Table Tennis Bats

Another really busy couple of weeks for the Wisdoms. 7 weeks left at EDF, 10 in our house and I leave the UK in 12! It’s not uncommon for me to feel physically sick at the thought.

But progress is good and, despite the timescales, I think we’re pretty much on track.

May Trip

As mentioned in previous blogs, The King’s School is flying me out next Saturday for 2 weeks of meetings and familiarisation. My recent trip to Wick did nothing to improve my views on flying, but I am, nonetheless, looking forward to the visit.

It promises to be a packed two weeks as I have staff, pupils, parents and other interested parties to meet; as well as sorting out some domestic arrangements. I will need to buy some beds and mosi nets, and choose a car.

I’ll also be, formally, meeting the ‘workers’ that we will inherit with the house we will be living in. This feels like the most daunting bit. To date, most of my interaction with Burundians has been in English. Language skills vary between the workers, but French will be the common ground…which will be interesting. (Though I’m writing this having just had an excellent dejeuner francais avec Christophe). I’ll also be the epitome of the clueless employer for these guys. The practicalities of running a house, cleaning, washing, cooking, shopping, paying bills in Burundi are completely lost on us. Much of it bears no relation to how it’s done in the UK and precious little of it is straight forward.

In August we’re going for the excess baggage option for transporting our life. It seems to be the cheapest and most reliable option. I’m taking some extra bags this time which will be a useful dry run…though I am worried that I may raise a few eyebrows in customs arriving with 12 bags in August…but it’ll mainly be Lego and underwear J

It’s also an opportunity for me to bring supplies for our expat friends. This time the list includes Dairy Milk, birthday invitations and table tennis bats.

I’ll be staying with our friends David and Debbie, who will also work with me at The King’s School. I’m really looking forward to getting to know them better.

Weather and power permitting, I hope to write my first ‘in country’ blog when I’m out there.

Please pray for a productive trip and that I’ll learn much about my new role.

Please pray that I will be able to start developing good relationships with the staff and pupils at The King’s School

Please ask God to bless our house and our relationships with our workers

Meetings and Talks…

…seem to be a prominent feature of our lives at the moment. I had the pleasure of doing three talks in Wick, Scotland a couple of weeks ago and am speaking at a Men’s Breakfast in June.

Harry will be joining me for his first speaking engagement as we do an assembly for Years 2 – 8 at his school next week.

Tomorrow Allie will be put through her paces by the pupils at Whitehill School.

I’m also trying to meet up with those in the UK who are connected to The King’s School and am particularly excited about meeting up with Chrissie Chapman for a coffee on Saturday. Chrissie runs the CRIB Orphange whose children attend The King’s School.

Please pray that God will be glorified through our talks and meetings.

Preparing To Go

Allie wearily remarked the other day that our bedroom looked as though we’d just moved in.  Piles of things waiting to be collected by new owners are evidence that ‘Facebook Flogging’ is in full swing.

It’s both liberating and unsettling. I find myself being quite resentful…having decided that I no longer need certain things, it’s frustrating to have to spend time getting rid of them.

The pace seems frantic now and the to do list impossible.

But I heard something wonderful and simple on Tuesday:

‘We Can’t,

God Can,

So Let Him’

Allie and I were able to get away for two days at the weekend which was bliss. We managed 8 films in 2 days J…the best of which was The Proposal.

Please pray for peace over our family

Fundraising and Spending

This still feels so hard! God’s really testing us on this one….but we’ve made progress. At time of writing we’ve raised about 34% of our budget which is great…though, due to timing, we are still about £4k short of our entry costs. (That’s the first time I’ve seen that percentage and it’s encouraging…and typical that I focus on the 66% we don’t have rather than rejoicing about the 34% we do have!)

From Monday we start spending, which is scary.

If you have decided to support us, but not filled in the form yet, please don’t delay. There’s up to 6 weeks delay between forms being posted and us receiving funds. Stewardship is worth it, but intially a bit slow.

If you haven’t looked at the summary of our mission, costs and support forms yet, please do go to the ‘Making a Donation’ page.

If you’re uncertain and would like to chat it through, please drop me a note (jez.wisdom@gmail.com).

If you’ve decided that you can’t support us, please do continue to pray.

Praise God for His provision

Training

Allie’s finished her All Nations course and I’ve just started mine. Well, strictly speaking, I’ve been just starting mine for nearly a month. My course is designed to be done at my own pace….but I think I’m really stretching that principle. I submitted my 1^st of five topics yesterday…I think my peers are about to start their 4^th.

My nature is to talk and do (with an emphasis on the talking). Studying and, in particular, writing is very, very frustrating for me. Allie said to me yesterday ‘Don’t you find that, once you get into it, you enjoy it?’

No.

But that’s my problem and, although I may not enjoy it, I am finding it useful.

Please pray that God will help me to persevere

Church

Allie worked out that I only have 5 Sundays at All Saints left (taking into account trips etc…) which is weird. Our commissioning service is scheduled for 15^th July….certainly my last Sunday at All Saints.

Thank God for the support of our church family

Prayer

We really appreciate all the prayer support we’re getting…and, slowly, we’re beginning to twig that it will help if we pray more.

