uncles, Aunts and Cousins on the phone from South Africa. He had a little party on Friday with a Thomas theme. This is his second Thomas party and this might not be his last – he is totally obsessed!!!
We can have such deep chats with him now and he has a wicked sense of humour!! I have so enjoyed watching him grow up but at the same time it’s going way to fast!!!! He is adamant that he is not ‘little’ anymore – Zoe is little, Matthew is ‘little big’ and Daddy is ‘big’!! We love you our special boy!!!

Scholarship Scheme in Harare
We’ve also been busy setting up the scholarship scheme, collecting scholarship application forms from rural and township schools, finding accommodation and a school to partner with. Mark is now going through the tough task of picking 15 pupils out of 150 applicants. Each of their stories is moving and each of them deserves a chance!!! Mark ran two interview days with testing as well, which he found quite emotionally draining, as some of their stories are heart breaking. As well as approaching local businesses in Zimbabwe to fund a pupil for this scholoarship scheme, Mark would like to find support for the students who do not make the 15 but are extremely gifted. The idea is to pay for their school fees at their local township school for the two years of their A-levels and provide holiday revision schools that they can attend to boost their learning. We are excited by this and hope to be able to fundraise for this too.

The costs involved:
• Scholarship Scheme Student - £2700 per year
• Student in a Government School with Revision School - £400 per year

We still have a long way to go to make sure that this scheme will go well but we can see how both these schemes will change lives forever. This is both humbling and exciting but we realise the huge responsibility that comes with this!!!

Mobile Library
I think having been working out in the rural areas for the last 5 months there has been one thing that has stood out to me the most. How poor English is and how limited pupils are if their English is not good. They can have outstanding exam results but will be totally over looked if their English is not good enough. Peter is a prime example of this!! I’ve also seen the hunger for reading material and would love to provide something recreational for kids to enjoy – both junior and senior school age. So I’ve been dreaming – to start a mobile library. I obviously started dreaming big – having a big truck that travels around like a mobile library. We would start in the Turf area (45mile radius) and then hopefully expand the work nationwide!! Where would we get the money to set something up and running like this?

So I kind of put the dream on the back burner and then last night lying in bed it just came to me – start small Laura!!! So I’m going to start collecting second hand books that people don’t want anymore in a box – and stop off at a few villages on my way out to Turf each week!! It is also an easy thing to build up as people can donate the odd book here and there. I don’t have a box yet or any books but watch this space! It could be a logistical nightmare but I’m going to try!!

We feel so humbled!! We have lots of visitors to look forward to this year! Mark’s mum out at the moment - so so special to spend time with her - Matt loves having two Granny's around!! One of Mark’s students from Benenden is coming out for two weeks in February, a teaching colleague and his family in April and another colleague and his family in July! How excited are we, we can’t wait to share Zimbabwe with all of them and to spend quality time with some very special friends!

We have found somewhere to rent in Harare, as we need to be out of our bush home by the end of the month – will be sad to leave, this has become our home for nearly 4 months. Matthew has just started calling it home! Where we are moving to is a little run down and needs work but we are very excited to know we have somewhere to move into in just over a week! Matthew started Nursery on Tuesday – two mornings a week, so will commute into Harare to take him. He is so excited!!!! I feel a little sad that our intense time of just the three of us in the bush has come to and end! His little school

For those of you who pray for us – please pray that the scholarship scheme comes together well, all loose ends are sorted out, that we settle into our new home and that through the tough times we keep focused on why we are really here!

The kids sitting in a tree


Us Four

The rainy season is here!!!

We thought it was time for an update!!!

We’ve had a chance to get away for 2 nights over a weekend in October – to Nyanga – a mountainous area of Zimbabwe. It was such a welcome break from the heat of where we are living and working. We went with new friends, just made at our church (who happen to be from the UK on contract here). We have kids the same age, so lots of fun! We stayed in a remote cottage at the foot of some mountains, with a river in our garden – family walks, swims in rock pools, evenings spent sitting round the fire in candle light, drives to beautiful view points etc. We loved it (and the company)!!!!


Our stuff arrived from the UK three weeks ago. Woo hoo! It was an amazingly painless process getting it through customs – just took 6 weeks to get from J’burg to Harare!!! It really does feel like our cottage is home now with stuff from our lives in England. It was also sad unpacking things as it was a real reality check that this is for real, our lives in England are over – so shed a few tears! We’ve had to leave a lot of stuff still in boxes as we don’t have much room for it all!

