Sarah's Gap Year

Prayer Letters

New Prayer letter - June 1stHey all!

Thanks again for all your prayers over the last 4 months! You can really see God answering them which so excitng!

So the team left 2 weeks ago and so in need of a pick up Rosie and I jetted off to Zanzibar for an amazing week!
Now we are living at the school - our reasons to stay on here were to contuinue with the christian work we were doing last year - to make sure that they were all started again and to follow up after an immense two days of holiday club! Living in the heart of rural africa, quite a challenge, sharing a bed, washing from tub - one stone room for a house with only 3 and a half walls and a door, getting water from the pump. But its great to live with the teachers and be at school 24/7! If you are the praying kind please prayers needed for a teacher evanlistic event we are having tomoro!

Coming home in 2 weeks - 16th of june and look forward to seeing u and hearing all ur news!
Thanks again for all you've done!
much love

sarah
April 6^th. Hey Everyone! Thank you so much for all your prayers and emails so far! The last six weeks has been equally incredible if not more than the first six. The routine is firmly set in now – working in the schools from Tuesday to Friday, street children projects on Saturday and Sunday mornings and Monday as our day off/prep day. Life feels very normal out here now though I’m not sure I’ll ever get over the beauty of this country and the sheer generosity of the people we meet daily – every day at school we bring home bags of avocadoes, mangos and handmade jewellery from the children – think a mzungu fan club will be set up any day now! I’ll try and make this easier to read and get some subtitles on the go… Schools (Kiti) Spending time in the school with the surroundings of banana plantations and the green country interrupted only by the odd dirt track never tires. Developing relationships with the children and teachers so much so that we had 3 teachers back to our house for dinner last week, Josephine and Godfrey (married couple awaiting birth of there first born in under 2 weeks!) and Rose – one of many highlights! Not realising the English lack of talent at dancing they endeavoured to teach us the Calypso – we returned the favour by teaching them the Macarena! Other highlights include a typical country schools style sports day where the sudden opening of the heavens meant that 700 of us had to shelter under banana leaves and inside an old Catholic church. Recently, Rosie and I have had trials and have been training our netball team in anticipation of a match against Glory for Education – a rival school nearby where Jon, Sam and Freya are teaching. We narrowly lost the football 1-0 despite 200 children walking an hour to the pitch and chanting ‘Ugandan style’ for the entire match! The netball, however, was another story, the girls were demoralised and we were gutted. Due to having posho and beans daily as opposed to a cup full of watered down flour, the netball team at Glory were giants so it was an easy win for them. 3:16 (our C.U) is going well, doing two ways to live with the two oldest years and they always come up with interesting questions at the end. It is a challenge to do bible studies when the language barrier and there respect for teachers makes it hard for them to question what we are saying. Child Evangelism sessions are brilliant – such an opportunity to tell the children about Jesus and the meaning of the Cross. Street Children Projects: Saturday mornings are really hit and miss – I’ve had such great chats about Christianity and how we should respond to what Jesus has done for us. Looked at Jeremiah 29 vs 11 yesterday with a few of the older lads about how Gods plan for them – albeit very tough – are to prosper them and not to harm them in the long run. Other weeks are really hard, the conversation turns very serious and revolves around them asking us questions about money and demanding us to take them back to England. The last few weeks have been hard as due to the clean up in Kampala the street kids have been taken off the streets and put into prison without a release date. We are going through parables in the New Testament on Sunday mornings and last week we had a great session with them. I spoke on the Great Banquet – relaying to the kids that Christianity is not just for the British, the Rich, the Mzungus, the clever – all are invited! Spent some time afterwards chatting to a guy called Kevin – incredible – he is 14 and had to leave home in the summer because he family tried to sacrifice him! As well as all of this we have also managed to squeeze in some time to travel this incredible country, including doing a 144ft bungee jump, over the river Nile followed by a full days white water rafting down the white Nile on grade 5 rapids – never felt so close to death! Spent our long Easter Weekend at Queen Elizabeth National Park on Safari seeing 4 of the big 5. Prayer Points: Thanks for:

A Great Church with fantastic teaching and a real sense of community.

Brilliant team.

Relationships with teachers and pupils at school and so many opportunities to tell them the gospel (Child Evangelism x2 per week, Staff prayers, 3:16)

Chats with the street kids – their willingness to be open with us.

No major health issues.

Please Pray for:

The street children in prison – for their release and fair treatment.

For 3:16 – pupils would be questioning us rather than just accepting what we say with limited understanding.

Holiday Clubs start next Monday – I am doing the first of the 4 main talks over the 2 days on Jesus calming the storm – please pray for creativity when planning them, crowd control with over 400 children expected at each school and that the children would listen to us and take on board what we are saying.

For continued health as life is very busy with little time to relax or be ill!

More opportunities to have conversations with teachers, pupils, street kids and other people we come into contact about what Christianity is all about.

Please do reply with your news, it would be great to hear from you. Thanks again for all your thoughts and prayers, God Bless Sarah xPrayers LettersHey everyone!
In 4 days time I will be travelling to Heathrow and joining the 10 others to fly to Kampala, Uganda’s capital city! Between now and then there is A LOT to do but it’s exciting and I feel mentally prepared to go – to say I’ve not quite packed is a bit of an understatement!Just as a reminder – our main project in Uganda is teaching in various city and slum schools – teaching what we don’t know yet. We will also be doing some Christian work within the school and running holiday clubs as a whole team in each of the schools at the end of the term. The girls in the team are also hoping to start some work in the local orphanage whilst the guys will be doing some evening work with the street kids – deemed unsafe for the girls to partake in, we are also planning to get involved in the local church and the children’s groups run there.I would love it and really appreciate it if you could pray for me – I’ll give you some main points to be specific –Thank God for:

We have already met as a team and we all get along well.

Great team leaders – Mark and Julia.

Such an amazing opportunity to spread God’s word in a far off place!

Some requests-

Travelling, safety and health and not too many problems on the way.

For the team to really gel in the first few days and weeks.

We decide which members of the team best suit the schools in the first week so that decisions made are the right ones.

It would be really frustrating if there isn’t much room for us to do some sort of Christian work with the children in the school.

I’ve never taught before so prayer for that would be great!

Thank you very much – it is really appreciated! The technical wizard in me has created a website which you can find at www.shoughton.webs.com which I will hopefully be able to upload prayer letters and other updates on to and also has a guest book which you can make your mark on!Would be great to hear all your news as well,Thanks again,Much love and God Bless,
Sarah