Greetings and love to you all, we are writing this from the UK. Our last letter to you catalogued some of the 'disasters' which have befallen us this year and we asked you to pray about our future in Malawi. Here is how things panned out :-

Following the robbery and breakdown of trust,(one suspect was a pastor with New Life Church, one a member and all our friends and loved by us),after the Police arrested the main suspects, we dismissed everyone concerned. It was impossible to prove anyone 'innocent'-they just lead those sorts of lives-unconscious of dates, times, possible alibis etc.. In the end two were charged and due in court one Wednesday morning. However all evidence against them was 'circumstantial'. We considered what the Lord would have us do-in the event of conviction and sentencing, prison for years was inevitable- one had five young children, the other was newly married with one child. After thought and prayer we decided to drop the case. We then had a succession of 'temporary' staff who proved to be less than satisfactory!! Our present complement comprises- one daughter of a district pastor,(lethal with bleach and prone to leaving taps on, with danger of flooding when and if the water comes back on),one day man/relief watchman,(Jehovah's Witness but not satisfied),one watchman,- a church deacon from New Life,(no English and a HIV victim), and one church member also from New Life.

The New Life Church convention was soon to be upon us. In the meantime we packed up our remaining belongings and sold most of our furniture expecting to move out. Someone had offered us the use of their house in Blantyre for five weeks. It was a welcome change not to have to carry buckets of water to flush toilets, wash etc.-Blantyre suffers much less from water cuts than Bvumbwe ,where we sometimes go for 2 weeks without anything through the taps.

As the convention approached and with the church building earmarked for both sleeping in and meetings ,I decided to replace with fixed panes, the vulnerable lower louvre windows which had been stolen for the umpteenth time -a tedious job as every one was guaranteed different! Another task was to oversee the digging of a new latrine which proved to be a contest to the death with the termites,(called 'ants' by Malawians)- very strong poison was needed to contain their endeavours!-no wonder the scripture says 'go to the ant thou sluggard'. To illustrate how industrious they are-just before we came away, from the fireplace at home I removed two and a half barrow loads of soil which had all been carried through one tiny hole over a period of just one month!!

In due time the convention came about with 300 delegates attending. There was help on hand from a small team from Epsom Christian Fellowship and we believe the Lord blessed the ministry which included ladies', men's and children's meetings, communion, recognition of leaders etc., the theme being 'renewing the mind'.

Leading up to this time our dog for which we had taken precautions against pregnancy before we left for South Africa as you may remember, was giving birth to and attempting to feed ten puppies! The whole procedure was such an object lesson-Paul says to the Thessalonians, 'I was with you as a nursing mother------' We managed to sell nine - sadly the one given to our daughter contracted rabies and had to be put down and all the people in contact at the school had to have anti-rabies treatment-not nice. As this was going on another trauma occurred. A YWAM friend was severely bitten by a village dog, necessitating daily visits to hospital for anti-rabies treatment and wound cleansing. When on the second day she could not walk we took her into our home. She is only just pain-free and well again as we write.

Some of you may not know that Phill Harvey our mission partner has felt led to enter into full time teaching at a local international school. We wish him well in this move and wait to see how this decision will affect the work in which we are involved .

The month of October saw us hosting Bryn and Sue Vaughan from Liverpool, whom we had known in Zimbabwe. We had a excellent time with them visiting and ministering at four churches. Sue spoke at 12 different meetings. Bryn, every Sunday. On the practical side, Bryn fixed panes of glass in a house from which louvre blades had been stolen, in preparation for a Supported Key Worker. This scheme is being implemented in both New Life Church and Rock Springs Baptist Mission, and is a scheme Chisomo Trust have set up for selected key people who we think are pivotal to the further development of the two groups. Support is for a year re-viewable and extendable for a further year pending satisfactory appraisal. The house for this SKW has to be ready by 31/12/08 and has had little done to it in the past 14 years. In addition Bryn serviced a knitting machine we were given. We urgently need a teacher-can anyone help with this, and if possible the business side as well-we want our Malawian brothers and sisters to be self supporting and difficult times are upon them again?

So why are we in the UK? Well, we were robbed of a case containing all our personal papers and it has proved impossible to sort things out from Malawi-hard enough here as it turns out!! Also we needed to see our daughter, husband and Oscar who are planning to move to Australia next year.

Regarding our permanent residence application for Malawi, we still wait. However we have been granted a letter from Immigration allowing us to come and go freely. We still ask for your prayers. Thanks to those who have kept in touch with us this year and given. Just before we came away we learned that some Christian friends have bought the house that we live in. They will be doing many alterations and would like Martin to oversee them. And so we can stay for the time being- they do however plan to come and live there. So what with this, involvement with the churches, coming alongside our Malawian brothers and sisters, the maintenance work at NLC, opportunities, to preach etc we expect to continue to be busy!!

Yours in the love of the Lord,

Martin and Marian