We’ve had endless tummy bugs, coughs and colds this month!! Been a bit tough but hopefully coming to the end of it!! The kids continue to enjoy bush life!! Zoe is at the delightful age where she points to parts of her body when asked where something is, blows raspberries on us and dances on demand, is learning new words and gestures for things, has a little sense of humour emerging, oh and loves anything girly! Mark has managed to produce two little teasers – I wonder where they get that from!! Matt is thrilled to be reunited with his wooden train set – he has played with it nonstop and is also thrilled with all the outside toys – bikes, trampoline etc. What a blessing it is to have their bits out here with us – makes the days pass so much faster for me. I can really plan activities and have fun with the kids!!! Thank you Lord!!! My parents got a new puppy (the day our stuff arrived from England), Matt wasn’t sure what was more exciting!!! He loves the puppy and as it’s a girl has named her Lexy – after his best girl friend in England!
Matt sings the whole time to himself – sometimes with real words sometimes without!!

General life in the Bush is getting easier, and electricity is still a problem – we’ve had 6hrs of power the last 6 days in two 3hr patches – one rain storm has wreaked havoc with faults in our area!!! Still only put the kids to bed with electric light a handful of times, which we always celebrate!! Friends from England sent out a fantastic light that has become invaluable since Rich and Oli brought it out – thank you! We’re getting used to cold baths, early to bed and early to rise!! House invaders continue to catch us unawares!! I’ve had my first scorpion sting – glad it was me and not the kids – it was on my bath towel and when I was making Matt’s bed one morning a scorpion crawled out from under his pillow (was very grateful that was all that happened)!!!
We found a python the other night outside, thankfully rather sluggish as he had a rat in his tummy!

Yip the rains have arrived! They took a little longer in coming out here than in Harare but we had our first proper thunderstorm on Wednesday night last week. I had forgotten the power of Zimbabwean storms and to be honest was quite terrified but played it very cool with two terrified toddlers, who were clinging to their mummy for dear life. The force of the wind, thunder and lightening were amazing but what I had forgotten was the amount of rain that falls from the sky in a 30min storm. In England I’m sure it rains about 4 days for the equivalent of what we get in a torrential storm. We literally had rivers running either side of our house and poor little Matt was asking Jesus to stop the wind but in the same breath saying thank you for the rain – we’ve been waiting for it to come!!! This rain has brought transformation to the bush around us!!!! The leaves are appearing on all the trees and a beautiful thing in Africa – certain trees new leaves are Autumn colours – so experiencing Autumn colours here while those in England do but such different weather! Everything is alive and green and lush! With the rains come chongololos – millipedes. Matt loves these creatures and collects them in his motor bike trailer. He can’t quite understand how they manage to escape!! He experienced his first grief this week – he managed to pull one in two and it died. The little guy was devastated, especially that he was the one who had damaged it. I was trying not to laugh but at the same time felt sad for him. This particular one was called ‘Wormy the Chongololo’. He prayed for him last night and assured me this morning when he woke up that it was now in Heaven – fixed!

If you refer to the pictures of our bush life and compare these two pics you will see how the bush has transformed in a short space of time!!!

Three days after the first rains - kind of Autumn colours - notice Mr Buffallo

Two weeks after the first rains - it's even greener now but don't have a pic!!!

Here is something I wrote a few weeks ago:

There is something beautiful about African mornings. The cool breeze before it gets really hot, the fresh air (there is a smell about it), watching animals come to the waterhole from the vantage point of our verandah and watching my children wander around in the dirt, enjoying the freedom of open space is something so beautiful, it is hard to put into words but I do feel so blessed to be able to expose them to this life – even if it’s just for a short season!! Mark and I have been woken a few times at night by the giraffe eating leaves from the tree outside our bedroom window – to sneak open the curtain and to see a giraffe at eye level – wow – they are such graceful, gentle animals – Mark’s favourite!!! We have also had the rain spider appear as the rainy season tries to start – they are not such welcome visitors and freak Mark and I out a little! Especially when found crawling in Zoe’s cot with her in it!!! We have to admit we are not very good about letting these spiders survive!!! They move at lightning speed and they have met the sole of our shoes at lightning speed too!!! Rain has been threatening for days and the air is so thick with coming rain it makes the days quite unbearable. Being back in Africa I understand why the rain never bothered me so much in the UK – an African can’t forget that rain is so life giving and refreshing – it was the grey days that got me!!! So trusting the rainy season will be here soon and we can enjoy the torrential showers that come with it!! The land is parched and crying out for rain!! I look forward to the smell of our first few showers – experienced once so far – can’t wait for more!!! Driving around this rural area is so beautiful. Plains of dry grass, little villages with their clusters of huts, children walking to school on the road, little bottle stores that sell cold coke – it is all a reminder of the basics of life! I feel so blessed to have met a few people who live out here over these last few weeks, it has given me a deeper love for my country and its people. We’ve spent more time with Marcus and I even said to him this time that he has to write a book – so will keep working on him but hoping to do a blog entry on him at some stage as his life is such a testimony of devotion to God and the bigger picture of life!! It hasn’t been an easy life, but one where he looks back and sees the hand of God.

Now for some work news! My time with the Primary School doing the Grade 0 has been amazing!!! I’m learning so much and enjoying the challenge of engaging 150 kids. I come away with no voice! Matthew and Zoe are loving all the attention and being a part of it all – I’ve been so proud of them as it is soooooo hot out there and a very long day for them! I’m mainly focussing on the same songs each week (with lots of actions), a few games and a craft session twice a month. The songs are to encourage their English along! I have to have a translator, as they don’t understand me! They are all so well behaved. I’ve been able to provide resources each week for the teaching themes that week – been donated stuff and bought stuff with grant money from Makomborero. I’ve also been able to provide them with break on the day I’m with them – biscuits! The mine arriving in the area has caused such a problem at both the senior and junior school. They have forced these schools to grow beyond what they can handle (originally village schools of 100 kids – now both over 1000 – with terrible over crowding, running lessons under trees and running two schools a day). It has also created a social problem in the schools – you have the kids whose parents work in the mine – so though very poor can bring in a snack at breaktime and then those that live in the village who probably only get one meal a day if they are lucky! They are delighted with the biscuits as you can imagine!!!! I have based myself at a local ladies house for the kids lunch and then drive home for their sleep. Amazing being in a home so much poorer than us – very humbling!! Her name is Blessing and she is a real blessing!! Over the next two weeks I’m doing a banner for their graduation up to Grade 1 (the kids will decorate), lots of games and songs and a lucky dip to celebrate the end of term!

Mark has only been able to run one film day. This is because we have no way of amplifying the sound – we managed to find some very little speakers in our shipping but Mark had to cancel the viewing as even those did not help. The Form 1’s are the only ones to have watched so far, and they loved the experience!

We are now in a position to be able to update you on our plans for next year. With KST (the trust we work with in Zimbabwe), Mark will be starting a scholarship scheme for children in the surrounding areas of Turf and some of the Harare townships. This scheme will be run in Harare, as a boarding scholarship. Mark and I will be house parents to 15 pupils, these pupils will attend a local Independent School for their lessons (using all their facilities) and Mark will be teaching the scholarship students Maths and Physics at this school. This decision came about because of a number of reasons. If Mark stayed to run the Sixth Form at Wanganui, he would only be able to teach two classes of A-level Mathematics. The subjects that we had hoped to offer this coming year cannot be studied due to the lack of facilities at Wanganui and this has arisen through the funding crisis we have found ourselves in. The A-level centre at Wanganui will continue to be run by Marcus, with the Science and Maths students attending the scholarship scheme in Harare, joined by a selected few from the surrounding townships in Harare. The hope is that once facilities are built at Wanganui, (labs, boarding facilities for pupils who walk tremendous distances etc) we will be running two scholarship programs – one at Turf and one in Harare. The one in Turf will be for students in the surrounding schools and villages to do their A-levels and the one in Harare will be for selected students from the surrounding township areas to do their A-levels.

