Multiply Zambia 2014 Day Zero - We Fly

My bedside digital clock said 4.44.  I spent two hours lying rehearsing the day's last-minute jobs and evaluating various permutations around repacking.  Mary had to take Barrie to Northern General Hospital at 8am, so when Phil and Donna texted at 7.00am, I too relinquished the bed.  Then Gav rang: he had all the family gathered round the phone to wish me goodbye.  When I told him the flight was 7.00 in the evening he rang off to get on with breakfast.  Harriet breezed, "Did you see what Ali posted on Facebok last night?  'My last proper night's sleep for two weeks.'"  "Did she tell you about the travel iron?" I followed. 

Actually, the last hours had been eventful for us all.  When the rest of us were away in Birmingham, Steven, our Jesus Centre publicity supremo, had arranged to got to Bridlington for a few days away and to attend a wedding.  Only he'd taken rather more of his stuff than he needed, and then texted Mary to say 'things had come up'...  Sunday supper was a non-event. 
 
On Sunday night and Monday morning I'd desperately tried to find an online bookseller who could deliver ISBN 0691007373 "Wildlife of East Africa" before I left Sheffield.  Hannah had failed in her attempt to check in on line.  James had found that Viv had nicked the best of our camera tripods, and I would need to get it to him before baggage check-in.  Both Len and I had clean forgotten to agree about picking up the two Multiply video cameras, but James (Jimmie to his friends) had thoughtfully snaffled them.  He'd also posted a copy of the Sheffield Jesus Centre video he's just completed on line at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtgHXLKUSZI

The first email I checked was Steven saying the advance budget money still hadn't arrived.  The folks in Lusaka were desperate for it, else we wouldn't be able to keep to the conference arrangements.  Andy rang to say he'd been trying to use the Skaino credit card, and had locked out the password.  He apologised that I wouldn't be able to use it in an emergency.

Time to get to the station arrived faster than I'd noticed, juggling how to transport the tripod and all.  But, at Sheffield station my train had been cancelled.  A landslip had required maintenance work, and only one, not three trains per hour were running between there and Chesterfield.  And they were being very slow about it.  I texted Len to say 'Save me a place in the baggage queue'. 

Sitting on the delayed train, I realised I'd left $500 of conference 'contingency' money at home in my briefcase.  Somehow, I didn't feel like eating my packed lunch.

Past Leicester, the driver opened the throttle and we seemed to catch up on lost time.  I saved a few minutes on the tube and Heathrow Connect train, and surfaced at Terminal 4 just an hour late.  The rest of the gang had taken over Cafe Nero.  Jake, the driver from Northampton, and Jimmie were tinkling on the concourse piano.

Farayi introduced me to his wife Brenda and two children, plus their adopted daughter who'd be travelling with us to join another member of the family in Ndola.  The Kenya Airways check-in was straightforward, not least because the plane was only half full and the usual crush of passengers was absent.  We had a last-minute photo shoot while Mary rang to say that her hospital checkup had gone okay, but she has another one on Tuesday.

On board, I texted Gav to say we were due to switch off 'all electronic equiment'.  But 'We love you, Granddad.' arrived on my answerphone just the same.  Len was like a kid with a new toy fiddling with the in-flight entertainment console, and Jimmie was shooting still photos and videos of the terminal building through the window.

After the crew served the meal, Len passed round half his bread roll as our little Agape.  I headed towards the back and took over three empty seats together.  With three hours time difference they would be serving breakfast at local time equivalent of 4.00am.  I saw Jimmie's screen flickering, but sleep was first priority for me.

Multiply Zambia 2014 - Day Minus One

Monday wasn't supposed to be like this!  We had a great time on Saturday at the national celebration in Birmingham's New Bingley Hall.  The Multiply team was commissioned on stage in the afternoon.  Len led much of the evening, and Matt from Kings Church Medway spoke, too.  Mary and I went on the stay the night in Coventry, at what has become known as '64' (Leamington Road) since the Bright Flame saints moved there earlier in the year.

 Loz - my sometime blog mentor - led the Sunday morning meeting.  We had an erudite menu, including a clip of Steven Fry and Bear Grhylls in dialogue, and several leaders boogying around to the Pharrell Williams 'Happiness' song.  Er, I forgot the exact point, but it was something like hope doesn't equal optimism: which is true.  Sigh: chapter two.

We'd had an invitation to lunch with Roanne, who lives with Neil and Claire.  She, with Mim, her partner in the venture, have set up a not-for-profit social enterprise to import and market crafts from micro finance projects in Bangladesh.  The set-up is called 'Glass Half Full', and they're seeking £35,000 of funding.  The aim is, if possible, to steer this towards Multiply, once there's an income stream.  It's very good.

