We arrived safely at Pemba at 2:00pm on Saturday afternoon after an 18hour journey, to be met by Ron, Irma and the girls at the airport who helped us negotiate immigration and visa purchase. A short drive took us to their house where we unpacked and freshened up. We were soon joined by some other missionary friends for a tea of stick bread and stone fish cooked over an open fire followed by emptying our cases of the presents we’d taken – peanut butter, chocolate spread, oats, muesli, Weetabix, chocolates, shower gel, etc; – all things we take for granted but which are real luxuries over here.

Having not slept for 24 hours we were glad to get into our mosquito net covered beds at 9:30pm for a very welcome night’s sleep.

With a church service to get to at 8:30am we had an early start – up at 6:30am. A walk through Pemba led us to the church – very, very different to WBC! A very simple building – tin roof, unpainted stone walls, concrete walls and very hard wooden slatted pews, is home for a group of about 30 people. Ladies sat on the right and men on the left! A traditional Anglican service in Portuguese, was somewhat different to what we’re used to – apart from the certain guest speaker from the UK!

A dinner of rice and curried chicken was followed by fitting a much appreciated heater pipe to Ron’s car. At 5:00pm we went across town to have a time of fellowship with family friends. Judith and I taught them the new tune to ‘To God be the glory’ – which they loved & I encouraged them with a short devotional from 1 Thessalonians about the glory of heaven

Back home we had great joy to see the excitement of all the family when we gave them the laptops. I think they were well-nigh overwhelmed and an impromptu song of thanks and joy followed!

So first impressions – Pemba is much poorer than I’d expected and the needs are great. Ron and Irma’s life seems much harder than I’d realised. And it’s hot (28C and very humid).

Pictures to follow!