So this is what we have been working on for the last couple of weeks. Marcus will still run the A-level centre at Turf and Mark will travel out to Turf to teach his two A-level Maths classes (those who are doing arts with just Maths attached) and Laura will continue to work with the Grade 0 children at the primary school, coming out once a week too. As you can imagine we are excited about this and even though we have had to change direction a little we believe that this is what we are meant to do in the meantime. We will need to raise significant amounts of money over the next couple of months to support the scheme, but less than we need to stay out at Turf. We are writing to local businesses to see if they can sponsor kids for two years. Mark, Dave and Marcus have been recruiting pupils – having produced a prospectus for them and all the necessary forms. What a humbling experience. Mark and Marcus have been visiting the local senior schools surrounding Turf. My goodness what an eye opener. You realise that these kids are working against all odds! This is the kind of school that Peter (in previous blog) was attending. They have been identifying pupils for Wanganui A-level Centre and for the scholarship scheme. Mark and Dave have been visiting township schools, which have better facilities but just as poor pupils. Marcus was saying that the visits (just before they wrote their O’levels) will have encouraged so many of these pupils that they could have a future and for them not to give up. The pass rate at most of the rural schools is 0% (obtaining 5 or more O’level passes). Those who have managed to achieve 5 O-levels have no means of going on further. These schools are so inspirational with how they make do with nothing, against all odds!

Mark looks to set both these up and as time unfolds we will know where we will live on a permenant basis. On this note we will not be moving into the little house out at Turf, as we would only be living there till January and we feel yet another move for our family would be too much. So we will continue to commute out to turf from our Bush home and this little house will be used by Agrippa and his family – another amazing man working with KST in Turf – he currently commutes from Harare every week, leaving his family too. We feel a little sad that this won't be our home but know we will have a home at some stage we can call ours! Here is the finished house - cute isn't it.

Having visited the local schools surrounding Turf, we will begin to support these senior schools with resources, teacher training etc so that they are able to raise their pass rates and have more pupils move onto the scholarship scheme and onto Wanganui, Turf A-level centre.

We have a lot that will need to be accomplished over these coming months leading up to the start of the scholarship scheme – so please pray for us and the success of this scheme.

My uncle asked where Turf is - it is south of Harare on the Bulawayo road. Turn left into the bush at Selous and an hour on from there. Running along the Great Dyke.

Rich and Olivia Wansbury are out for a visit from the UK. What a treat to have them here with us – sharing family life and work life with them. They are trustees of our charity in the UK and are good friends. They joined Mark in visiting the rural schools surrounding Turf, painting black boards and distributing text books we had bought for these schools (with grant money from Makomborero). They also joined me at the junior school with Grade 0 and were a huge hit with the kids!!! They are off on a round Zim trip for a few days and will see us for two nights before they head back to England! They have said they will blog on their experience here – so will save the details of their trip for another time!!! We have felt blessed by their presence with us!!!!! We love you guys!!!

Well I think that is all for now – hope it gives you a good update of where we are at!!! Missing aspects of England at the moment – not the wet grey but the beautiful crisp cold sunny mornings (which can be few and far between), Autumn colours, beautiful village high streets with their Christmas lights, friends (this is a big one), proper coffee, chocolate, broadband and electicity!! We pull out our Christmas stuff next week – I can’t wait!!!!!

Matt watching a bird make a nest from our bedroom window
Dinner picnic at Grandad and Granny's
Being pushed around by Grandad
Mark fitting free sat at our house - under the supervision of his brother (a satellite technician)
Treated out for pizza - what a special evening! First pizza since the UK!!

All photos are clickable if you want to see them bigger!!

Jacarandas, our bush home and other news!

Hello – it feels like a very long time since I last wrote – a lot has happened in the last few weeks!!

It is Jacaranda time!! I love it – I had forgotten just how beautiful these trees are – 7 years away makes me realise how much I’ve missed their beautiful flowers! Harare has streets lined with them and I thought it would be nice to share with you a few photos!!! I think I know why lilac is one of my favourite colours!!! There are so many flowering trees in Harare that I think I might do a post on a few more over the next couple of months as they flower.

We visited a miniature train with the kids a few weeks back – what great fun - they run it once a month as a bit of a hobby - real steam trains.

We are now together! Yah!!! Our season of being a family apart came to an end after doing it for 6 weeks. We moved out to our temporary home just over two weeks ago. Our stuff has been in strorage for 7 years so you can imagine the cleaning and washing that had to happen as we unpacked – 7 years of rat poo and wee!! It is in the middle of a game park – literally – nothing except our cottage separates us from the wild life and we look over a waterhole. It is amazing!!! As you can imagine the kids love it too!! We have a walled back garden – which has no gate – so we can get away from them but do need to keep an eye out for little nosey visitors. We have also had some unwelcome guests in our cottage – a snake – which crawled over my foot the first night, a massive scorpion (bigger than my hand), a massive centipede and loads and loads and loads of black ants (woken covered in them a few times). The cottage sat empty for a few years and I think it is taking a little while for creatures to realise this is our home now!!!

We were spoilt living with my folks, they were so well prepared for power cuts – solar lights, solar panel to heat hot water, an invertor to run little things off, gas hob, ice system in their fridge to keep it cool etc. So fending for ourselves has been a slight shock to the system!! We have 17hr power cuts every day – 5am to 11pm and we have had a 52hr power cut. As you can imagine a fridge and a freezer can not be run with this little electricity, so our first week here we had loads of things going off. Poor Mark goes to bed at 7.30pm and wakes at 11pm and works for a few hours before he leaves the house at 5.30am for work. So we have desperately been trying to make a plan as to how we can make our lives work without power!! We have amazing family and friends who have lent us bits, sold us stuff we can pay off over a few months etc and as of tonight have two batteries that power an invertor that can charge LED lights, cell phones, laptops etc and will be slowly paying off a generator that will run our fridge for 2hrs a day – this arrives on Sunday! Woop!!! Woop!! Headlamps are just the best too!!! So the hope is that come the evenings we hope to feel more motivated to work – not sure if it’s the lack of power or the heat – it is very hot here – way hotter than Harare but not as hot as Turf! Poor Mark roasts every day! Zoe lives in a paddling pool on and off all day and we try and keep our house sealed up to keep the hot air out but inside temps are 35’C – still cooler than outside though. It has been weird not having rain for the last 3 months, something that is so foreign to us having lived in the UK for so long. We have had thunder and lightening this evening which is very exciting but early for rains so not sure if any will fall!!! I can smell the rain in the air!!! (Other Zimbos will know what I mean – you can literally smell rain here – beautiful.) A few days later now – it did rain and it smelt glorious – I got up at 2am just to smell it!!! Was a welcome change!!!!

We have already had a few people out to stay with us and enjoy sharing the delights of our wild home with others! The kids love the visitors! Marcus, who also works for the trust we work for here, came to stay a few nights ago and we so enjoyed time with him. He is an incredible man who we are humbled by everytime we spend time with him. What an honour to work with him. A true servant heart!!!! I could fill this blog with his stories of life out at Turf – just incredible what he is doing in that community and who he opens his home to!

I have found it quite isolated out here being stuck on a farm all day with kids and not really being able to venture too far away from the cottage due to the wild animals. I have found it tough at times but I also feel like I’m learning a lot as a mum and it is certainly character building! We have a sand pit, paddling pool, craft stuff, books and a few toys to keep us busy. I have turfed a small bit of the garden so that we have grass.

I will be starting work in the local primary school with their Grade 0 (Reception class) from next Tuesday, one day a week and they have said that the kids can come with me. I am excited about this but also a little nervous about how it will work with the kids and how they will cope with the heat and journey – especially as we do not own a car with Aircon! Let me tell you about the desperate state of the junior school. There are 1200 pupils at the junior school, a school that is built to house 400 children. So they too hot seat (run two schools – one in the am and one in the pm) and teach lessons under trees. This will become more tricky once the rains arrive! The Early Years department (Grade 0) comprises of 5 classes, 5 teachers and 150 kids!!!!! They only have one classroom!!!! It was so humbling meeting the ladies who run the department – such amazing ladies who are so creative with so little! They literally have no resources, no desks, chairs etc but have a curriculum that they have to follow. I took home their schemes of work to see what they are teaching and where I could help out. Amazingly humbling reading what they do with so little – so imaginative but also desperately sad. I was there during break time and so many of the kids have nothing to eat and have to sit and watch those who do have food – breaks my heart and you can see it breaks the hearts of the teachers too. They themselves live off so little!! So I have come away buzzing with what I can contribute - from toys, resources to running game, dance, drama sessions etc. The money we receive from Makomborero quarterly, a proportion of this will be given to me to spend on the Early Years and I hope to provide a meal once a week for the kids, resources etc. I start at the school on Tuesday 26th October. Please pray the my kids cope with the day out at Turf, trusting till the house is built that we can use a room in someones house for their afternoon nap and I’ll travel back to our cottage once the day begins to cool down a little. I took the kids with me to my meeting and Matthew had the pied piper effect – these kids had never seen a white kid before so he was a huge novelty – touching his hair and giggling! I will try and do an short blog entry during the week with photos!

