Jabulani in June

Dear Friends,
thank you for you love and prayers over the past, very difficult month. We thank God for each of you, your letters and emails, calls and cards have really helped and encouraged us, God bless you.

As you know Dorothy and I travelled to Ireland in April to see our family and also seek to fundraise for Jabulani in meetings we had organized with Churches and friends in Ireland and UK. At the beginning of May we got word that Joshua was unwell with a chest infection and a few days later was admitted to hospital in Harare for treatment as his breathing was very weak and the situation was bad.

At this time my (Alan's) Dad was also admitted to hospital in Belfast with a chest infection and he deteriorated very quickly causing him to be moved to ICU , at the same time Joshua was taken to ICU with severe breathing problems and pneumonia...as you can imagine Dorothy and I were in a bad way not knowing what to do but were encouraged to stay in Belfast with Dad by our Jabulani team.

Joshua received great treatment and 8 days later was discharged from hospital feeling 100% better and with all his illness cleared praise God. Unfortunately my Dad passed away at this time also.
We thank the Lord that we were back in Ireland at this time, we had planned this trip almost 9 months before but God in His great wisdom allowed us to have precious time with Dad before his illness and passing. This has been a great comfort to us both for which we are grateful to our God, please continue to pray for the whole family at this time, especially Mum, they were married 67 years and she is missing Daddy very much.

The children returned to school after the Easter break and are back in the swing of things, they are all working hard and doing very well with their work. The big 5 ...Grace, Blessing, Hope, Daniel and Joseph received extra math lessons during the holiday and this has helped them a lot, the small girls continue to astound us with their abilities, they really are stars in their class and the teacher speaks very highly of them. They are all playing basketball this term and enjoying it very much. Daniel, Hope and Blessing have been chosen to run in the school athletic team, they really love running races!

Please continue to pray for them...some good news, our Jabulani Manager Miss Shelter has got married and will be leaving us in September and going to live with her husband in South Africa, we will miss her very much! Shelter has served with us for 10 years at Jabulani, we have known her since she was 10 and helped with her schooling, she will be a great loss not only to Jabulani and the small girls but to us personally as a daughter.

Please pray she will be happy and that her marriage will prosper in Jesus Name. We commend ourselves to you our friends, this has been a tough month but God has brought us through, we praise His holy Name!

Hannah also celebrated her 6th birthday and enjoyed her party very much, she is a growing into a good wee girl, we pray she will have a great year ahead.
We are praying for you, much love and blessings from Jabulani.

Thanks again for your prayers,

Alan and Dorothy