Andy and Heather Swanson

Uganda to Scotland (and back!)

2021-05-22T19:05:00.001+01:00

It has been a year of changes and covid drama, lockdowns, and curfews. It has also been encouraging that Uganda has not had anywhere near the deaths the UK has had over the last year though our heart aches for those who have been grieving through the covid pandemic worldwide. We have still been able to meet at our church (it's outside) and blessed to have warm weather so socialising outside is the norm here. In some ways living in Uganda through the pandemic has not prevented the children from swimming, from travelling to a beauty spot and the like so we are thankful. On the other hand, the shoes are not fitting the kids, the underwear has more holes than they ever should have and the dish drying towels have more holes than fabric left - it must be time to get back to Scotland ;0)

So many of you have been asking what is the next plan is for the Swanson's. I thank you for your patience as we have been finalising plans, flights and getting a minute in the midst of packing to write an awfully long overdue blog post! It's time for myself and the children to return to Scotland for the next chapter. When Abigail was age 4 when we started with MAF and we knew that when she was ready to sit her National 5's (GCSE equivalent) we would come back to Scotland so she could finish her last three years of high school in Scotland. Due to various delays over the years with work permits and the like, Andy's finish date is not quite on the same schedule as the school system, so he is going to be finishing with MAF Uganda in December and return to Scotland then. Andy is flying with us to Scotland at the end of May for a long overdue furlough and to help us get the house ready before he returns to Uganda from August to December. Thanks to the recent changes in international travel, we are now able to fly directly into Glasgow and quarantine at home in Lenzie for 10 days all being well. We hope to get the children into their new schools a few weeks before the summer holiday's so they can get to know some other kids their own age, as well as the school and teachers and reduce the anxiety for starting the August school term. It is a big step for all three of the children as they settle into Scotland again. All three are excited to get back to Scotland, the freedom of cycling, wild camping and roaming the hills is a big draw for Matthew. Abi cannot wait to be able to get to the sales in the shops and just enjoy some independence meeting up with friends. Eilidh is looking forward to meeting other kids her age who 'look the same as her' (her words!)

I am looking forward to sitting on the couch relaxing with no ants crawling on me, being able to go for a walk alone, reconnecting with family and friends and making new friends. All this being said, we will sorely miss our friends both Ugandan and International, we will miss our pets and the beautiful sunshine almost every day. Andy is in a difficult season as he watches us all say goodbye to Uganda - for him this will come later. He is unsure what the next steps will be career wise and is beginning to look at his options - we would value your prayers as he navigates the next steps towards the end of this year. I plan to re-register with the general teaching council and find employment in the schools in East Dunbartonshire at the right time when the children (and myself) have had time to settle.

Last August I felt God speaking to me about being available, so I quit my teaching job in Uganda to home school Eilidh and support Abi learning at home. Abi was able to have zoom lessons with Scottish teachers in English, Maths, Physics, and French all year. She worked independently on Biology and Chemistry and music with myself. She has done amazingly well and is so focused on her learning that I have not had to motivate her to work at all. The contact with her four Scottish teachers has given her a great balance and she feels more than ready for her National 5 year starting in August. Matthew has been at his old school for the last year which he has loved. He has a great friendship group there that he is really going to miss. I have been able to have lots of fun teaching Eilidh and navigate the packing up of our belongings from over 10 years on the road - very thankful to have been able to do this gradually.

We are coming to the end of the packing. We are sitting in borrowed plastic garden chairs and furniture, living out of boxes instead of bookcases, and now the suitcases are out. - It's not till it's been taking down do you realise just how important that clock on the wall has been! Some of our belongings such as my piano and Andy's toolbox will be shipped back to Scotland sometime in the future (could be a while!). These leave the house on the 28th of May but we have no idea when we might get to see them as the shipment won't go until the container is full with several families who are moving to the UK. We can wait for these items though so will get by - we are seasoned travellers and this is the norm! We have many people coming to pick up items over the next week as we clear out our house. Andy will return in August to a guest house where he will be renting a room there so he also needs to move his stuff there this week as well as dismantle beds and the like. It will be a busy week and after moving internationally several times in our journey, ten days of quarantine sound wonderful. Time to rest and de-compress from the emotion and exhaustion of moving is a necessity that is not always achieved. It's always traumatic saying goodbye to dear friends and pets that we love. We had hoped to bring our cat back but just found out that the UK is not receiving pets just now so it is not going to be an option. Thankfully we have found a good home for her and the dog but we will still be very sad to part with them both. If you know of a kitten in Scotland that needs a good home in the next few months or so then please get in touch. We have managed to secure full time jobs for both Emmanuel and Joyce when we leave with wonderful families where they will be such a blessing. We enjoyed a meal together with their families at KFC.

We are not sure what this furlough will look like with covid and restrictions and how much we will be able to travel and visit supporters, but we will do our best. Thanks for your patience for the update and please know that we have truly valued and appreciate your prayers, cards, and support over our time in Uganda. It is good to remember that Andy is still very much part of the MAF Uganda team till December and we will have four months apart starting August, so your ongoing support and encouragement would be still appreciated especially during our time apart. If you would like to write to us in Scotland then you can send to 22 Dungoil Road Lenzie, G66 5PG. We would love to hear from you especially during quarantine and through the summer. This time I will be able to reply, and you might get it before next Christmas!

God Bless

Heather

Land-locked in Uganda

2020-07-17T21:36:00.001+01:00

It has been a long time since we last blogged but so much of this year has been anything like normal that blogging has taken a back seat. Now that the dust has settled (not that it ever does in East Africa) I just wanted to take some time to update you all. We managed to get a break away as a family at the end of February to visit Tanzania for a week and within a week of returning home, things began to shut down in Uganda as per the president’s directives. Schools were closed after a mad weekend allowing all the children in Kampala who come to go to boarding schools to travel back to villages in their masses and then lockdown began. For two months there were no cars, taxis, or buses allowed on the roads at all. Only bodas (motorbikes) were allowed to transport goods and this at least gave the many drivers an income as they were in high demand from shops to deliver supplies and this now became our only means to get food supplies, cooker gas tanks refilled, cash at the bank etc.

The roads were eerily but wonderfully quiet with only pedestrians allowed to walk to nearby shops. Market sellers could only operate if they camped out with their produce and did not go home, often using tarpaulin to shelter from rain. Exercise was still allowed however, with many people at home out of work or not at educational establishments, the streets soon became open air gyms and large "marathons" were being run along the main tarmacked roads such as the expressway! This was then stopped by the president and exercise was to happen at home. We could still walk to a few local shops nearby which was good and allowed us to get out of our walled compound for a time. Andy has a motorbike that he uses to drive to and fro from work so we were fortunate that he could spent a few mornings visiting several different shops for us while I worked at planning and preparing music lessons for the primary department while trying to keep the three Amigos on track with their online learning.

Dynamics lesson

Teaching music online only was of the steep learning curve and working from home and looking after the education and wellbeing of the kids was at times completely overwhelming as I am sure other working parents will understand. I would work late into the night to record teaching videos to upload and complete planning as it was my only uninterrupted time. I was fast tracking my way to burn-out and was a little worried about my mental ability to cope. Add to this the disappointment of cancelled flights and knowing that we will not get to Scotland this summer and quite possibly not until summer 2021 - it has been a tough time. My coping mechanism is to withdraw from the world and only focus on what was essential for me to do such as keeping the kids spirits high, keeping them in routine and keeping up with the demands of my job, helping those around us where we can - that was all I could do. We were asked by many in the UK for updates, devotionals and other tasks ( I think we had 4 requests in one week) and it was heart-breaking but necessary to say No. I hope I did not offend anyone in the process and if I had to decline your request at that time then I hope you can understand. Thank you for being patient with us.

Abi and Squizzy

The children have had their own ways of dealing with the changes the pandemic has caused, Abigail has really enjoyed learning at home although has had her fare share of tears and despair along the way - she really hates it when plans change and knowing that she will not be going to Scotland for the summer has been particularly tough - a good but tough learning experience in coping with disappointments. Matthew - well I'm not sure where to begin. Let's just say the climb to the end of term has been a so rocky at times that there were moments that I thought I might not make it. We got there in the end and we are still talking to each other - phew! Eilidh has done her best with her school work but has surprisingly struggled to enjoy live sessions and it was all I could do to keep her from switching her camera and mic off and wandering away for a drink of water - involving a large bottle, many ice cubes resulting in a devious ten minute operation! Overall she enjoyed the tasks. Andy has done his best at keeping us all as sane as he could. MAF planes were grounded and pilots were home.

Eilidh fishing on the submerged runway!

Working on the flooded runway

Andy had been painting a plane in the hanger before lockdown, so was requested in work for most of the lock down period as he had a motorbike and others who could walk to the hanger could get in to work. MAF had permission for five people in the hanger at a time. Thankfully, he was only in for three days a week so he was able to help us with volcano experiments, other school projects and shopping as well as give me a little break to focus on my work without interruptions at times. Now that the school term has ended, MAF is still grounded however, he is now having to work full time so is in the hanger all week. It's a new normal again for all of us.

Andy enjoying a visitor on lockdown

Just give Andy a spray paint can and....voila!

MAF has had various challenges in particular, the rising levels of Lake Victoria has caused widespread flooding and the MAF runway strip has been so waterlogged that even if planes could operate, they would still have been grounded. A lot of work has been done to raise the runway levels up and I believe the water is subsiding however we are now going into rainy season. MAF moved a few planes to the main airport in Entebbe during this time and were able to secure permission to fly two or three times in the lockdown to bring supplies and medicine to those who need it urgently mostly due to flooding.

Summer music camp - hee hee!

It's a different summer but at least cars are allowed out now, albeit with only four people at a time. The shops are open but there is only so many shops you can drag your kids around in Kampala before they realise this is more of a stress fest than a fun day out! The zoo is closed, no hairdressers yet (thought I had a home visit today for the first time in four months!!) and the borders around Uganda are still tightly shut except for cargo trucks. The airport - well, there really is no point getting the suitcases out for their annual “dustathon” in preparation for travel. repatriation flights for Ugandans stuck abroad are still operating till end of September so that does not bode well for the airports opening before then.

We have managed to conduct two birthdays in lockdown. Matthew turned 12 in April and Eilidh turned 8 two weeks ago. I am thankful that although we tried to get on a flight back to Scotland at the start of it all, God did not open the doors for this and it has been important for us all to be in our familiar surroundings, with our beloved pets and enjoy the warm climate. Uganda has really done an amazing job keeping Covid at bay and as I write this, we are sitting at around 1000 positive cases in country since March and no deaths. There are many more dying of malaria and other diseases here. The lock down, in its own way, is bringing more trouble than Covid here, as families are struggling to make enough money to survive. I really feel for the boda drivers who do not have such a demand for deliveries now as cars are moving, yet they are still not allowed to take passengers. They are also very unhappy which is leading to more protests on the streets. Movement around the city is difficult as taxi's and buses can operate only at half capacity thus are charging higher fares. Curfew times of 5pm for all bodas and 7pm - 6.30am for other vehicles are still in place and you would not want to risk being stuck in a traffic jam at 6.30pm!! The police yards are full of impounded bodas and cars taken from those flouting the law. There have recently been more thefts including violent house robberies as people are getting more desperate, so we are all still being extra vigilant. We have been keeping up with the news on BBC News app from around the world (especially Scotland of course) and despite the tick infestation around our house and garden at the moment (shiver!), we are pretty glad to be in Uganda. We have been privileged to be invited to be part of Kirkintilloch Baptist Church service via zoom and join the prayer meeting in Pitlochry - wow that was tough seeing dear friends again and having a good cry afterwards is actually okay, and part of my new normal.

Sending the love from us to you

We are just going with the flow and forever trusting in the one and only faithful God who has brought us this far and will lead us home. Thanks for continuing to journey with us and keeping us in your prayers. We miss you all.

Yours in Christ,

Heatherx

Scotland Furlough 2019

2019-07-08T23:11:00.000+01:00

Another year in Uganda has flown past and we are excited to be back in Scotland - albeit a little chilly for this time of year! We hope to catch up with as many of our amazing supporters as possible while we are back and perhaps meet some new ones. There has been lots happening in Uganda and would love to share with you what God has been doing through us and around us as we serve with MAF. We will be at the following places throughout July/August and if you are able to join us at any of the services or events then we would love to get to know you and/or catch up with you.

July 7th @ Pitlochry Baptist Church

July 12th - 7pm @ New Beginnings Church Centre in Moodiesburn, Glenmanor Avenue.

This is an informal get together where we will give a brief presentation of the work MAF do and give an update on the last year. The whole family will be there and we would love for you to join us - kids are very welcome.

July 14th - 11am @ Dunoon Baptist Church. We will be taking the whole service at Dunoon, leading worship and sharing and it would be awesome to see you if you are nearby.

July 15th - 17th we will be about the Edinburgh area visiting supporters, family and health checks.

July 20th - 24th @ Soul Survivor, Lendrick Muir, Kinross. We will be helping with the MAF stall - please stop by and say hello :0)

July 27th - 3rd of August is family time so we will not be contactable during this week.

August 4th 6.30pm @ Kirkintilloch Baptist Church. We will be taking the evening service.

On August 6 - 8th, we will be heading to Folkstone to spend some time with the MAF staff in the office.

August 11 - 17th. Some more time with Family and then we will pack up and return to Uganda.

If you want to get in touch with us then you can use the address 2 Harwood Gardens, G69 0HJ. If you want to contact us with phone our numbers are

Heather: 07572436938

Andy: 07495578366

Our WhatsApp are Heather +256772777806

Andy +256772777809

2019 - Year 5 in Uganda!

2019-02-19T10:01:00.002+00:00

After several weeks of intense heat, a refreshing storm brought some much needed rain to Kampala today. At last the fans are off, and we can enjoy a cooler breeze. The first few months of the year are always the hottest. It’s been a while since our last update and we thank you for your patience.

We spent the Christmas holidays at home this year – this was easy with three children and the addition of a new kitten! We welcomed “McSquizzie” to the family and she has been so much fun in our eyes – our guard dog on the other hand does not like her. I am still not sure if it is worth taking the risk trying to get them to bond. For now McSquizzie will handle the inside night life and Skye will keep things at bay outside. The cat met her first cockroach recently and proceeded to eat it – I love her more already! January meant back to school for four of us. I am organising a primary musical production this term the students are buzzing with excitement as things are coming together. We have just started our half term break today so looking forward to a week of rest (housework!!) The school day has been extended Tues-Thurs with every student encouraged to participate in enrichment clubs.

Matthew is enjoying Swimming, Science club and trying his hand at fencing! Matthew is also beginning to play his bass guitar at church and it’s great to see him confidently using his talent. He is settling into Rainbow and one of his poems was selected for an international school’s poetry competition (COBIS registered schools). Homework is still his least favourite thing in the world.

Abigail is involved in the secondary production called “Willow Blue”. The school has hired the national theatre in Kampala for this one and it will take place at the end of March. Abi’s after school clubs revolve around rehearsals and art club, while finding the time to prepare for her Grade 4 piano. On a more serious note, a lump above her knee was investigated in December and found to be a benign tumour called an osteochondroma. It was a nerve wracking few days of waiting to find out the results. It is an extra growth that is spiking off her femur bone and is giving her pain, especially in PE. She is scheduled to get it removed next Tuesday 19^th and we would appreciate your prayers. We are blessed to have a good hospital in Kampala that specialised in bone problems. It is about an hours drive and she will stay overnight on the 18^th. It is still very Ugandan in that there is no information to prepare any of us, no details of what to take into hospital here – it is not uncommon to have to take bed sheets and blankets. So we will find out and I am sure the experience will shape us both.

Eilidh participates in two after school clubs – brownies and craft club. She enjoys socialising very much and had her first sleep over at a friend’s house in the new year. She lost a front tooth the other week so is still getting used to that cute gap. Swimming is still her favourite activity and she loves to tell us how much she loves home work (all the while enjoying a little dig at her brother!) Eilidh adores the kitten and is never far from it – not sure the kitten is always so enthusiastic with the cuddles. She hasn’t tried to dress it up and put in in her pram yet but I think that day will come.

Andy has had an busy few months painting one of the aeroplanes in the hanger. I believe the project should be finishing in the next month. He is really enjoying the painting however trying to paint in such a hot dusty environment has it’s challenges. The heat he has to endure in a paint suit all day and helmet, not to mention the frustration when things, including insects upset the smooth wet paint that just needs to dry. He is taking a few days off holiday next week so we will enjoy some family time while Abi is recovering from surgery.

The MAF International and UK HR team were here in Uganda over the last few weeks and it was great to see some of them. Thanks so much to those who sent Christmas cards – we received them at the end of January but it’s never too late as every year we put up any cards we have and read them all again year after year (they remind us of you all and home) so we will be putting them up next Christmas. We have also enjoyed a meal with a few Scottish visitors this term who are based in the Kilmarnock area.

I started this blog on Saturday and here we are on Tuesday the 19^th and I am getting around to finishing it. Abi has just gone in to surgery so now I will keep myself busy and finish this blog before my laptop battery dies! We were unsure of who the surgeon would be and I am so thankful that the original Italian doctor who saw her in December is the one operating today. They will remove the mass and send it to Cincinnati for biopsy in the USA to check that everything is all benign. I am so thankful that we can receive this level of care here in Uganda.

Medical diagnosis can be very unreliable in Kampala for people who do not have much money. Emmanuel, who works for us (He is like a member of our family) approached us with a concern for his 4 year old son. He had a swelling and after two different medical clinics and an ultra sound, everything was still unclear for them. Doctors were saying it was a hernia, however this did not add up with the ultra sound report. I took them to the expat clinic that we go to yesterday morning and we got a clear diagnosis of a hydrocele. This is not nearly as serious as a hernia and can be operated on when he is a bit bigger. Thanking God they now have a clear diagnosis and can move forward from there but it is sad there are so many rouge clinics just looking to make money. Then in the afternoon I drove Abi here to Corsu Hospital so it was a busy day!

I will keep you all posted on the outcome when we receive it.

Thanks for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers, especially for Abi and Emmanuel's son Micheal.

Love in Christ

Heather

(p.s. Abi's surgery went well and she is home recovering. We will go back in a few weeks for biopsy results)

Michael and Eilidhii

Update from Uganda

2018-10-03T20:39:00.000+01:00

When we were returning to Uganda after Furlough 2018, I wondered if we would have any visitors this year. There was no one planning on coming out to visit and and so we decided to move Eilidh out of her bed which was "the guest bedroom" and let Abi have the room. I just happened to get talking to another leader at Soul Survivor, Lendrick Muir in July. His son Lewis, was volunteering in Uganda and would be coming soon to Kampala. Within a few weeks of arriving back in Uganda we had our first surprise guest. Lewis stayed a week and we had a great time what it was like to study medicine. Abi was particularly interested - who knows where that might lead! Lewis volunteered in Mulago hospital and we also managed to squeeze him on a MAF flight.

Saying goodbye to
Lewis

Soon after Lewis left, I received an email from a Scottish family who were volunteering in Uganda for a year with the Kitega centre a few hours on the bus from our house. They had been in the country a few months and have three children similar ages to ours. Someone had passed on our email and so we hosted the Ramsay family for a weekend. The children had been eating local food for a few months and were even attending a local Ugandan school for a few days a week. and homeschooled the rest. They were delighted to meet other Scottish children and get their fix of "British style" food and plenty of raspberry jam :0). Having never met the Ramsay family before it was great to build new friendships with them and they have already been back again for another weekend since. We hope to go on holiday for a few days outside Kampala in the October holiday's together. We hosted two other families with three children and I am blown away when I think about how I wondered if we would have any visitors this year! It has been so nice to meet so many new people in the last few months and provide a meal or accommodation. I have always wanted our house here in Uganda to be a place people can rest up, get refreshed and continue the amazing work so many of them are doing all over Africa. In these last months God has provided a friend or at least a new pen pal for each of our children as well as us.

Fun with the Ramsay family from Stonehouse

Work at Rainbow School started again for me late August. I am settling back in well and am so pleased to now be four days a week. All is well after the surgery in March however I notice I am more easily tired at the moment. After two days of work I can barely keep awake so a Wednesday at home is a welcome gap in the week. This is the first time in 11 years I actually have a regular day off at home with no children (till 3pm!). I also turned 39 in September - hanging onto my thirties by a thread now. Andy turned 41 yesterday and unfortunately was a little under the weather. He is on the mend now.

Abigail just had a school outdoor learning trip for three days to a tribal cultural centre with the rest of her year group. She managed to put our tent up and take it down by herself and had a super time learning how they make pottery, beer with bananas and other traditional practices. This year school seems to be going much better and she has developed a good friendship with an Indian girl whose little brother is also in Matthew's class. Abi is excelling at school in the top groups (as usual!) and is excited to be part of an international school club called "Tournament of the minds". Teams from other schools around Kampala will compete in December. I believe they have to create a 20 minute musical incorporating a given criteria with the theme being "Freedom". She is also part of the school production which will take place in February. Abi will be 12 years old next week and so we are gearing up for a girls sleepover party this weekend and I am going to try my hand at an oreo ice-cream cake - lets hope the weather is a bit cooler on Saturday!

Matthew had gone through the biggest change of all of us. He has now left Heritage and joined the rest of us at Rainbow. We have had a rough few weeks of "exploding emotions" as he has dealt with all the changes - he finds change very challenging. Friendships are progressing slowly however most of the boys in his class play football at break and lunch where as Matthew does not. He has enjoyed playing chess with a few students and is reading avidly at the moment which is always a bonus. His class are studying fascinating forces at present which he is really enjoying and he has an assignment on the Wright brothers to complete - right up his street with its links to aviation! He is settling well all things considered and I am enjoying having him around the primary department to with myself and Eilidh.

Eilidh is continuing to be the happiest child ever! She just gets on with life. She enjoys school and has made many friends. She is a great swimmer and has also joined an after school swim club. We are trying to keep her blonde hair from turning green with the chlorine and the sun - She is the only blonde haired child in Key Stage 1 (about 90 students). She continues to love music and is desperate for me to teach her piano. I'm doing my best to teach her violin at the moment - as long as I can stay ahead of her we should be fine!

Things are busy, as usual, in the hangar. Andy's work is a good mix of routine maintenance and bigger project work. Shortly after getting back he had the job of repainting the red paint on 5X-SCO (Scotty). The strong African sun beating down on the planes is particularly hard on red paint, and so he worked hard to get the red paint cleaned, scuffed, and masked off, then went in one Saturday morning to spray some paint! The plane was looking great, and has now left Uganda to be based for a while in the MAF Liberia programme. The plane that has been there since MAF Liberia began will soon be joining us in Uganda. He is due to go to USA at the end of october for a training course, and when he returns he will be getting straight into his biggest paint job yet - a Cessna Caravan! 5X-BIL is our oldest Caravan, and is looking quite tired. It will come into the hangar at the start of November and stay there for 3 months while we strip all the paint off, do a mini version of the avionics upgrade we have done on our other planes, and repaint her in the MAF colours! Lots of hard work, but very satisfying!

Joyce and Emmanuel are doing well. They took great care of the house and garden when we were gone. I came home to bags and bags of frozen raspberries. We have been busy making lots of jam and continue to sell it around Kampala.

Please continue to pray for Matthew, that he would make some good friends at his new school. Please pray for our church also as we do not have a full time pastor at the moment. It has been great to lead worship there twice since we have been back. Abi often helps me and I'm sure Matthew will be joining on bass guitar sometime in the near future!

Well the children are due home from school in ten minutes so I had better go and get ready for them. Thanks for your continued prayers and support.
Lots of love
Andy, Heather, Abi, Matthew and Eilidh

Summer Furlough 2018

2018-06-22T22:03:00.000+01:00

Since the plane touched down last Sunday morning we have been getting organised. Staying in our own house for our first furlough in seven years is a dream come true! Since arriving back we have been trying to catch up on sleep with three very early risers in the house as well as get on top of the huge "to do" list. So far the school shoes/trainers/sandals, trousers and skirts for the next year are bought along with other essentials for the kids as they grow! The first of many appointments (eyes, dentist, orthodontist... the list goes on!) have started and are set to continue throughout July. Andy and his two able helpers (;0) are giving the first MAF presentation of our furlough right now at Holyrood Evangelical church in Edinburgh.

The last few days have been dry and sunny and we were able to enjoy a lovely family day out at the Royal Highland Show thanks to a dear friend. The kids were able to get reacquainted with the hedgehog and badger as well as highland cows, Clydesdale horses, birds of prey and all sorts of other wonderful wildlife around the country that they rarely see. The food tasters were also a huge highlight of course, and after a year of barely tasting/seeing strawberries the children just couldn't get enough!

Our dates are set now for the different locations we hope to be. Please look at the list below and come to whatever one is nearest. We would love to catch up. Our supporters mean the world to us and we can not tell you enough how much we value your prayers and financial support to allow MAF to continue their work through us in Uganda. The presentations this year are aimed at new people who may not have heard much about the work of MAF so it is a great opportunity to invite a friend or neighbour with any interest in aviation or mission, or even finding out about Uganda. Children are very welcome and we have lots of MAF resources to keep kids busy.

God Bless
Andy, Heather, Abi, Matthew and Eilidh.

Sunday 24th June
Dunoon Baptist Church, Morning service, 11am Alexandra Parade, Dunoon, (Heather and Abi will also be leading worship)

Tuesday 26th June
Pitlochry Baptist Church 7:00pm Atholl Road, Pitlochry, PH16 5BX (Andy will be leading this without the family - please come and support him)

Sunday 8th July
Kirkintilloch Baptist Church, Morning service, 10:30am Townhead, Kirkintilloch, G66 1NL

Thursday 12th July (not wednesday)
New Beginnings Church, 7:30pm Glenmanor Ave, Moodiesburn, G69 0LB

Sunday 15th July
Pitlochry Baptist Church, Morning service, 11am Atholl Road, Pitlochry, PH16 5BX

Wednesday 18th July
Crown Terrace Baptist Church, 7:30pm Crown Terrace, Aberdeen, AB11 6HE

If you would like to get in touch with us then please call or email us. These are our new numbers while in the UK

Andyswansonmaf@gmail.com
07587297845

heatherswansonmaf@gmail.com
07305050590

Please note - these are not our what's app numbers - we use our Ugandan phone numbers for whats app.

Summer Plans!!

2018-05-14T19:25:00.004+01:00

In previous years, our summer visits back home have usually involved lots of catching up with family, friends and supporters one-to-one, as well as giving short updates in the 3 churches who we have close relationships with.

This summer marks 8 years since we packed up our home in Tummel Bridge, and made the first steps towards starting our training in Ohio, then on to work in Uganda. We felt this was as good a time as any to take a little bit longer to share about the organisation we work with, the sort of work we are doing here in Uganda, and how MAF are involved in a huge variety of work, impacting so many people in this part of the world.

We would love to see as many of you as possible while we are back, and so we have been busy preparing for evening ‘get-togethers’ in the four corners of the land! If you can make it to any of these dates, it would be great to see you, and if you need a bit of inspiration to come along, here is a little taster video I have put together to give you an idea of what you can expect!!

Watch this space for more details as we get closer to our migration north!

Springing into shape!

2018-03-30T16:46:00.000+01:00

Four weeks ago I had the required surgery and, after my post op consultation this morning everything is healing well and and I will return to Uganda on Monday 2nd of April to be with my family again after almost 7 weeks of being apart. I can't tell you how thankful I am to the many many people who have prayed for us and supported us in MANY ways through this time. We have watched God's provision, faithfulness, blessing and encouragement in action in ways only he could orchestrate and I am so humbled that he would move those mountains for our family in such a short time. Special thanks to my mum who has looked after me after surgery :0) I just can't wait to hang out with my kids for the last week of the Easter holidays and get to be there for Matthew's birthday in a few weeks. I will continue recovery in Uganda and then the whole family will travel back to Scotland middle of June through July for furlough and some holiday time.