Mark continues to teach at Wanganui. He finds the days long especially with the very, very hot, dry weather at this time of the year. He has a 70km drive each way from our cottage. He has become particularly fond of a young guy called Peter. Let me introduce you to Peter. He walks 15 miles to school each day, which as you can imagine takes him a couple of hours each way – Mark started to give him a lift before he went off on his study leave for writing his A-levels. He is highly intelligent. Sadly his English is not very good and this is often his down fall when it comes to his examinations. Peter did not have any teachers during his two years of O’level (GCSE). He taught himself. With his maths, he did not have a textbook and managed to find a few past papers and taught himself from those. He has now mostly taught himself Maths A-level. His determination to succeed against all odds is so incredible. He doesn’t have any career ambitions, as so many of these kids, as he just can’t quite comprehend what is out there. He lives in a little mud hut with his family. Mark and I have been invited round there for a meal once he has finished writing his exams and we look forward to it. Mark has got to know his parents from the lifts he has been giving Peter, they are subsistence farmers who really struggle financially to feed their family. Here is a picture of their hut. We are trusting for great things for Peter and hope to be able to steer him in the direction of a career that he will find fulfilling and will use the amazing academic gifts he has. As you can imagine there are many students with similar stories and it is inspiring!

Mark will be running a movie afternoon at the school. This will serve two purposes – one it will be a fun thing for the kids to do and secondly we hope that this will help them improve on their English in a fun way. English is the medium that they write all their examinations in and so many of them struggle to speak a few sentences in English. Mark will run this on a Tuesday afternoon – with the hot seating and the school running in the afternoon, we have come up with a timetable for each form to attend without it affecting lesson time. This also starts on 26th October – with Form 1. I’ll be cooking popcorn for 150 pupils each week!! The little house at Turf is being built and has gone up incredibly quickly!!!

Here are a few photos to show you the progress to date. It is very little and cute!!!


The crisis on day to day funding has kind of sorted its self out after much stress and trying to make plans etc but sadly funding on a bigger scale for next year is not looking likely, so we are moving forward with some big plans to make next year work. Once these plans are finalised and we know exactly what is happening we will fill you in. For those of you who do pray for us, please pray that we continue to make wise decisions, we don’t feel discouraged, that we knock on the right doors and things really fall into place for our emergency contingency plan!! It is exciting but scary too! We have been reminded of that verse Proverbs 3v5&6 – Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your path.

I’ve been struck again at how amazing it is to be a parent and the blessing my children are to me. Especially being stuck in the bush with them and not being able to rely on anything other than what I can provide for them to do for entertainment etc. It has shown me areas in me that are yukkie and need sorting out and also made me see a fresh how delightful they are. It struck me that we are now parents to two toddlers – our baby is not a baby anymore. Matthew and Zoe are really beginning to play together and I love watching it! Poor little Zoe is suffering terribly with heat rash that blisters as her body adjusts to the weather!! They both drink so much water and I put them to bed now with beakers of water that our empty by the morning!!! They are so dirty by the end of everyday and are delighted to welcome Daddy home each evening!!! Master (the caretaker here) has won Zoe’s heart and she will often wander off in pursuit of him for a cuddle! Very precious!! She has to be watched like a hawk if the doors are open as has no concept of the dangers that surround her here!! She is covered in bruises from all her falls and climbing endeavours!! Matthew is still completely obsessed with trains and has duplo cars that were mine when I was little that he plays with all day and each one is a Thomas train – Percy, James, Toby, Spencer etc! He is a gentle soul and often comes out with things that melt our hearts. He often tells me now that he thinks I’m wearing something pretty, that he loves us to the moon and back, what he wants us to pray he will dream about that night, is totally in love with his Granny and Grandad and Uncle Steven, Aunty Linda and Jordan. They feature in all our pretend stories now – as well and Felix, Uncle Rich and Mr Peter (they know who they are). Matthew and Zoe have started to play together beautifully – particularly what is called ‘Rough and tumble’ time in our bedroom!! Very cute to watch all the screaming and laughing coming from both of them and Mark and I often join in too!! Matthew was a little sad the last few days so climbed into bed with him one evening and he told me that he is missing his friends in England - he went through his list of little friends and special people! I was amazed at how much he still remembers - the list was long too!!! Very precious but made me a little tearful too - not just us who feels home sick for England at times.

