School's out. it was the last day on Friday and on Thursday next week we will be heading for the UK for 20 days of madness driving/flying around the country to visit St Albans, Chelmsford, Wetheringsett, Dereham, Edinburgh, Kettering, Cheltenham and Southampton. We're both in need of a holiday - the school year here has only two terms and four breaks so we've both worked longer than we are used to and are looking forward to a change and (as far as I am concerned) eating as many pork products as possible.

Yesterday we drove 180 km north-east of Addis to visit a remote rural area where there is a lodge on the peak of a hill with spectacular views of the Eastern Rift Valley. This was at the behest of Daniel who sadly leaves the school this week (along with around 14 others). He wanted one last adventure so we took off at 8 am, managed to get out of Addis (we had to cross it top left to bottom right) after a couple of hours of constantly bumping into railway construction, and then after 130 km of very good (probably Chinese constructed) main road we turned off into the countryside down an unmade road. This wound us for 50 km up and over a 3500 metre pass to the town of Ankober and the lodge on the hill. But for the haze we would have had spectacular views down into the rift valley. Rather than try to describe all this I have created a gallery of 20 of the best photos I took, with comments and descriptions. Click here to find it.

A couple of weekends ago we had a trip to a silk production place that turned out to be very educational. it's a small concern with a weaving factory where everything is woven by hand. What intrigued us most was the silk production. Silk worms aren't worms; they're caterpillars. They spin a chrysalis, a huge butterfly emerges which doesn't fly around much, they have sex, then die. The silk is from the vacated chrysalis and this type of silk is spun like wool and then used for weaving. It takes ages to produce enough silk to weave a garment, hence the cost. However it's work and income for a few, and local production of quality cloth. Pictures tell the story better than words so there's a small gallery here.

So I doubt we will be blogging in the next three to four weeks while we are seeing the kids and cuddling the grandchildren (and eating pork). However before I go, I want to tell you about Jean. We have met some remarkable people here with some amazing stories; none more captivating than Jean's. Jean has come back from retirement in Canada to help the clinic for a few weeks while we are searching for a new healthcare coordinator - a role she did for many years. She has been enormous fun to work with and I'm going to miss her when she leaves later this month. She told me a story that is quite astounding, gave me the prayer letter she wrote at the time and also showed me a couple of pictures. The full story is in the letter attached to this post, along with a picture. She attributes this string of highly unlikely coincidences to the miraculous intervention of God protecting and preserving her for future ministry in response to the prayers of her supporters. You can make up your own mind, but I'm convinced! This is a story of an aircraft engine inexplicably blowing a couple of holes in the crank-case whilst narrowly avoiding (by 1 mm) a fuel line; a landing on a most unlikely flat piece of ground in the middle of nowhere; and a rescue by SIM folks who happened to be a short distance away with a GPS receiver. Oh, did I mention they were surrounded by various Ethiopian people groups at war with each other? This was 2003, and Jean was 70. What will you be doing when you are 70? There aren't many people around like Jean.

Finally, just to be completely random, check this out: