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This is the Seventh 'Hope Centre Burundi' News Letter.

What’s new in March 2009?

Somehow we find ourselves in the middle of March, when it feels like January was only last week!

At the end of February Val had an additional trip to the UK to sit her viva for her PhD, which she passed pending some minor revisions to her thesis. Prior to this we had asked if anyone in our home church, Westhill Episcopal, had any Playstation 2 games consoles, games or dancemats which we could donate to The Crib (the orphanage linked to the school our boys go to). They responded generously, as we knew they would, and we received four consoles, and lots of games. Two have gone to The Crib, one for the boy’s house, one for girl’s, with lots of games and a dance mat. One has gone to Matthew’s friend who was so desperate for one and is absolutely delighted. One other we are just waiting to see who to give it to. Matthew and John have just about moved into the Crib as they are down there most afternoons showing the kids how to play the different games, organising riotous sessions with the eye toy, and just hanging out and playing football.

We also asked our housegroup for any single and children’s bedding and were again overwhelmed by their generosity as many of them went out and bought new packs of sheets. Val couldn’t even bring it all back, but we have some friends who are coming out to visit at Easter and they will bring the rest, including 100 water proof mattress covers (originally destined for the oil rigs but now surplus to requirements) which another of our friends managed to obtain.

Work on site is, meanwhile, progressing well, without too many delays during the wet season. The final coat of interior rendering is almost finished on the 1st house and the roof trusses are going up on the 2nd house – you can see photographs at www.eulogia.co.uk/ .

In the middle of January we had a costing meeting where we realised that there was only enough money to continue working until the end of February, given the rising cost of materials (especially cement). We are so grateful to those of you who responded to our requests for help on the website and have received almost £8,000 in further donations which have enabled us to continue with the work on site. With the remaining budget we plan to concentrate on completing two houses first, and seeing Pastor Leonard and his family and some of the children move in, then continuing with the next two houses whose walls have been started. We are still looking for ways to raise further money to ensure completion of all six houses and would welcome further donations or fundraising suggestions.

Some of the issues which have caused delays and the increase of costs on site have been:

* The delay in receiving the container and especially the cement mixers
* The time and cost involved in raising the foundations higher
* The time taken by masons to build with the earth blocks (this has been a learning process)
* The falling value of the £ - last July we received 2,300 bif to the £ - it is now only 1,700
* The cost of cement which has risen by one third since last summer

We are, however, very proud of the quality of the houses, which is something many people remark on. These houses will stand for a long time while the mud brick houses (and even the clay brick ones) around have to be constantly repaired when there is heavy rain and flooding.

Some of you may already be aware that we will now be returning to the UK at the end of May as Val has been offered a research post at Lancaster University. This was not something that we had planned for but it seems like this is the right decision for us as a family at this time. Val spent a day in Lancaster at the end of February and found a lovely house to rent with lots of space for our friends to come and stay and also good schools for the boys. We feel that this move gives us the opportunity to return and earn more money which we hope can be used to continue to support the work in Burundi.

Take care and keep in touch!


Charles & Val

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