Archived Blog
Internet outage...
OK, so apologies to those of you who receive my blog updates by email and were confused by the recent strange posts. I was working a little on the website, and testing some changes that I made. Unfortunately, before I could remove the test blogs, the internet went down. No big deal, this is a regular occurrence, usually that just means waiting a few hours or going home to try again there. However, this time, the internet did not come back, and was also off at home. It turns out that the internet for the whole of the country had been turned off, and stayed off for the next few days. Since sometime on Tuesday, we've been cut off from the outside world. I'll refrain from commenting, you can talk to me when I'm back home about the whole situation! Anyway, it has come back today, but I'm not sure if it will remain on past the weekend, it may go off again next week. Suffice to say, if you don't hear much from me, that's why! Sorry for confusion for those who received random garble in their email inboxes!
May has been an enjoyable month. The first weekend, I met up with Brian Hall to go on a sort of Ethiopian "Stag do", though not many of the guys that live here were able to come so Brian and I decided to take the motorbikes, and go on an adventure like we used to do back when we lived together 9 or 10 years ago. We too the bikes and headed east to a national park that we'd been to before, and knew that we could camp there. We spent a great few days camping by a river where we had hunted crocodiles years ago, and found an amazing new lodge in the middle of the desert, built beside some awesome hot springs, where they have carved out pools for you to lie in the hot water. An amazing, and beautiful place, but I often wonder how people are supposed to find out about these places? Advertising isn't really top priority here, we found the place simply by talking with some locals in the national park. Crazy!
Back on the bikes!
Relaxing after the long hot ride!
They had also built this tree house in some of the palm trees
The year is winding down towards a close here at Bingham, and that means saying goodbye to those teachers and staff who are not returning next year. This year, there were about 6 or 7 teachers to farewell at the farewell lunch event, as well as the school director Brad Adams and his wife. It's never easy to say goodbye to people that you've got to know over the course of a year or two, so these events are usually pretty depressing! However, in more positive news, Bingham Academy have appointed a new school director. We're all very excited and thanking God for this amazing answer to prayer in providing a new director for the school. I sat in on an informal Skype call that he did with returning staff, and realised that I'd met him before. During the school international basketball tournament last year (which I blog about here), he was one of the speakers who came from the US. It's great to know exactly who will be coming to lead the school, he seemed a really great guy so I'm excited to be able to serve and work under him. He and his family will be coming in January of next year. 
Brad Adams speaks at the farewell lunch event.
Wedding preparations are going fairly well considering, having unreliable and shut off internet definitely doesn't help! Sian returns to the UK next week, and I'll be going back the week after that. We're both excited about the summer, seeing friends and families, and of course getting married! It will be busy as well, though, now we both have two sets of relatives and friends to visit!! Pray for us as we travel around the UK together, and prepare for returning to Ethiopia together in September. It has been nice to be able to set up home in our little house here before we return, we will definitely feel like it's our home when we get back.
Sian taking our new dog Max for a walk
Latest addition to my current house, a very cute puppy that Yohannes and Cara found on the street and took home with them, I don't think they could bare not to!
More photos here. Must post this before the internet shuts off again!!
Niall
0 comments