I hope you are all having a blessed weekend as we celebrate the Risen Saviour and ALL that He has done for us. Psalm 8 v 1-4

"Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory
    in the heavens.
 Through the praise of children and infants
    you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
    to silence the foe and the avenger.
 When I consider your heavens,
    the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
    which you have set in place,
 what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?" (NIV)





God Bless

Heatherx

Update from Scotland

2018-02-26T22:43:00.000+00:00

Hi there,
The last week or so has been a bit of a whirlwind with doctors appointments and the like. It was great to get a clear diagnosis and now we have been looking at the way forward as a family. Due to the nature of waiting lists with the NHS it could be closer to July/August for needed surgery and while we can appreciate that if we all lived in Scotland the waiting for consultation, pre-op and surgery and post op appointments could be manageable - Uganda is our home at present. Taking this into account as well as the emotional strain on being separated for long periods of time we have decided to go private and I am booked to have the operation tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon at Ross Hall. All being well I will be out on Thursday or Friday and the recovery process can begin. Again, all being well I will be able to fly back to Uganda at some point before the summer and be with my family again before we return for furlough in June. I am so thankful to God for the support network he has put around us both in the UK and Uganda that have made all of this possible in such a short time! Thanks to all of you for your cards and messages/texts/visits as well as practical support. Andy and the kids are doing well though I am sure Andy is tired! Eilidh (age 5) has no concept of when I am coming back and asked me tonight via face-time if I could bring her back some honey for her cough and cold. Sweet and tough at the same time. Well I'm off to get some sleep so I can be up early to eat breakfast before my "8.30am no food or drink" cut off time. Not sure when the next blog post will be from me but so far - two posts in two weeks- must be a record for the Swanson's!
God bless what ever country you are reading this in.
Much love
Hx

When life throws you a lemon........

2018-02-16T17:48:00.003+00:00

Dear friends and family,

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and New Year. We enjoyed a trip to Scotland over the Christmas break and the kids got to experience lots of snow in the two weeks we were there. We returned to Kampala beginning of January and were soon getting into the swing of life again. Andy was preparing for a trip to Mongolia for over two weeks, the children were back in school, and I continued to plough through the busiest academic year of teaching so far. Last August I started a new job in Kampala teaching primary music at a much larger International school. The students are predominantly African and a huge mix of other countries. The school is being inspected in May by a UK organisation so the paper work has been intense. In my first two terms of arriving I have had to write a brand new curriculum for seven year groups documenting weekly lesson plans for the entire academic year. Add to this writing the 3 year development plan and music policy and assessment strategies and department reviews and you can begin to see that my evenings after teaching all day have been pretty busy meeting the paperwork deadlines as well as trying to learn the names of 260 students and many many staff!
Towards the end of January, Andy left Uganda's hot dry season of 30 degrees C and made is way to Mongolia (more like -30 degrees) to work on an avionics upgrade that needed to happen to the MAF plane there. When Andy is away I usually just pray that the car doesn't get a flat tyre etc as things like that tend to happen when one of us is at the other side of the world. In the second week Andy was gone I was stopped by a random Kampala police lady - apparently my car insurance had expired May 2017! How had we let that happen?! Miraculously she forgave me and let me go (Insurance is now up to date). That was the Sunday, On the Monday Eilidh lost her first tooth....awesome! And then the lemon was thrown! Monday night things didn't feel right in my body and I began to bide my time till I could call the doctors on Tuesday morning. Needless to say I did not sleep well and I got up at 6.30am to get the kids ready for school. While she was getting dressed Abi found a snake in her room - yes it was a harmless blind snake....but a snake! I managed to get it into a tub with a broom while courageously screaming the whole time. Thankfully (sorry to snake lovers) I caused it some damage with the broom and it no longer moved and the threat was gone. Meanwhile the five year old was a little upset that the tooth fairy had forgotten to leave money for her very first tooth - I was a little pre-occupied! At last off to school and then I could concentrate on the doctor phone call and appointment.
The doctor was fabulous, however my situation was not and it was going to involve urgent return to the UK to see a specialist and start the process for surgery. I was signed off work for pretty much the rest of the academic year and the days began to take on a different format. There were so many logistics to discuss with Andy (from Mongolia) over patchy internet signals, there was planning to finish for my job, discussions with MAF, Insurance companies, not to mention the emotional upheaval - am I really having to leave my family for possibly three months???

I spent some time in work with my assistant last Monday morning taking him through my teaching plans as he would be covering for me in the meantime. I was getting a little stressed as we still had not finished the handover and a year 1 class was about to arrive for their music lesson. We gave them some colouring which they did very quietly as we continued to discuss the handover. Then one little African girl starts singing at the top of her voice while she colours, Sinach's song:
We are a chosen generation
We've been called forth to show His excellence
All I require for life, God has given me
And I know who I am

"I know who God says I am

What He says I am
Where He says I'm at
I know who I am..I'm walking in power...etc."

My heart was smiling - here in a secular school, God is reminding me that he is in control, my identity is with him - through the voice of a little 5 year old. It was a "golden nugget" moment.

So the next chapter begins! Andy returned from Mongolia, we spent some time together (a day!) and then I left for the Scotland. Since then I have had a GP appointment, and I met with a specialist privately to give me an idea of what time frame, surgery etc we are looking at. I need a hysterectomy and pelvic floor repair surgery. As it is not a life threatening condition there is no hurry through the NHS. It is up to 12 weeks waiting list to see the consultant and then a further 10 - 12 weeks waiting list for the surgery. I can't begin to process the logistics or implications for our family situation at present but this is where we are here and now. Please pray for wisdom between MAF and our family as we plan the next steps. I guess I need to look on it as a surprise sabbatical. I just need a piano from somewhere - please let me know if anyone has a full size weighted keyboard that would like to come and reside in Moodiesburn or Lenzie for a while? - that might just keep me sane!lol. Please continue to pray especially for the kids and Andy in Uganda and for healing and speedy surgery this side of the world too. Life is full of surprises along the way - some good some bad. As a friend posted on face book recently - "when life throws you a lemon.............make lemonade!" Trying to keep a positive attitude - prayers appreciated!

If any of our supporters would like to get in touch, my address in Moodiesburn is 2 Harwood Gardens, G69 0HJ, and my new mobile number is 07305050590 (whats app is still the same)

Thanks for your support

Farewell meal

love in Christ

Heather x

Christmas Greetings!

2017-12-22T13:57:00.000+00:00

After another busy year (it seems like those are the only kind we have now!!), we are glad to be slowing down a bit for the Christmas holidays.

We welcomed in 2017 whilst in America; we made the trip over to visit some supporters and spend Christmas and New Year with our very good friends over there. It was a long journey, but worth it to enjoy the festivities with good friends, and to spend a bit of time with MMS in Ohio and MAG in NC! (Not to mention enjoying a bit of time in the snow!)

We came back to Kampala refreshed, and while I was busy painting our Cessna 206, Heather was busy wrapping up the school year, and her time as music teacher, at Heritage school.

We had a great trip back to the UK in the summer, catching up with family and friends as well as our church friends, and other supporters. Then it was back to Uganda again to get on with work in the hangar and for Heather to start her new role as primary music teacher at Rainbow school. Rainbow work with a British curriculum so it will be more beneficial for our kids as they move through the school system. Abi and Eilidh joined Heather, while Matthew stayed at Heritage for one more year with his friends there.

October saw my parents visit during the school holidays, and so we were able to enjoy a bit of holiday time in Murchison Falls National park, taking advantage of some of the safari trips that are so close to where we live!

We are looking forward to spending a bit of time relaxing as a family this Christmas, before the busy-ness starts again; in late January, I am travelling to Mongolia for a few weeks of work on another avionics upgrade to the caravan we have operating over there.

We hope that you will feel the joy and peace of Christmas this year in the midst of whatever plans you have; it is good to relax, and it's good to spend time with family, but it is even better to rest in the knowledge that Christ came, as the Old Testament prophesied, and He will come again!

I have attached a couple of recent videos below, and hope you enjoy a Christmas greeting, and some of the footage from the repaint I did at the start of the year...

A Christmas Greeting from Uganda!

Thank you for sharing in our journey, and for remembering us in prayer and practical support>
Wishing you every blessing for this Christmas, and as we start off into 2018!!

Tha Swanson Family

It's been a while...

2017-09-03T20:40:00.001+01:00

When we first started with MAF, I made every effort to get at least a couple of blog posts out every month. That actually takes quite a bit of work, and it seems that in the last couple of years especially I have lost a bit of steam with the blog. That said, I know there are many people who follow this page (or at least used to!) to keep up with our news.

Last week I put together a wee video to update some friends back home on what we are doing out here in Uganda, so I thought I would share it on here as well...

Thanks for reading and watching!

Safe in the Arms of God

2017-05-22T21:02:00.001+01:00

I honestly don't know where to begin. Serving God wherever you are in world is not easy. God never promised it would be. We have dealt with no power, no electricity, bumps in the car, loved and lost dear friends to new horizons, we have even come through melanoma cancer. Time is a wonderful healer and as I look back even these things (bar the cancer) seem relatively feeble three years on. When I wrote the last blog I mentioned I was leaving my present job at Heritage. I had also been interviewed and offered a new job at nearby international school where some of the other MAF children attend. The job offer was dependant on references of course. Never did I think that one of my references could have caused my offer to be rescinded but there is a first time for everything. In two years in my job I have poured my heart and soul (and finances) into being the best teacher I could be. It was crushing when the job offer was rescinded and I had to edit the blog I had just posted to you all now leaving an uncertain void as to my plans for the next year. Meeting after meeting to find out where I could be going wrong as a teacher and what was I doing that could have cost me a job in the small international community left no answers, no evidence, and a line of poor management. Still, I could pick myself up from this - God had a plan. Deep within I had been sure God was calling me to this decision and pursued the applications of Abigail and Eilidh to the new school. During the application process of our girls I was called into a meeting with the management at the new school. I have never been in the position where there was a job opening for an elementary music teacher and I was a qualified unemployed music teacher, yet a soon to be parent at the said school. Wondering what role I could take (volunteer?) or if I could ever apply for another job there led to several conversations and an invitation for a second interview. The interview panel was different and I repeated the interview again and was able to explain the happenings of the last few months with documented evidence of areas that I could only speculate were issues as I was refused any glance at the reference that cost me the job. Relief and thankfulness when I was offered the position (again!) this time - no strings attached. What a rollercoaster! Telling your four year old you are going to be her music teacher next year and see the joy in her face, and then having to tell her that mummy isn't going to be working at the school anymore was heartbreaking. The ripple effects of possibly having no second income was felt around our house staff in particular. All of their families would be affected and those who we support. It was such a relief to tell my girls again that I would be at their school. All I want to do as a teacher is ensure I can give my kids the best music education I can and BE there for them.