On the way home to Sheffield, about 5.pm, Mick sent a text to confirm an early (and hasty) meeting first thing on Monday at the Farm Central Offices.  Packing would have to wait.  But mercifully I'd thrown a lot of things into the right piles on Friday night.

It was just as well that I turned up because we hadn't withdrawn any dollars and we also needed some more cash for the conference budget.  I was able to provide the reassuring hums as wads of notes went into my briefcase!  At the lunchtime Brotherhood, Hannah did a presentation on the trip, so it was time well spent.

I called in at Sainsbury's at Fosse Park, Leicester for some cheap petrol, and ventured into the store to get some shortbread biscuit.  This is a travellers friend, being high calorie, acceptable if you've got a funny tummy and compact for packing.  I seemed to walk through the vast building for a quarter of an hour before finding the three (not one) sizes and weight offered.  Then I thought I'd try the self serve check-out.  No, I wasn't motivated by the recent announcement that the main supermarkets record between 4.7% and 7.4% extra stock 'shrinkage' since they've trusted customer with this.

Though not having a clue what to do, I was happy to follow the lady on the video screen, and wafted my packet under the scanner just as she did.  Lights flashed and I got a screen full of asterisks telling me I'd used an invalid card.  Invalid card!?  A ruddy and juvenile customer service assistant duly arrived.  He muttered several sentences in consumerese - incomprehensible to me.  I shrugged and sloped off to wait in queue.  It would have been simpler to have had them delivered from Harrods. 

I felt queasy.  I think it's the side effects of the mozzi tablets.  I was at the wrong end of the store to find my car.  I think even the Lego man from Google Street View would have got lost.

Back home, I broke a fasting habit of 28 years and had tea with everyone.  I aimed to attack some last-minute emails, then the packing.  The broadband at home had choked up again owing to certain residents caning it with film watching.  I gave up on that - another little job to fit in tomorrow before I go - and got back to the cases.  10pm brought triumph: one 17kg and one 18kg.  It had been a long day!

Multiply Zambia 2014: just days to go.

I'm a bit late with this, but we're on the final week's countdown to the Multiply Zambia trip. We - the team - means Len and Ali from Brighton; James Norden; Hannah from Multiply (as previously posted).  Now we've also got Farayi, who's Zambian himself, from Kings Church Medway.  We fly out on Tuesday 25 February, first to Nairobi, then connecting on to Ndola in the Copperbelt.  There we'll join Steven in Kitwe, where a lot of the action will take place. 

Len and I, with Steven, will head up the conference schedule: Kitwe, Lusaka, Lilongwe and finally Dar es Salaam.  Al1 and Hannah will be doing stuff in the Kitwe school and ophanage.  James will toggle between the two, and Farayi has to check out Lilongwe ready for Kings Church's own project visit in September.  He'll catch up with some relatives, too.

All in advance, we've ordered a satellite broadband, and sent ten laptops together with about £1,000 of literacy and school resources.  Thanks to all of you who raised the funds and who donated.

I'm on the predictable treadmill of assembling personal kit and all the conference stuff: projector, audio cabling, Powerpoint handouts and essential medicines.  I wake up early remembering 'one last thing' I've overlooked.  The saints have bought me a tarty bit of TNF luggage to replace the pinky-red case I got via Freecycle and that served me well in India.  We're still not sorted out on phones, but James will be doing a full video record.

I'm hoping the saints remember to pray.  I've related that when we have our Multiply prayer day, the last Thursday of each month, I sometimes wake up thinking I'm in Tanzania.  There are 310 pastors there praying that the Multiply team will return. 

A57, A625, A61, A621

It seems that Sheffield Council provides a footpath to the city boundary on all the main outbound roads.  I don't know when I first realised this, but I've made walking the 15 miles to the Derbyshire border along the Manchester Road a regular exercise.  

At points the footpath is a bit grim.  Invariably there's evidence that a car has recently skidded off the road.  This is the route to the Snake Pass (A57), and ice hangs around long after it's cleared in the suburbs.  It's usually headwind on the way out, and buses only run on Saturdays: I recently got soaked when heavy rain started when I was well out in the countryside.

Last summer, I fancied a change.  I did the equivalent walk on Ecclesall Road (A625) towards Castleton.  This is a shorter distance (about 12 miles).  My attempt to take a 'selfie' with the Peak District National Park millstone as a background, was ruined by the direct sunlight from the south.  The footpath has disappeared at some points, so you only want to walk the roadside verve bits in dry weather.

