A belated Merry Christmas and early Happy New Year

Greetings to all, it has been several weeks since we last wrote and it has been quite a hectic time. As I write I am sitting in Ruth's bach at Waihi beach having returned to NZ, this time for an extended stay.Yes for now we have left Uganda after five and a half years. It has been a busy time preparing to leave but we are happy that most of the tasks we were involved in have been taken up by others. There is a great group of younger missionaries who have joined NACMU over the last three months and this has made it easier for us to leave. It does not mean however that our relationship with Pete and Pita or the organisation will cease, definitely not. We will continue to support and promote NACMU in NZ and hope to one day return with a team. In the weeks leading up to our leaving we have been farewelled in grand style, sung to, visited, feasted  you name it. Our Aunties and the family units put on an African meal for us which took 2 days to prepare and was absolutely wonderful and we were both peripherally involved in the Cantata that the compound presented for the local community. Because we were leaving we had decided that it would be unwise to be involved in a big way so we were allocated the roles of 'encouragers'. Marilyn arranged a children's choir to sing Little Donkey and also play one of the songs Christian preferred not to, and I sang in the choir (which was led by Aunty Christine), except when I had to fill in for Dr Luke for two performances. The cantata was called "Mary Remembers" and involved old Mary talking to Dr Luke about the events of the birth of Jesus, then having the actors on stage enacting it as it went. It was a magnificent show with acting,choir singing, solo singing,  African dance, ballet, children's choir, a shepherd's stomp and some magnificent costumes and the stage set. It involved all on the compound in one way or another and in doing so that was a bonus. Pastor John gave a message after each performance and the children who attended all went home with a gift. We intended to have only three performances but such was the demand that an extra one was scheduled for the Saturday and we still had to turn hundreds away. Each performance saw about 1200 people in the church and that in itself was amazing. Katie, Stefani, Jared and Christian did an amazing job of putting it together, it was a real team effort with Bev, Rianne and Agnes doing some wonderful costumes and Colin doing most of the set. This was a magnificent outreach to the villages which we are sure will be repeated in the future.
As well as this we were hopeful that the 3rd boys family unit would move in and they are all-but there, we had hoped they would be in before we left but it was not to be.
We left Uganda on the 22nd Dec., given a wonderful sendoff by the band, a very emotional time for us and arrived in NZ at 2:30pm on the 24th to be met by Chris. Marilyn had been struggling to ward off a migraine so the last 8 hours of the journey were not pleasant for her, otherwise the trip was uneventful. All up, from the time we left NACMU to the time we reached Chris & Beck's was 42 hours and we were knackered. We had a wonderfully quiet Christmas day ( though did miss the organised chaos of giving out the presents) and have both been struggling with our health, Marilyn with a chest infection and I with a cold. However we have SLEPT and are regaining our energy day by day.
We do wish you all a very happy New Year, we may not get a chance to write again before then
so until next time God Bless