In the midst of all the above "soap opera drama" (as Andy called it!), It has been the busiest time of my career. Conducting 270 kids a the international music festival was exciting. Meanwhile rehearsals were underway for Beauty and the Beast production that would take place at the end of April. Due to the many weekly rehearsals (it's all done after school) I would miss seeing Joyce and Darius as when Andy would get home from work, they would leave. On Wednesday Joyce sells her doughnut balls and bread at the school market. Darius had been sick with a cold and I took them home from the market one Wednesday afternoon around 5pm. He was sleeping. I never saw them on the Thursday as I was late home. I decided to leave at 3pm on the Friday and that was when I noticed Darius had been sleeping for four or five hours. I noticed he was agitated while sleeping as though struggling for oxygen and packed Joyce and Darius into the car to go to the surgery (ex-pat clinic). It was rush hour, 5pm, and it took us over an hour to get there. He was getting more agitated in the car as he struggled to breath. He was rushed straight into the resuscitation room. Breathing treatments helped however when they finished he would crash. I don't really want to go into all the details. It was traumatic for us all and very "African". If ever I have felt like a foreigner - it was at this moment helping Joyce go through what no parent should ever have to experience. Thankfully her brother arrived to also give her some support. Meanwhile I tried to deal with the nurses (who were wonderful) and the oxygen tank which failed at one point. I tried to keep joyce from falling apart when her baby needed her most and encouraged her to hold him so she could say her goodbye. I switched the machine off as she took off the oxygen mask so she could cuddle him. His levels were so low that the machine was not having any more effect on him. I watched the sweet fifteen month old that had stolen our hearts gasp his last breath here on earth. If anyone could have told me three years ago that that's where I would be on that Friday evening would I have ever come to Africa? YES I would. As useless as I felt in that hospital room I know God planted us here not just to serve with MAF but for that lady - Joyce. God chose my family to hold her hand through her worst nightmare and in the midst of the grief for that I am so humbled. Andy left early Saturday morning to help with the arrangements and basically be a chauffeur for the weekend as they drove the 7 hour drive to the congo border. Culturally the baby must be buried in the Father's village. The Father was in Congo and could not attend the funeral. Joyce stayed there for three days till the burial was complete and then returned to her mother's village. Joyce has since been very sick with typhoid from drinking untreated water in the village. She is slowly on the mend and is returning gradually to work this week. I remember at our cross cultural training, someone mentioned that missionaries often see more people die in a few years than others do in a life time - we, and other MAF families can testify to this.

The week after Darius died, I had 800 people coming to see the production I had organised. It was the final week of dress rehearsals, night rehearsals in the dark - no time to sit or even cry with others about what I had just witnessed. Then after the production, it was the end of year concerts. Now that that is done, it is exam time, marking and entering grades, packing up my resources, and clearing out my classroom. Meanwhile I have to clear out my home from the cot, the high chair, the toys, the nappies. This furlough will definitely be different. I honestly don't even think I can get up to speak and share about how life has been these past months so please accept this blog as our family update. It will hopefully be a time of rest and healing and refreshing in our faith as we gear up for another year here in Kampala.

There have been many spiritual battles within the MAF team over these last months as many families have gone through major life altering events. Some are recovering from post traumatic stress, some are grieving the loss of a loved one, some are unable to be spoken about publicly. It has been a rough season for many. Please continue to pray for the many MAF families here.

Thank you to all of you who have supported Darius. Your love and prayers have touched and encouraged all of us, but especially Joyce. Before Darius was born she only attended our church as the children's worker for the under five's. Now she also attends her own church later on a Sunday and they have been a wonderful support to her through this time. Joyce also has the hope that she will see her son again in Heaven one day.

Andy and Eilidh will fly to the UK this coming Sunday. Myself and Abi and Matthew will follow in the 5th of June. We are looking forward to seeing you all and catching up with YOUR news. Andy will be in Dunoon Baptist Church on the 5th of June and then we will be at Kirkintilloch Baptist church on the 11th. We plan to be at Pitlochry on the 18th of June and then will be having some family holiday/rest time.

Our supporters really mean the world to us and I can't begin to tell you all how we appreciate your continual giving and prayers which allow us to serve God and the people of Uganda.

Lots of love

Heather (Andy, Abigail, Matthew and Eilidh)

Uganda Update

2017-02-26T08:51:00.000+00:00

Dear all, Although things have been quiet on blog front, there has been lots happening here. The family is doing well. Abigail is preparing for her Grade 2 Piano Exam which she will sit here in Kampala in May. She is also loving school and has been blessed with a new friend from another MAF family who just arrived late December (Parkers). She is also learning how to work our sewing machine and made her first cushion!

Matthew and Ben Parker and Eilidh

Matthew has also been blessed with a new buddy from the same family who is in his class at school. He is really enjoying school and also learning the piano for free (perks of having his mum as his teacher!) along with a bit of bass guitar! Eilidh is growing fast and continues to amuse us with her "I'm four so I know how to do everything" mentality! She is learning the violin and loving it. It's a musical house here in Kampala - I only hope my neighbours are enjoying the practising it as much as we are - it could be worse.....I haven't started them on the chanter yet!

Joyce's son Darius turned 1 year old in the beginning of December and we had a big party to celebrate this momentous occasion! He still continues to amaze us with his fighting spirit regardless of his heart/lungs medical issues. He is able to move freely in the baby walker exploring my house and opening and closing my drawers! He has mastered the "mum" sound, only a few back teeth seem to be appearing. I'm not sure if he will ever crawl but he is on the move on his tummy slowly.

Malaina Levesque and her son Sammy (Eilidh's twin!) came to visit for three weeks in December also which was lovely! We enjoyed a trip to the USA over Christmas time to visit friends and supporters both in Ohio and in NC. It was great for Eilidh to see where she was born (and meet Mimi again!) and explore her first "snow" experience that she might remember!

Scottish and Ohio Heathers!

Recently Heritage has had a basketball tournament where around 200 students and coaches fly to Uganda for a long weekend. We were hosting one of the coaches from an International school in Ghana. She was an American called Heather o'Hara from Columbus Ohio - her grandparents used to live in Coshocton where we stayed for three years! Needless to say we had an awesome time hosting her and yesterday we went to support the senior students in the finals - Heritage won both Girls and Boys Championship games!

Getting ready......

Andy has been busy painting planes to date and LOVING it! He is sporting a whole new look with his new beard covered in white paint patches by the end of the day. The hanger is very busy and the engineers are few so please pray for more engineers.

Andy's paint work!

My job is taking a little shift in direction also. I am leaving Heritage International School at the end of this school year. Currently I am preparing students for Beauty and the Beast Production at the end of April so it is a very busy time for me. Due to all the after school hours I am working, I have been given a Monday morning off which is wonderful! I am able to meet up with some of the other MAF wives or others for a coffee and a chat and just have some time in the house.

Joyce is still selling her doughnut balls weekly at the market. This will help support her and Darius long term as Eilidh will be at school all day starting August. She is also providing them for a different international school. She was having to get up at 3am to have enough time to make them all on a Wednesday morning for market. She now makes them at my house where she has more room and can get more sleep the night before!

Emmanuel who has worked for us part time for the last few years just graduated from College with a Diploma( HND). He has another two years to do to be a qualified car mechanic. The college fees are very expensive (Very cheap in UK terms) and there are no night classes this time so he is unable to work much through the week while he studies. He also needs money to support his family while he is studying. I am making lots of raspberry jam which Joyce also sells at market which will help to part fund his future college. Emmanuel is the one who waters and looks after my rare "Ugandan" Raspberry plants so it is only fitting that we should use these to contribute towards his college. Please pray about whether you could help us to sponsor him through his studies for the next two years. Email me at heatherswansonmaf@gmail.com if this is something that you would like to do.

Our Flights are now booked for our Furlough Trip 2017. Andy and Eilidh will be flying to the UK first at the end of May. Myself and Abi and Matthew will fly on the 5th of June and stay till the 22nd of July. Andy will return on July 8th himself. We are again looking forward to catching up with you all. We are still finalising our church dates/appointments and will let you know when we have specific dates confirmed.

Thanks so much for all your prayer and support. Last year was a very tough year but so far 2017 has been much better emotionally for us all as we strive to serve God where he places us.

God Bless x

Heather (Andy, Abi, Matthew and Eilidh)

...another day in the office!!

2016-11-28T19:38:00.002+00:00

Over the last couple of years we have fallen into a bit of a routine, where I do the newsletters and Facebook page updates, and Heather usually writes the blog posts. I get in on the blog too, when there is something interesting in my world that we want to share, but I was shocked when I realised the other day that I haven't written anything on the blog since my last skin cancer update back in early September last year! (Heather has posted since then, but if you follow the blog for the aviation side of things, I am very sorry!!)

Life here is as busy as always; Heather is very involved in school work just now. November & December are always busy for music teachers with Christmas programmes looming large! The kids are also busy at school and all three of them are enjoying the music lessons that they are taking after school. Abi is still doing great on the piano, and has been joined in the Swanson family pianist ranks by Matthew who is also showing lots of promise! Eilidh has been learning violin, and enjoys her Wednesday afternoon lesson very much!