I’m sure I’m not unique in that following God’s call has often made me too busy to spend time with him. Better bible and prayer discipline over the last couple if days has really helped.

That’s all for now. I really hope to post, with photos, in a couple of weeks from Bujumbura. It’s frustrating that so little of what we write is about what we will be doing and the people we will serve…but until we get out there and know what we’re talking about it’s impossible.

God Bless,

Jez

P.S. For those that missed it on Facebook, here's the picture that Allie found of Gustave the Giant crocodile who lives/lived in Lake Tanganyika in Burundi....there's also a really cool 10min documentary on him here.

A New Home in Burundi

Allie writing...

Our new home in Burundi!

This is our biggest piece of news: we have a house to move into in August :0)

It is quite near both primary and secondary school sites, and near to several other families we already know with children of a similar age to ours.

The house is a detached bungalow with 3 bedroooms, 2 bathrooms, a lounge/diner and kitchen. It has a large covered verandah and a small garden/washing area around it, all enclosed within high walls and gates. We have been able to visit the house before as a British missionary lives there at the moment.

It is a huge relief to already have accommodation set up, and to have visited before. The house also comes with a dog, which we hope will compensate a little for leaving ours in the UK.

Departure Dates

Tickets have been reserved for August. Ticket prices for when Jeremy needs to travel to Burundi to prepare for the start of term are nearly £500 more expensive per person than one week later.

So it now looks like Jeremy will fly out on 18^th August (with all the extra luggage) and Allie with fly out on 28^th August (with all the children!)

Although this was a difficult decision, apart from the money saved, an advantage is that Jeremy will be able to sort out the house and a lot of practical things. We were also a bit worried about the kids getting bored whilst waiting three weeks for term to start.

All part of God’s plan!

Studying

I have completed my 13 week course with All Nations. I have learned so much and it has been an incredibly valuable experience, both from the lessons themselves and from being part of an online community of people in a similar situation to us, all asking God to show us where he wants us to work with him.

Although the course was excellent, it was very hard fitting 8 hours of study into my week, especially over school holidays, and I’m quite glad to be back to ‘normal’ now.

We also went to a really helpful day at Redcliffe College near Gloucester called ‘Preparing Families for Life Overseas’. It was great to meet lots of other parents heading overseas soon, and we learnt lots about the BENEFITS and CHALLENGES of moving a family abroad. We had an idea of many of the challenges already, but it was great to look at the all the benefits to our family :0)

Fundraising

Our Stewardship account has started to show the early signs of life….hooray!!!

Emotions

 We are all really looking forward to being in Burundi, and are excited about new schools, friends, home and opportunities, and a lot more sunshine (especially as it’s so wet in the UK at the moment!).

However each of us is struggling in different ways with this transition period. My course covered transition, and it was a relief to see a chart of typical emotions/feelings during transition and realise that the feelings we’re experiencing are ‘normal’, phew! But it is tiring, and we’re all a bit up and down. I’ve been doing an outstanding crocodile impression this week – snap snap snap :0( but having the children all back at school after the holidays should help a bit.

Selling ‘stuff’

Anyone who’s friends with me on facebook will have seen my favourite method of selling things! Friends also helped us with a bring and buy sale of children’s clothes and toys and, including some ‘gifts’ given to us on the day we raised about £430!!

The children have generally been really good about selling/giving away some of their things, though I did promise them each a new DVD, as it’s one of the few things we can definitely take with us ie. small and light.

Moving forward, coming together

It is quite amazing how God keeps showing us the way forward, every step of the way. We don’t have all the answers yet as we don’t need them yet. But I can guarantee that when we need to know something , God will show us the way forward, he does every single time without fail :0) I don’t believe in coincidences!!

Some of the questions we have at the moment are:

• Can we take the children’s play kitchen with us?
• Where do we buy school uniform (do we buy some here and some there?)
• What’s the best way to say goodbye to the dogs?
• How will we get to the airport with all our suitcases? Who do we want to come to the airport with us – what’s best for the children?
• How do I buy 10 months shoes for the children? How will I know they’ll fit in 4 months time?
• Do we need to re-write our wills  (something we have been advised to do)?
• ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Listing these things makes me panic until I remember that the last 12 months have seen God address each question PERFECTLY when we have needed the answers. I know he will again!

These verses have come up either at church, cell group or in quiet times 3 times in the last week which made me think God was trying to tell me something!

1 Corinthians 12 v 25-26 (The Message)

 ^25-26The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don't, the parts we see and the parts we don't. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.

When people think of ‘the church’ they think of a building, but the Bible says that actually ‘the church’ is God’s people (Christians)! That’s all God’s people everywhere, and, as the verses above say, we depend on each other, we need each other, like a HUGE family :0)

We could not be doing this without ‘the church’ – for us this means our Christian brothers and sisters in Crowborough, Tunbridge Wells, Thame, Long Crendon, across the world thanks to the internet, and in Wick, right at the very tip of Scotland, whom Jez visited this weekend. Thank you for praying for us and supporting us in lots of ways, it makes an enormous difference! As the verses above say, we share in each others’ struggles, and celebrate with each other too – YAY!!!