The kids love coming into Harare and it is such a highlight to spend time with their granparents - here are the kids picking roses with Granny in the veggie garden!

We're still waiting for our stuff to arrive from the UK - it's in J'burg and been there for 6 weeks - grrr!!!

Well I think I’ve said enough! Now to upload this – which is a laugh!! We drive about 2km out of the game park and sit on the side of the road and send and receive emails and check internet. Feels very odd the few times I’ve done it. Mark mostly does it on his way to work. So hence email is a better way to contact us at the moment. Waited till we were in Harare to upload this – still took a few hours! Happy half term to all you UK teachers! For those of you wanting to see pics of the kids: Thought this one might make you laugh - yoghurt eating by Zoe!
For some reason I can't get this photo to load the right way up!

Spring flowers, temporary home and reality of teaching at Wanganui!

Well spring is here – sure feels like summer though – hot but not humid – so nice!!! Also my folks house is very cool so feels like they have air con to some degree when you walk inside - lovely! Here are a few pictures of the spring flowers in their garden at present – so pretty! We even had our first family swim this weekend where it was not just the kids in the swimming pool! Though where Mark is it is about 7’C hotter and with no ceilings in the classrooms is extremely hot and dry!!!


I am making friends and settling in – still all feels very new and scary at times but is nice to mix with other mums and kids. Matt has made two friends he now regularly talks about which is special. Here are a few photos to show you what the kids have been up to in the last few weeks!








We are enjoying our new church and the people we are meeting there. So refreshing to be in African praise and worship! There is a nationwide prayer meeting on Sunday and a training day in foundations for farming to initiate a program to feed Zimbabwe. We are trusting this will be a huge success!!!! Visit this website for further information www.lovezim.org

The kids continue to be such a delight to us!! Zoe is walking confidently now and is so proud of herself – quite happy just to walk around not really doing anything! She is fearless when it comes to animals, climbing, jumping, etc. We have to watch her like a hawk as she often ends up in dangerous situations – nearly falling down the loo etc!! Matthew continues to talk continually – he loves the world around him and is such great company! He has really struggled with Mark being out of town during the week and often asks when we can all be together again! As you can imagine this breaks Mark and my hearts!

As has become a tradition – here is another Matthew Quote – ‘I knew it!’ – pointing his finger at you! It is very cute and is often done when he is playing with his toys and manages to figure something out himself, do something he was struggling to do etc. He is also learning Shona and I am amazed at how quickly kids learn. He says good morning, thank you and good afternoon unprompted now! He will soon be putting Mark and I to shame.

We (the kids and I) had the privilege of going out to the rural areas just outside of Harare to visit an old family friend on Thursday. Here are a few photos of our trip out to visit Prisca – Gogo as Matthew calls her (which means Granny). We’ll be visiting quite often I think as the kids loved their time there and it’s not that far!! As you can see from the photos my kids were slightly obsessed with the goats (excuse the pun)!!!


Not sure if you can make out from the picture below but basically this is a tap outside someones walled house offering free water. Many houses – in fact most homes in Harare – have lived without running water for a couple of years now. A lot of people have been able to drill boreholes but for those who can’t afford to or do not have any underground rivers running under their properties – obtaining water has been tough. As you can imagine there have been lots of people jumping in on the band wagon and selling water at astronomical prices to those people who don’t have. This house is offering free borehole water to whoever! I love it! What a great heart!!!!



The revision school was a huge success and one of the volunteer teachers paid for me and the kids to visit for one night! What a great treat to feel part of that week for us 3! We drove out on the Thursday afternoon and came back on Friday lunchtime. The highlight for me was having dinner in the mine compound with the volunteering teachers – I don’t think I have laughed so much in a long time. They were such special people – so thrilled to be able to give back something to their communities. Mark found it such fun to serve with them. The pupils loved their time and hopefully benefited greatly from the lessons. So many special memories and heart warming encounters for all involved!

We have made slight progress on the home front. We will be moving into a house about 60km from the school on a safari park. This means that Mark will only have to spend 2/3 nights out at Turf as opposed to 5 nights, which will be great for our family!! Still not perfect, as I will be more isolated – in the middle of no where – compared to Harare where I can fill my days with things but the big up side is more time with Mark and being able to support each other as a family! We will live there until we are able to build something. So Mark continues to commute out to Turf till the end of next week –he leaves on a Sunday afternoon and is back on a Friday evening. In some senses he is working such long hours that not having us around is probably a good thing!! Mark is staying in a tin shed on the mining compound.