For years we've passed the city boundary sign at Lowedges as we've returned from trips down the M1.  We usually use the A61 to Chesterfield, then head along the A617 to junction 29.  I hadn't been attracted to this route because it's all built-up area.  But the other Monday I had to call in at Skaino's office, round the corner, so just kept on walking.  Returning is down hill all the way (some six miles), which is a compensation.

Skaino's offices also run onto the Abbeydale Road, which heads towards Bakewell.  Twice I've got out to Totley, only to be soaked by rain, and forced to catch a bus home.  This week I completed the walk to the boundary, only to find the footpath goes about two and a half miles further on.  So this was an 18 mile there-and-back marathon.  And I got caught in a brief hailstorm, but it produced a lovely rainbow.

Our dentist surgery lies on the A6102 Stocksbridge Road.  The city boundary intersects this on the main A616 Bypass.  It's way beyond the end of the Middlewood tram terminal, but countryside all the way from that point.  It's next on my list.

It's a great way to get familiar with the city's main radial routes.  And a shame not to make full use of amenities that our Council Tax has paid for!

Narborough

A busy weekend: Friday evening - a get-together in Coventry with the rising generation who've been on Multiply recent trips; then travel to Leicester for their Saturday and Sunday events; finally, on Monday, Coventry Jesus Centre's quarterly Management Meeting.

It was Jen who tipped me off that some of our younger folks, who had been to Romania for last September's Multiply EU conference, were wondering how to take forward what had affected them.  "How would it be if we all got together for a de-briefing, one evening?" I'd proposed to Huw.  We chose Tree of Life in Coventry because it's near the rail station, and is probably the community house that most accessible for public transport.  Everyone was keen, and Jonny took bookings for Helen to cook up some tea. 

 As it turned out, travelling be train was best for me too; which is where Narborough comes in.  I use the transportdirect site   http://www.transportdirect.info/web2/Default.aspx?repeatingloop=Y   to plan anything that involves public transport.  Saturday's journey, from Coventry to Narrow Way, was fastest if I caught a train to Narborough and then the X44 bus in towards Leicester centre.  I booked my tickets.

Friday teatime brought a good buzz, and folks soon got into sharing their experiences.  Joe and Simeon (and Iain) were in Sierra Leone just over a month ago.  Their feedback was vivid and engaging: I didn't know they'd nearly run out of money!  Their carpentry project was the most ambitious we've conceived.  It nearly didn't work because - totally unforeseen -they were spending six hours a day travelling between their accommodation and the project site.

Helen and Jenny expressed their disappointment that the church and school they'd gone to in Lagos had been unprepared for their visit.  However, the team gave the local folks a to-do list with a promise of more help, and things are moving forward well.

Next we heard about Romania.  Emmaline has a vision for community to get rooted there, and sparked some good exchanges about our intern scheme.  Aidan and Blaze chipped in their thoughts, too.

Jason, who with Jonny joined me in Kenya two years ago, got more fired up as the evening progressed.  Like several of the others, he'd love to pay a return visit.  James and Hannah, who are part of next month's team to East Africa, listened carefully.

Finally Nathan and Sam talked about the recent India visit, which has a slightly different focus because we intentional introduced some special ministry activities for younger folks.  This would be great to repeat by getting a band of personal contact over of the MILC conference in May.

Huw seemed pleased with the evening.  We hope it will spin off into more initiative and faith for things in here the UK, including getting other local churches/groups into the Multiply family.  We also threw out a challenge for who'd be up to lead a team of four to go for a month or so.  Andy and Eva seem keen.

As folks stayed around for supper, I had a long chat with Jonny and Naomi about where they'd best like to live after they marry later this year.  The guys had sorted me out a bed perilously sitting atop a high bunk, and Steve mocked me for wrapping myself up tightly in a pink blanket lest I slipped over the edge.

Coventry and Leicester sit on different north-south mainline rail routes, so it's a humble local train that thread its way across via Bedworth, Nuneaton, and Hinckley.  The arrival into and departure from Nuneaton was suspiciously late.  There seemed to be some problem with the doors, and both the driver and guard were involved.  The reason because obvious at Hinckley.  They'd 'kettled' a bunch of guys who'd tried to ride without tickets - and seemingly were refusing to pay, too.  I was glad I'd grabbed a coffee in the previous wait.

And so to Narborough, over half an our late.  We getting-off passengers had to make our way down to the guards cab, and wriggle past the chairs and levers to jump off.  That was definitely a 'first' for me, but I'd missed my bus.  So, in the pale sunlight and cold wind I waited for a lift from the Narrow Way saints.  It all wasn't meant to turn out this way, but that's exactly the joy of these trips that the folks had been extolling last night!