Hangar life is busy too. I am very involved in a renovation project on one of our 206’s which has been looking a little down in the tooth. We are busy with preparations to repaint her in the new MAF colour scheme, something that doesn't happen all that often within the programme. We usually send planes to S Africa to a paint shop, but that can be an expensive option, so we decided to do it in house this time around. As is usually the case, when you start stripping paint off a plane, you find all sorts of other issues that need attention; right now we are busy with some repairs and major inspections that are easiest done when the plane is broken down and stripped back to bare metal.

5X-MSP part way through the paint stripping process.

Alongside our big project, we have all the usual routine work going on. The rest of this blog post is a wee report I did for someone of a routine inspection we dida few months back; hopefully it will give you an idea of what our day-to-day looks like… and it should also have enough “airplane anorak” in there to satisfy those who have been waiting since last year for a plane post!!

Engine bay inspection on 5X-LDR

So this week we have LDR in for a 200hr inspection. Every 100 hr’s of flight time, the Caravan’s come in for a routine inspection. We have two types of inspection a “minor inspection” (which we also call a 100hr inspection), and a “major inspection”, (which we call a 200hr). They alternate between minor and major every 100 hrs. These inspections give a basic (but thorough!) check of all the systems in the aircraft, to make sure they are still flying safely! On the major checks we go a bit deeper with the inspections, and also change lots of filters around the engine, and lubricate all the engine controls. As well as these regular checks, we carry out “Inspection Documents” which are part of Cessna’s Scheduled Inspection Programme. The aviation authorities have a requirement for us to check the plane thoroughly every 12 months. On smaller planes, an owner often does one big “annual inspection”, and they are then good to go for a year. On more complicated planes, or planes that are regularly used for flying commitments, taking a plane out of service for weeks at a time isn't practical, so Cessna have an approved system where they list all the required tasks in 25 “Inspection Documents”, which come around with different time intervals. These intervals could be anything from every 100 hrs, every 400 hrs, or even every 4 years. We schedule them in as tasks on the work order for our routine inspections, and do it all as one big check.

Routine inspection of pilot's door

The 200hr inspection we are doing this week includes 4 inspection documents, with some simple, quick tasks, like inspecting the oxygen masks, or checking that the fuel tank vents are clear. There are also some tasks that are simple and straightforward, but can be time consuming, especially when we are short of hands on the hangar floor. These could be jobs like inspecting the crew doors, where we strip all the trim panels off, and inspect the door frames for cracks or damage, make sure all the mechanisms are working properly and are well lubricated, and then reassemble it all. Then there are the bigger jobs like the fuel level sensing system checks, where all the fuel is drained out of the plane and we add it step by step, making sure the gauges are accurately calibrated, and the low level alarms go off when they should. (Pilots like to know that “full” means “full”… and “empty” means “empty”!!!)

Martin safety-wires the firewall fuel filter, after cleaning and inspection

As well as routine inspection work we have to fix all the defects that are raised during the wear and tear of normal operations. These are sometimes minor snags that don’t affect the airworthiness of the plane, but sometimes they are much more serious issues that would mean the plane would be grounded if we couldn’t find a solution. On this visit to the hangar, 5X-LDR is having it’s Comm2 antenna replaced. The second of 2 VHF radio antennas (used to keep in touch with ATC) had picked up some damage, and was no longer operating. It was changed for a new part during this inspection. Although it is important, it is possible to fly the plane (with some restrictions), without the Comm2 radio functioning. We also had to replace a clamping bolt on the cable that connects the engine’s fuel control unit to the propellor governor. It is part of the system that controls the pitch of the blades, and without this one little bolt, the plane would be grounded and going nowhere. It is a very specialised part, and there were none available to us in Africa, so one had to be shipped to us from USA . It arrived yesterday, and will allow us to put the plane back into service right after the inspection is completed on Friday.

It’s a busy week of work for us, but there isn’t much on a plane that is there for no reason. It’s obviously very important for the passenger’s safety that pilots know how to use all the equipment on the aircraft; it’s the hangar team’s job to make sure that it all works as it should when it is needed! Aircraft maintenance plays a huge part in the good stewardship of the resources we have in MAF-Uganda. By doing a good job in the routine line maintenance tasks, we contribute to the safe and efficient use of 5X-LDR as we look to see “isolated people physically and spiritually transformed.”

Cleaning the plane is an important part of maintenance

Pierre inspects passenger seats

Because He Lives

2016-08-28T13:42:00.000+01:00

Anna exploring the Kampala craft markets.

Furlough seems like ages ago! We had a great time in Scotland for the month of June visiting our supporting churches and catching up with many of you. There were just too many “thank you’s” to write cards to all those who blessed us along the way. Please accept our heartfelt thanks for all those who hosted and fed us, blessed us financially and spiritually and in many other ways. We returned to Uganda encouraged even though tired. We had the pleasure of Anna McNeil from Dunoon fly back to Uganda with us for three weeks of her school holidays. She came to explore the work of MAF and spend time in the hanger with Andy as well as enjoying time in Uganda. Abi was so happy to have an “older sister” about the house and we shared many happy memories including an early morning MAF flight over Africa – my first one since I arrived!

Since returning to Uganda it has been a whirlwind of activity and emotions. Forgive my internet silence but I have needed some time to process and withdraw and just rest. Many of you are aware of the baby Darius who comes to our house every day with his mother Joyce. Darius is now 8 months old and we were aware he had hearing and visual problems. Since he was three months old we have explored the medical expertise in Uganda to see how we can help him. I had wanted to take them to Kenya to see if we could help his hearing to allow him to communicate but I had left the finances with God as we could not afford it. God moved an anonymous donor in the UK and a dear friend to give financially to us.

First time on a plane for these two!

Joyce wanted to go and so we flew to Kenya beginning of August. Nothing was easy and trying to get Darius a birth certificate in time was the first challenge of many. Gaining the travel documents went smoothly however, the yellow fever shot for Joyce was a near oversight! We still did not get the original flight planned due to traffic and queues at check-in -a little too much stress at Entebbe airport for my liking. Instead of a one hour flight we managed to get to Kenya over two flights via Rwanda and arrived at our hotel late at night dirty, exhausted but glad to have finally made it. The next day was a bustle of appointments and travel between hospitals in Nairobi for Audiology assessments. An unexpected visit to the neurologist in the afternoon followed with a speedy trip to Cardiology before they closed for the day and then on to a thyroid lab test. We did not leave the hospital till 6.30pm and we left with very heavy hearts. The neurologist diagnosed Downs Syndrome which we had had our suspicions about anyway. It was the cardiologist report that changed everything. Darius has two major holes in the heart among other problems with the heart. The high blood pressure has damaged the lungs and he was beyond surgery even in Kenya. The nearest hospital who could perform the surgery was India however, the risks of death from sedation and surgery are of such a high risk in his situation. The next morning we saw the ear nose throat specialist again (the main reason we had come). He called the cardiologist from his office while we were there to get the update and we knew it was not good. He proceeded to inform Joyce about the severity of his heart problem and the realisation that it doesn’t really matter about the ears anymore. Darius has moderate hearing loss and could probably benefit from having tubes drained and grommets inserted, however sedation is too dangerous for him now. Joyce seemed to be coping with the news better than I was. She has grieved and cried for Darius for many months and I guess I was just starting to at that moment. We flew back that night and arrived at our house in the small hours. Darius just happened to have gone under sedation a few weeks before for an eye examination at a local hospital. Of course if we had known this then, he would never have had the examination but it went fine. Due to the nature of Nystagmus Darius’ eyes move continually which makes an examination very difficult unless sedated. After four hours sleep we got up and went to the hospital now in Uganda to get the eye results. We were there from 7am till 2.30pm emotionally drained and very tired. Normally they would not have given him glasses for some months yet however due to the new information on his heart Darius left the hospital with his new glasses! It was a little bit of positive news after a very difficult week.

Darius enjoying the beard.....yes Andy has a beard!

So what now? I talked with Joyce and asked her what she wanted to do - how far was she prepared to go? Do I write to surgeons in the UK? Do I see if a charity can support them both and the operation? I am blessed to have some “medical” friends from the UK living near me and was able to sit with them and chat about all the options once they had viewed the medical reports and scans. We knew then that surgery was not an option. The type of heart issues that Darius has is not a “one operation fix” but would be many and then subsequent operations each year. It was such a blessing to be able to ask them all the questions in my mind and talk about the palliative care options now available for them. We went to the “Mild May Clinic” originally set up for kids with HIV. It’s a hospice for children and we met with the Ugandan palliative paediatrician there who will support Joyce and Darius when the time comes. Another blessing was my friends were able to put Joyce in touch with a Ugandan palliative care nurse who speaks Joyce’s own language.

First day of Grade 5, 3 and JK.

It has been hard for Joyce to explain to her mother and family what is going on with Darius as she does not know the words in her native language so this is also a great support to her. So now we have a care network in place. Joyce went to the village (4 hrs drive) to spent a weekend with her mother and talk everything through. We will now work out a plan for the time when Darius starts to show symptoms of lung failure and support her the best we can. Unless God intervenes and we pray daily for a miracle, Darius will have a short life. It is most likely months, but Darius is not your typical heart defect baby. He is strong and growing and eating well. He does have a chesty cough at present and at times his erratic breathing scares me but at the moment he is relatively well and a contented happy baby. So we walk this journey together with Joyce not knowing what each day will bring. We do know that every day as a Christian brings us all one step closer to heaven. Joyce is keen to stay working and myself and the kids are now getting into the new school year.

Last Sunday I led the church in worship and we sang “Because He Lives”. The third verse was always hard for me to sing as my dad sang this minutes before he entered glory almost three years ago. Now, also the second verse has deep meaning for us as well as much comfort (I should mention the first verse is wonderful too :0). Although one day Darius will be in Heaven, I grieve for Joyce and I grieve for my kids as they will experience unimaginable heartache too. We are all relying on God’s strength daily and appreciate your prayers for Darius and Joyce. Every day is a blessing and another opportunity to snuggle this adorable baby before he gets to see AND hear Jesus - and for that we are all so thankful.

