It sounds like any normal family routine. Up at seven, feed the kids, drag them out of the house and into the car, fight through the traffic to get them to their schools in two different parts of town, rush back home and breathe a sigh of relief. It's a far cry from Tete in Mozambique where school was in a small building across the back garden and their teachers were also their parents. It's a relief to have qualified and experienced teachers looking after our boys. And, what's more, our kids are thoroughly enjoying the social side of being in a large school.
 
Initially we spent five weeks in England and Wales, keeping mostly to the M6 corridor. In all we managed to visit churches in Old Trafford, Stockport, Preston, Blackburn, Nantwich, Stoke, Nuneaton, Rotherham, Barking, Worcester and Monmouth. Josiah, Daniel and Nathanael had opportunity to attend summer camps designed specifically for missionary kids. As you can imagine, they benefited greatly from the experience of making friends who have likewise grown up overseas. When we weren't on the road, Sharon and I did a lot of work on our house in Manchester. We normally rent it out to cover the mortgage but it's been looking a bit shabby of late and has been empty since January this year. The house is now looking a lot better and we're hopeful that responsible tenants will soon be found.

We moved to Northern Ireland in the middle of August and spent a frenetic couple of weeks getting our boys ready for school. The local Elim church has been a great help, finding us somewhere to live during this time and advising on schools, dentists and the like. We have started our missionary presentations in Ireland and over the coming weeks and months we're booked to speak in Lisburn, Banbridge, Dromore, Portadown, Lurgan, Newcastle, Belfast (Beersbridge Road), Belfast (N'ards Road), Belfast (Ulster Temple), Belfast (Knockbracken), Dundonald, Cullybackey, Ballymena, Ballymoney, Larne, Navan and Dublin.

Sharon and I have been married for nearly eighteen years and we've finally reached that wonderful milestone whereby all of our children are in school at the same time. With the added bonus of having family nearby to babysit, we've gone ahead and booked a week's holiday in the Mediterranean - for two adults and zero children. It feels like an awfully long time since we were last able to get away just the two of us. Home assignment is meant to include an opportunity to recharge one's batteries and we're keen to make the most of this.

Things seem to be going very well in our absence back in Mozambique. Our city church in Tete has been active in street evangelism while the rural churches have continued to hold regular training seminars. Our executive members have been travelling to other areas of the country, meeting with church leaders and embracing new ideas. From the outset of our ministry in Mozambique, it has been our ambition to ensure that the work does not depend on us. For this reason we have put a great deal of emphasis on training and mentoring, as well as insisting that our churches get serious about tithing. We are booked to return in early January and it will be interesting to see how our role and involvement will doubtless change.

If you have been receiving our newsletters for the past three years, we will ask you to resubscribe sometime in December. This will give us an opportunity to confirm who is still actively interested in our ministry in Mozambique as well as to check that the email addresses on our mailing list are still valid. At that time we'll send you a subscription invitation and ask you to send us a brief reply. If for whatever reason you would rather drop off our list, then all you have to do is ignore the invitation. We greatly value the prayers and emails of our friends and supporters, but we appreciate that life moves on and people's interests change.

Talking of support, we'd like to take this opportunity to thank those individuals and churches who have continued to support us financially even while we're on home assignment. One of our challenges this year is to recruit more new subscribers to our mailing list. Another is to see more individuals and churches making a pledge to support us on a monthly basis. More information on this as well as the appropriate forms for UK residents can be found on the Downloads section of this website.

Grace to you

Gregory and Sharon Kane
Elim International Missions