Good bye Zambia

So our time has come to say goodbye to blog and Zambia we will leave here this Wednesday and are Very torn, we are so sad to be leaving so many gorgeous people but So excited to see all of you. We've accomplished all the brothers asked on the roofs and are now seeing them painted, the brothers are getting up at 5am to paint as its now to hot to do it later. So the roof you see a few pictures below now looks as good as new!!! This is the final group picture with us at our leaving do on Saturday, More dancing lots cake Laughing and Crying! We look forward to see you all very soon and thanks for being interested in what we've been up to x lots love X Lester and Leah

A leaving party already

This is the leaving party the brothers in our congregation threw for us this weekend, we laughed and danced a lot!! We will really miss our brothers here in Makeni Central. Apparently they didn't know that white people could dance!

The roof is complete and a poorly knee

At last our roof is finished all tiny rust spots are gone(we hope). Here is me celebrating and as you can see there is no Lester on the roof, this is because he has a bacterial infection on his knee which is very painful, So doctors orders meant he was grounded for the final days of scrubbing and the celebrations which consist of jumping up and down for joy and everyone else solutes the sky with their jet washers, only thing is we couldn't get them in the picture because they were on the other roofs.
Lester was so bored in the room he put a notice on the door saying he wasn't contagious and that people should come visit, which they did! When he was feeling a little bit better and a little more bored he went to the laundry and spent the morning folding clothes a skill that will come in VERY handy back home. He Also spent a day sharpening all the landscaping tools on his lap with a grinder. Don't tell health and safety.

A really lovely weekend

Some friends of ours took us shopping yesterday to the back streets of Lusaka and to some small craft markets,
And in the evening ED and Linda (branch overseer & wife) treated some of us Iv's to a BBQ.
So tomorrow Its back to our Roof's for the final two weeks of work, We are nearly there
with three quarters of our roof scrubbed and the aim of finishing one more in the next few weeks we will need all the help we can get.
Lester is scrubbing the roof runs first with a pad (you can see him at the bottom nearly) and then we all scrub down the run with a green scouring pad to remove old paint and then use fine sand paper to remove the rust which there is lots of, I'm starting at the top with my back facing you. From this picture you can kind of see the differnece in color what is yellow ish is what is left to do. Then one more to go.

The heat can be to much for us all!

Hi all Peter above had us all laughing the other week with his new invention,the hard hat sombrero! Thought we'd share it with you! Sorry we've not blogged for a while, the reason is we don't have long left and we are scrubbing like mad! With 2 roofs almost finished and 2 more to be done you can imagine our hands are tired along with the rest of us, We hope all is well back home and look forward to seeing you all in one month!! Will keep you updated with the final progress
xx us

Leaving MTS graduation in style!

We all wanted to go to a local market so someone had to go in the boot!! Good job there aren't to many pot holes!!!!!!!!!
We also just had our district assembly and will upload some more photos soon!

Victoria falls and Botswana trip

Hi all! we just wanted to keep you up to date a little with whats going on, two months of scrubbing on hands and knees is starting to take its toll on both of us but this past weekend has really been a break much needed! We took the weekend away with 6 others from the project to see Victoria falls and also to do a land and boat safari in Botswana. We had a very special weekend and were so excited to see the gorgeous animals and SO close at times it was scary! So here are couple of photos from the trip and to the right> will be some more for you to look at soon.
Briefly on the work side of things at last this week the painting has started on the residents roof and already the building we've been working on is 3/4 painted so progress at last seems to be showing! To give you some idea of the size, the dimensions show that we're working on a building similar in size to Noah's ark!
We also hope that your all ok back home and that you've enjoyed your assembly's, ours is next week We're so looking forward to sitting down for 3 days! keep in touch x from us x

Pizza paty at the Gazebo

After a very hard week of scrubbing and washing down the roof panels on our Hands and knees Simon and Annie some friends had a pizza party at the Bethel Gazebo to help us all wind down and relax! Good fun and MUCH laughing. Here are the Lady's a mixture of Missionary's International volunteers and long term Bethelites. Smashing group!

Look no hands!

ok so if he can do it so can i!



Of course this is not the usual way you carry around 73 year old's but we thought we'd give it a try!
Check out our up dated page on what we've been up to. This is apart from lots of scrubbing the roof a very long winded job but its getting there slowly. We hope your all well back home. Lots love us x

After some misinisty some retail therapy

Last week some friends took us out to do some study's and then took us to the local craft market. It was packed with loads of lovely this and beautiful wood we were there late so we ended up haggling in the dark!

Hurrah we're on the big roofs at last.

At last some movement on the high buildings!!! Pressure washing Oompa loompa's have taken over the roofs! This pressure washing comes with some scary consequences today a swarm of bees came over the edge of the roof, which was terrifying as some people have been stung repeatedly recently, so we were all scrambling to get down! (One brother got stung over 100 times trying to get rid of a nest) Thank goodness that no one got stung this time!! But we feel sorry for Abel the local brother who has to move their nest later with no proper equipment! This is the second time poor Abel has had to try and move them on and last time his hand swelled up like a balloon!!!

Yes it is winter here!!!

We've seen 8 of these!

I was playing football last week with the brothers from Bethel. I ran off to get the ball at one point and when I looked up 4 zebras were staring at me standing right next to the ball!!! It was the most surreal experience I've ever had whilst playing football.