Yes Jesus loves me

I really don’t know how Noah managed to keep it all together while God was busy flooding the earth. Today we have had what feels like an almost biblical amount of rain. Duncan is pleased because it is very good news for all of the onion seedlings that he has just planted out. We have had an impressive result with our vegetable plot this year. We haven’t had to buy any onions or Kale since mid August and have even managed to sell some of the kale to a high school for girls in Kosele. It is all very encouraging.

On another positive note we have just received the first application for the teaching posts in our Agriculture College that we have just advertised. Advertising a teaching vacancy around here is rather different to back in England. We don’t have a local job centre. The District Education Officer has been kind enough to photocopy and paste up our full page job advert in a variety of public places on his travels around the district. As the adverts were only posted yesterday this is a good start as it’s the first time that we have formally advertised for teachers. Our last recruitment drive was aimed at graduates from the local Teacher Training College in Kosele run by our friend Stephen. I’m looking forward to the interviews in a couple of week’s time.

I had a really priceless moment today because of the rain. At some points this afternoon it looked like somebody was just emptying buckets of water out of the sky. When it rains like this the only sensible thing to do is take shelter and sit it out until the rain stops. Two of our younger children holed up in the classroom next to my office. I don’t think they knew I was in the room next door – we’ve just had ceiling board put up to make it look a bit more presentable for visitors and to cut down the noise of the rain on the corrugated iron roof. One of the downsides of sitting in some of our buildings is the machine gun volume of the rain if it falls particularly heavily. The rain lasted for most of the afternoon, so the two little ones were inside for the long run. As the volume of the rain rose and fell I could hear them reading, chatting, playing games and finally, when all else had been exhausted, singing. It was as if the rain knew that a special moment was at hand. The downpour slowed to a steady, quieter drizzle and two little voices piped up “Yes Jesus loves me, Yes Jesus loves me, Yes Jesus loves me, The Bible tells me so”. It was beautiful.