The first ever blog from the Vines after 7 years!

Just a regular kinda day which seems a bit boring for the first ever blog entry from the Vines...I'm making myself do this though after saying I would for the last 7 years!  I'm a slow starter.  I don't like advertising too much of what we do online, so I will keep our entries a little cryptic.   Greg has suddenly had to fly out to the North of this country to help take an engineer to one of our planes which broke down.  Last week he went on a trip with a formidable Baroness for 4 days in a neighbouring country...she is definitely using her life for good...will tell more in our next newsletter.   

Zoe has just finished her football season..so excited that one of our girlies is finally a football player.  Ariela is practicing for "Fiddler on the Roof" which will be performed in May...she's the 'Matchmaker'!  Esther has not long returned from her school trip away to Mt Elgon and Sipi Falls.  She's not enjoying ISU socially, so we would appreciate your pryrs re making the right decision about whether to move her to the same school as Ariela and Zoe.   I've just loaded film shots to MAF Australia for their South Sudan appeal & I've completed stories about a picnic in the slums of Sessi Islands (see photo), interviews with evacuees from South Sudan along with another interview of a stoic partner we fly regularly from near the border of Sth Sudan...so keep your eyes peeled for these stories. 

I guess it would be good to mention something about the current issues that have been in the news recently about this country.  I've been thinking a lot about Jsus and Zaccheus...if religion was at the bottom of that tree, it would have yelled up at Zaccheus to come down, repent and give back all that he'd stolen.   But instead what did this great man do?  He invited himself to Zaccheus' for dinner!  Even in the privacy of Zaccheus' home he didn't preach at him, but instead showed him love..the type of love which is v v v rare & hard to comprehend.  Grace changed Zaccheus & he came to salvation through his encounter with a baffling love.  This should be our inspiration & has been very much on my brain these last few weeks.   

Saying this, the decisions this week from the western world which are pressuring this culture with its very different ethics to conform to them, are going to affect the very poorest who don't have a voice.    But some say that AID has ruined this country and that this will be a good thing for them to turn from aid dependency.  On the other side, my good friend & I help to train women how to cook, and then through word of mouth we attempt to find these women work in a 45% unemployment climate.   Its been really disheartening to think of how much more unemployment is going to rise from the hard decisions made this week.  Knock on effect, it will eventually make things incomprehensibly even harder for the poor than things already are for them.  So, we do need your pryr.  The speaker of parlmnt was given an accolade by her people when she declared, "You keep your aid, God will help us."...interesting days.