Multiply Zambia - 2014

It's three years since Iain and I went to Stephen's church in Zambia's Kitwe for the last International conference.  In the time between, we've raised our game and introduced practical projects and added a younger group to such team visits.  The coming February/March trip boasts Len's wife Ali joining us to launch a literacy project, Hannah - who works in Multiply central office - to help with the orphanage and school, and James - church video guru - to document the whole experience and convey some of the rationale for those who 'still don't get it'. 

The itinerary for those of us conference-hopping (me, Len, Stephen) is pretty punishing: Kitwe, Lusaka, then Lilongwe in Malawi, and a return to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.  I shall add a couple of days with Gregory in Nairobi. 

The vital need at this stage is to get a broadband connection installed at Stephen's ministry premises.  It's got to be satellite, thus leapfrogging copper wire, fibre optic and mobile cell technology in one go!  Huw's promised that Multiply Fund will underwrite whatever we can't secure by donations of the £5,000 price tag.  James, who works in Group IT, was worried how long it would take to set up the local network.  Then Farayi, a Zambian from Kings Church, Medway, agreed to join us.  His daytime job is also in IT support, so he'll be welcome the sixth member of the team.  While in Malawi, he'll check out Kings Church's own project there.

When Mick arranged his recent Multiply trip to Sierra Leone and Liberia, his team bonding times became legendary.  Whatever involves bacon rolls rapidly gains popularity, so we follow suit - anything less would be mean.  The next one is in a week's time, and by then we need to have the flights booked (awaiting just one confirmation), all jabs up to date, and an estimate on what funds we'll have raised, so we can get consignments sent off in time.

Ali co-ordinates 400 people in Brighton on English language courses and conversation groups.  Since August she's been working on suitable materials and schemes - at three levels - for both teachers and pupils in Zambia.  One of her office team comes from the Copperbelt, and has been encouraging her with advice about eating, dress and culture. 

Hannah held a cake sale after Sunday morning church a couple of weeks ago and raised £240 for the orphanage and school.  Four sisters in Northampton are tackling a sponsored bike ride, and Trevor's selling dvds.  The Brighton saints have done a car-boot sale.

We hope we'll get it right this time in Dar es Salaam.  Two year ago was beset with apostolic irritations as Stephen went down with malaria and we ran out of money.  This time we're assembling Rukundu and Gregory as reinforcements.  It will be great to catch up again with Stephen's brother, Jakob, and Pastor Luvanda from the local fellowship.

There's more on:
facebook.com/fundraisingforZambia
multiply.org.uk/zambia-project

More Songs and St Andrews

The Broomhall Community Choir has made its public debut.  Nothing very exalted, but we've broken the ice.  St Andrews (URC) held an afternoon Christmas party to mark the redecoration of their church hall, and we did a couple of pieces.

Mary's brother Tony, of City of Bath Bach Choir fame, let on that he was due to become a grandfather again.  In conversation, Mary told him how much she was enjoying the choir.  He later emailed that they were tackling James MacMillan's St John's Passion - the first amateur group to do so.  And the composer was making the journey from Glasgow to support the performance.  With this as the backdrop, you'll rate our challenge less impressive!

Choirmaster Steve turned up in a dark suit, resplendent with blood-red shirt and white bow tie.  He'd been a busy man, with a major concert the night before, and one to follow in the evening.  Fellow bass Ian had gone down with a croaky cold, and Worrall Male Voice Choir member David had already given his apologies.  It was down to Terry and me to bang out the "fat" in "Christmas is coming".  Although I'd missed a vital rehearsal, I'd got adequate memories of singing it at a school.  I realised that Terry and I were up against unfamiliar parts. 

Steve gave us a glowing introduction, and a pressing invitation for others to come and join the choir in the New Year.

Now I hang my head in shame.  We started with St Winifred ("Cradled in a manger, meanly").  When Steve brightly proposed 'unaccompanied', he was outvoted.  Furthermore, heads buried into music sheets while he - valiantly conducting with his left hand while playing the four-part harmony with his right, sitting sideways on to us at the piano keyboard - didn't get a glance through all four verses.  "Look at me!" he pleaded.  He wasn't best pleased.

I resolved not to let him down with the "fat".  The second song was passable, but hardly a credit.  I never did see Steve leave. 

Viv had turned up, having had a hand in designing a new CAT5 wiring loop for the Hall.  He munched his way through the buffet, and then announced he needed to go and pick up a table from Freecycle.  So I stacked a few chairs and went to give him a hand, while the nice catering ladies tidied up.  And that was that.  We've taken our first step to public recognition. 

Steve says it's madrigals next.