How sweet to hold, a new born baby

And feel the pride and joy he brings.

But greater still the calm assurance

This child can face uncertain days because He lives.

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow

Because He lives, all fear is gone

Because I know, I know He holds the future

And life is worth the living just because He lives.

Two weeks to go!

2016-05-19T19:48:00.003+01:00

These last months have been so busy with the school show. Peter Pan was a great success and the students demonstrated and amazing display of talent including back flips across the stage! We even managed to get some of the cast to "fly" with the use of purpose built see-saws! The week after the show ended I had an International music festival where eight different international school choirs from around Kampala sang individually and then all of 240 kids sang and played instruments together. I had the task of arranging the music and conducting them all on the day - phew! No sooner had this finished, it was time for the secondary music concert. Unfortunately I had the flu and spent a week in bed and the concert had to be postponed for a few more days. Now it is exam time and I have been busy preparing and modifying exams for the 80 secondary students I teach. Exams started today and will run for a week alongside the marking and grading. I am slowly finding my desk and classroom again after the business of life and I need to hurry to get all the show props and costumes stored as 80 students are returning all their band instruments to me for the summer holidays to be stored. I am never bored as you can imagine!

Over these last few months a few milestones have been reached. Teeth have fallen out and Matthew turned 8 years old in April - where has the time gone!? We celebrated with a bat-man cake and a trip to a reptile museum.

It's only a few weeks till we will be flying back to Scotland for our furlough trip and yet there is still so much to do. Leaving the house here in Uganda for a month means making sure there are enough supplies for the night guard to eat and drink, plenty of dog food left, freezer switched off, staff employed to watch the house and keep on top of unwanted visitors - two legged kind as well as the six legged variety. Salaries counted and left as well as money for emergency supplies like possible vets bills etc - that's just the Ugandan side! Preparing presentations for churches, organising eye appointments and dentist trips, and transport in between Andy's hospital appointments, and Abi's Grade 1 piano exam which she will be sitting in the UK in June. Meanwhile I am busy getting the school order together for band music and instruments that will need to be purchased very soon in order to bring them back. I have yet to go through the children's clothes and shoes and write the lists of things they will need for the next school year. My kids haven't had their feet measured for a year and Eilidh doesn't even own a fitting pair of closed shoes so Clarks will be one of the first shops to be visited. So much to do yet somehow with God's help it will all get done and on the 4th of June we will be sitting on the plane breathing a sigh of relief that we managed to get everything done - I hope!

Things in the hanger have been especially busy over the last few months as the MAF chad plane has been undergoing an avionic upgrade here. Andy really enjoys working on big projects like these and will no doubt be filling in the details during our furlough trip. There are more good byes to be said within MAF as another family is leaving in a few weeks after serving for 11 years.

It has been a challenging few weeks around our house. Rainy season has meant lovely cool temperatures however there has been a lot of sickness around including malaria. A daughter of a British teacher at school was recently very sick with malaria in her liver and thankfully has now recovered. I am still very tired after the flu and Eilidh is coping with flu and fever at the moment. Matthew had been off school for nearly a week with sore tummy and chesty cough and Abi was up through the night with croup as she continues to struggle with sore throat and cough! Andy is also not feeling great so the Swanson's may soon be having a family outing to the doctors to check for any underlying parasitic action happening as is often the case here. In Uganda you can expect this to be a three to four hour long trip on a saturday morning. Emmanuel who we employ part time for security, the garden and walking the dog, has a very sick toddler at present. . The doctors have told him its the flu and malaria so please pray for his son. I am sure we will all be fine and healthy when we arrive back in the UK so please don't feel you have to keep your distance - lol! I haven't even mentioned the dog and her skin issues that are involving a lot of extra time and energy as I daily have to bath her "hot spot" sores and give her antibiotics etc I can't deny these last few weeks have felt a little overwhelming at times however God is faithfully sustaining us throughout.

Joyce our nanny has been such a blessing especially through this time. There are very few people your sick children would be happy to be left all day with but Joyce is one of them and the kids have not complained once about being home with her. Joyce's son Darius is growing very well and he is sitting up himself for short periods. We are pretty sure he has nystagmus in his eyes which means he can see, however his eyes will rarely stay still enough for him to focus. His eyes will follow a very bright light such as my ipod torch. We are still unsure if he can hear anything. One of the other MAF wives is taking Darius for a hearing screening test next week as she has some time to do this. Another friend of Joyce has volunteered to take her to the eye clinic at a local hospital here sometime in the next few weeks as I have no more days off work before furlough to take her. Hopefully that will happen soon and we can then decide where to go from there. A friend from Scotland kindly donated a baby chair and baby nest for Darius and our MAF friends brought it back from Scotland a few weeks ago. Darius is enjoying his chair and Eilidh is enjoying being able to bounce him and have him more nearer her eye level.

Here are some of our dates and where we will be so hopefully we can catch up with you. We can not reinforce enough how much your support and encouragement means to us. Knowing that you are praying for us and supporting us really keeps us going especially when it gets tough. We are looking forward to catching up with many of you and especially a few new baby's this year including my neice Zara, and my best friend's baby Aaron who I have not had a chance to cuddle yet.

Arrive in Scotland 5th June 8.30am
Dunoon Baptist Church Sunday Morning 12th June
Kirkintilloch Baptist Church Sunday Morning 18th June
Pitlochry Baptist Church Sunday Morning 26th June
Leave Scotland on 9th of July to return to Uganda.

See you soon
love from the Swanson's.

Planes and Babies - UGANDA

2016-03-10T07:38:00.000+00:00

Plane landing at Kajjansi

Two years ago in March, Andy arrived in Uganda to start work with MAF Uganda. In those two years, there have been so many lives impacted due to the MAF program here and we are so blessed to be a small part God's big picture here in Africa. The last few months have flown past (couldn't resist the pun!). Andy has been busy as usual in the hanger. He has been attending a course for the last five days and passed his exam for that on Tuesday. He has more exams coming up in the first week of April. Due to engineers leaving the pressure is on Andy and Geoff to get qualifications that would allow them to "sign off" aircraft ready for flight. The timings of these exams however rely on the efficiency of the Civil Aviation Authority in Uganda to provide the exam dates and of course, they are not in a hurry!

I have been back at work in a whirlwind of teaching, preparation and show rehearsals for our upcoming musical "Peter Pan" at the end of April. This semester is definitely busy and rehearsals for the musical all take place after school so our lives at the moment are a new kind of normal. In Uganda the presidential elections have been taking place and there have been a few extra days off school for voting and occasional rioting. The main opposition candidate is still locked up in a place outside of the city and pretty much has been since the date of the election. There is definitely unrest in the city regarding this and when/if he is ever allowed to leave there will most likely be some demonstrations. At the moment though, there is peace and for that we are very thankful.

Our main other news is that of Joyce our Ugandan nanny. Joyce has looked after Eilidh three mornings a week the whole of last year along with a 3 year old boy (Sammy). When the Levesque family left last Summer we employed Joyce full time so she would have a job and I could go back to work - Eilidh is very happy to have her :0) She gave birth to Darius in December and brings him everyday to work. Eilidh just loves having a little "brother" to cuddle as are we all. I approached Joyce a few weeks ago about my concern with his eyes not focusing and the fact he wasn't smiling and as suspected Darius is blind. We then discovered as I did some tests with musical toys and flashing lights that he was also not hearing. This was a huge shock especially to Joyce. Even in the UK this is hard news but here in Uganda children with special needs are the poorest of the poor, often abandoned. I have been reading about deaf (and blind) schools in Kenya ( I don't know of any in Uganda) and my heart breaks for the kids there who are never visited by anyone including their family, and have no home to go to in the holidays. If the family has money it is spend on feeding the hearing children. Darius has low muscle tone on the back of his neck but apart from these things he is growing well and healthy and his brain is normal therefore he is trapped in a world of silence and darkness. The doctor has ruled out downs syndrome and we thought the blind/deafness was due to rubella in the pregnancy. After he had an MRI brain scan last week, his brain is completely normal and it is not matching up with Rubella either so at present there is no syndrome or name for his condition. The doctor can really do no more for him here, there isn't the audiology equipment here to screen a baby's hearing. The doctor commented on his referral of an older boy to the audiology center at the age of 16 - he had some hearing. Due to the fact this boy had never had any stimulation and basically been shut indoors for the best part of 16 years there was nothing they could do for him here in Uganda. I am trying to help Joyce realize the importance of stimulation for Darius especially at this young age.

Joyce, Abi and Darius

Basically, we have come as far as we can here in Uganda in terms of helping Darius medically, minus some physio for his neck. My hope for him is that if we can help restore all/part of one sense then he would be able to have speech to communicate with the world. He was dedicated and prayed for at our church a few weeks ago. She is about to embark on visits to "healing churches" in Africa. While I and anyone can understand her reason for this (and we are praying for him also) there is a lot of false teaching in Africa such as money = healing which is not what the bible teaches. As well as praying for his healing we pray Joyce would not succumb to pressure.

I have been in touch with Nairobi hospital in Kenya ENT department where they can do cochlear implants but he would have to go for assessment first and looking at the costs of the surgery etc. is overwhelming - BUT we serve a great God and I know if this is his plan for Darius then He will open the doors and provide. The first cochlear implant ever done in Uganda I believe, was in 2014 in an adult who had previously had hearing. The implants were were donated by the cochlear company and switched on remotely via a clinic in New York. There is not the facilities to do this in Uganda with a child, especially pre-lingual. If any of you know of any visiting eye/ear pediatric specialists coming to Uganda in the near future please let me know.