Our more permanent dwelling place will begin to be built within the next two weeks. It is three rooms – two of the rooms will be used as bedrooms and the other room will be used for our lounge/kitchen. We can’t wait for this to be built and for us to be in the community!! We have managed to secure a very small loan to build.

Mark has shared with his Sixth Formers photos of our life in England and it has literally blown their minds!!! Especially snow and Benenden!

As you can imagine it has been an interesting four weeks for Mark getting his head round how the school runs etc. He has been given a very heavy timetable for this term (the last term in the academic year) and is teaching from Year 9 to Upper Sixth – Mathematics, Physics and General Science. The school is terribly over crowded, so they run one school in the morning and one in the afternoon – 9 periods of teaching for each school, so a total of 18 periods a day. First lesson starts at 6.55am and the last lesson finishes at 5.00pm, with a 15 minute teaching break in the middle of the day.

Mark has obviously found the work load massive but has also found that the gaps the pupils have in their education is something that possibly can never be rectified – something so well explained in a recent documentary – The forgotten Children of Zimbabwe. He has found this incredibly sad, as he wants to be able to make a difference in these pupils lives but educationally for some of them it is too late and for a lot of them the gaps are so big that years of teaching will not fill all the blanks. We realise that we need to start supporting junior schools to get pupils to the place where they have a chance of passing at least a few O’levels, let alone A’levels. The examinations that the pupils write here are so much harder than what Mark was teaching in the UK and it seems so unfair in so many ways – all the odds are stacked against these kids. Mark said that they are eager to learn but often have already given up as they know they can never know enough to get them through – due to the instability education has experienced over the past 10 years in Zimbabwe. Sadly most of the teachers are unmotivated a) due to lack of resources, b) poor working conditions, c) next to no pay, so at times Mark feels like he is the only fish swimming in the other direction – arriving to all his lessons, teaching, marking etc. Mark was saying this weekend that he is so proud of some of his Sixth Formers, he can’t believe how they have managed to get where they are with so many gaps in their education and knowledge. They have purely relied on their gifting!!! So many of the kids writing their O’levels in 4 weeks have pinned such high hopes on Mark being there to teach them but Mark feels so sad as he knows he can’t make much difference other than to encourage them to do their best and try and cover as much as you can in a short space of time (and he’s only teaching two subjects). These pupils have given up so much to write their O’levels and A’levels – so expensive! It just seems so unfair that they are set to fail before they’ve even started! So as you can see the magnitude of what we are dealing with is dawning and we just need to get our heads round how the best way forward is and where we can make a difference and to focus on that and not feel overwhelmed by it all!

We are partnering with a Trust here in Zimbabwe. Sadly, their main funder has gone bust so we have been running on literally thin air for the last two months. This has also made us have to rethink all the things we thought we would be able to do in the community and Sixth Form during this next year and are trying to reinvent the wheel to try and make the A-level centre work effectively but also support the kids in the best possible way. So watch this space! Hopefully we can have some concrete plans in place soon!!

We could lie to you and say the last few weeks have been easy but they have been tough. At times we have questioned whether we have made the right move but we have had some encouragements on particularly bad days, that remind us we are not forgotten and not alone. So thank you to those of you who have texted or sent messages that have kept us going!!! One verse in particular has really spoken to me, 1 Peter4v12 and this song has played on my mind too – Oh no you never let go through the calm and through the storm.

I was given five pebbles when I left England with the following words written on each pebble – Love, Dream, Peace, Hope, and Laugh. They have been sitting on the dressing table in the room I sleep and I have been so encouraged by them over the last few weeks. One word will hit me and stay with me all day!

I’ve been reminded:

Love – God’s love for me is endless and limitless! My families love for me and my love for them is unchanging!! How truly blessed I am to say that I know what it means to be loved and to love!!!

Dream – that God has given us a dream that we are trying to fulfil – He knows our hearts desires and knows the journey we will travel – even if at times we feel forgotten and alone. Dreams keep us putting one foot in front of the other and we don’t let us get bogged down in life.

Peace – that His peace would surround us daily!

Hope – I have a hope that goes beyond the grave!

Laugh – I am blessed to have two precious children that enable me to laugh each day!!!!

Well enough from us!! Till next time!