MAF staff have also helped us with the medical costs so far as Joyce bakes bread at the weekends for a lot of them and she is well known and loved among the MAF community here. The father of Darius (in the village) has yet to find out about his son. The pregnancy and alleged "marriage" to the father is a result of pressure from her family as to be 41 years old, unmarried and without a child is more of a disgrace for her in her family's eyes. Joyce is basically a single mum also supporting a 9 year old nephew through schooling, who lives in a tiny two roomed house and now has a deaf and blind son to care for. Joyce never got passed primary three in school as her father re-married and the step mum would not let him pay for her school fees. Her step-sister got the money instead and graduated through university. Joyce when she was 13 years was instead sent to care for a baby in the city and so her journey to our house began. The husbands family know about Darius and have been supportive of Joyce although they still think he will go to school and I get the feeling they are not really aware of the extent of his needs at all. The father will return from a journey in a few weeks and the family are going to sit him down and tell him then. The village is around four hours drive from the city and the plan is Joyce will return there with Darius for the first time to see her family and his for the month of July this year. This will be a particularly hard time for Joyce who has not yet even told her own family. She is worried her older mother will faint from the news! Even now she is struggling to sleep so please pray that she will have hope in her heart and see the blessing in her arms.

At the moment, I am working with Joyce regarding communication with Darius and using "hello" signals and basically wonderful helpful ideas I have found on the internet! Darius is getting to know Eilidh's little toys like the battery operated hairdryer and some of my musical instruments however I am going to have to factor in playtime with Darius into Joyce's working schedule to ensure he gets some stimulative play through the day as its easy for her to just work all day and neglect the play time with him. If any of you have ideas or medical contacts you can put me in touch with who can help or support Joyce then please do. In my last year at college age 22, my research project was on music education for the deaf . I was fascinated from the age of 15 how music can benefit deaf children when I met baby Anna McNeil in Dunoon who was deaf. She has since had two cochlear implants and can speak and is doing very well. I even spent time in the Donaldson Deaf school in Edinburgh. I then went on to work in a special needs school for two and a half years and isn't it great when you can look back and see how God was shaping your live for this very moment?

Wow this has become a mammoth blog post (three months news in one sitting!) I am sure there will be many more blog posts regarding Darius to come so at least you know the background and can walk the journey with us and Joyce where ever it may lead.

Abi and Matthew and Eilidh are all doing very well. In the next few months, as missionary kids have to do regularly, they will each be saying good bye to very close friends. The weekends lately have been taken up with farewell gatherings. Mel, an retired lady from England has been in Uganda for the last ten years and is leaving next week. She has been our kids adopted Granny figure here in Africa as well as a good friend and we will all miss her greatly. The Newnham family who are also English and have been in Uganda over ten years, are leaving in a few weeks also. They will continue to serve in the MAF Liberia program - their three year old daughter was a good friend of Eilidh. In a few months there are several other MAF families leaving. At my school there are many staff also leaving and possibly more than half of the teaching staff will all be new in August! Lots of changes happening!

Furlough for us will be staring the 5th of June. We will be in Scotland till the 9th of July and once our dates are finalized we will let you know where we will be. Last year I arrived in the UK with Giardia ( a lovely African parasite which alerted the Scottish environmental health department!) At present I am off work recovering from Amoebas (another common eh, lovely African parasite!) however it is giving me the chance to actually write this blog! Hoping to bring nothing back in June except ourselves this year!

The power has been out for two days and the generator is buzzing in the background to keep our fridge/freezer, internet working but there is plenty rain water in the tank after the massive thunderstorm the other night so we are blessed! It's another day in Africa!

Thanks again for your support and prayers.

lots of love
Heather, Andy, Abi, Matthew and Eilidh.

Christmas Greetings from Uganda

2015-12-24T18:20:00.001+00:00

This year we have completely dropped out of sync on our quarterly newsletters! The summer we had knocked us off course a bit, and our early autumn newsletter was so late that we would have had to start writing our Christmas letter before we mailed the autumn one! So in lieu of a Christmas newsletter, we are sending out a Christmas email / blog post!

Normally I write the December letter around the time of American Thanksgiving at the end of November. I think that every Christmas newsletter we have ever written, whether from America or last year from Uganda, have spoken about Thanksgiving, and of what we are thankful for. In 1st Thessalonians, Paul says, "Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” Sometimes ‘giving thanks in all circumstances’ is easier than at other times. When the sun is shining, the bank account is in credit, the car starts on the first go, and the children aren’t fighting, it is easy to be thankful. But life isn’t always like that. The second half of this year has been one of the toughest we have experienced yet. After a year of ‘Ugandan honeymoon’, we have really felt the challenge of culture shock since returning this summer. Our cancer experiences were hard to deal with, working through uncertainty, serious potential implications, as well as the surgery itself. We have had about 2 1/2 months where I have been apart from Heather and the kids since July - not easy when family life is so busy. Heather has started back into full time teaching for the first time since Abi was born, and our whole family routine has had to change to suit.

But nothing we have been through this year falls outside of “all circumstances”, and so we give thanks. Definitely not because bad or stressful things are fun, but because God is good. Always.

We give thanks because God gives a hope that is so much bigger than any of our struggles. We give thanks because that hope comes because Jesus came. We give thanks for the baby in a manger, the teacher on the hillside, the sacrifice on the cross, the empty grave, and the returning Lord. And what better time to remember all these things than as we celebrate His coming to Bethlehem.

Happy Christmas from the Swansons, and the best of wishes as we head into 2016!

"The Joy of the Lord is my strength" - Nehemiah 8 v10

2015-11-17T19:27:00.000+00:00

Carrying Eilidh the Ugandan way!

Since August, life on the home-front has been about as far from normality as I can ever remember. Keeping it all together juggling full time work and the kids alone in East Africa while your husband undergoes surgery for a life threatening condition on a separate continent – lets just say it stretches you! I’ve gone from moments of loving my job to wanting to run onto the next plane leaving for Europe. It has been a roller coaster of emotions for the whole family and I’m thankful we are on the other side of it now. After Andy came back from his extended time in Scotland (cancer free) he was then off to Europe for ten days for a training course. He arrived back beginning of October and this last month has been a time of settling back into routine and dealing with the culture shock that has arisen (I believe) due to the unsettled time our family has been going through. Although we are happy in our jobs and the kids are happy, the sense of longing for familiarity of home – (smooth roads and in-corrupt traffic police, or cleaning your teeth with the tap water) can be overwhelming at times. There are certain things that only those who have been living overseas in such environments as Kampala can relate to – it’s hard to explain. Andy has been flying all over the place for the last few months and he is ready to be settled for a bit. I on the other hand have been here at home and desperate to fly anywhere to just get away and have a break. Interestingly Andy and I often discuss about places we might like to go and visit in Uganda which may be only four or five hours drive from us. However, the reality of packing up, travelling tbrough the crazy traffic on pot holed roads, lack of public toilets or restaurants to feed your family on the way or way home make it more of an “adventure holiday” as opposed to a relaxing break. Sometimes a holiday just for rest is required. Abigail and I are going to fly to Scotland for a week over the Christmas break and I am really looking forward to having no agenda and spending quality time with my eldest as well as catching up with my family and meeting my new niece or nephew soon to be born! We will be flying back with my Aunt who is coming to stay with us for three weeks. I am planning on resting!

Dressed as Beatrix Potter for School "Stories from around the world festival"

Abi is busy with her school work, piano and her French speaking is flourishing. She was treated by her teacher to a trip to the snack bar as she was the only one in the class able to sing the whole song “give thanks with a grateful heart” in FRENCH! Her Congolese French teacher is making French fun and exciting to learn and she is loving it.

Matthew’s teacher recently commented on his report that he wished he had a “Matthew” at every table in the class to show the other students how to behave and work, so he is making us proud. He has joined the cub Scouts recently and loves having a special uniform to wear. I won’t mention how many times I have heard the Scouts promise so far – more to follow I’m sure. I’m thankful God is still allowed in the Scouts promise in Africa.

Eilidh attends pre-school three mornings and comes home singing about days of the week and we also hear a few song in Luganda (national language) that she has been learning. Joyce who looks after her for me when I am working is due to have her first baby in the coming weeks so we are bracing ourselves for coping without her while she is on her maternity break. It has been an education learning about the prenatal care and birthing experience of pregnant Ugandan women. There is no food offered to her at the hospital and she must take in a friend who sleeps on a mat under her bed to feed her, wash her and make sure no one steals the baby, or any of their stuff! Thankfully her sister is coming from the village to be the “friend” at the hospital. I hope she gets here in time as I am not sure I could deal with sleeping under her bed on a thin mat in a huge room full of laboring women, and many babies. Joyce has to take in all the supplies for giving birth, including her own bed sheets, baby bath, a bucket for herself to wash in, a flask of hot water, and a whole list of other things. Pray for Joyce for a safe delivery and healthy baby and mum.

Eilidh will go to preschool five mornings a week while Joyce is on Maternity break and Irene our house help will be look after her in the afternoons till I return. We are so blessed to have such great ladies working with us and for us here.

The work at the hanger is as busy as ever. Andy is preparing for type rating exams as well as carrying on with the usual program of inspections. There is more maintenance work happening in the hangar, since the international flying restrictions have been lifted and the planes are able to fly to Congo and Sudan again. Please pray for those working in South Sudan as security and peace has once again become a real issue preventing many mission organisations from doing their work. Chad is also a place that has seen more bombings of late and heightened security alerts among missionaries serving there. We have enjoyed having Andrew Mumford in Uganda for a few weeks of training; he is normally based in Chad, and before joining MAF he flew an air ambulance out of Aberdeen!

Here in Uganda we are preparing for elections in February. These elections take place every three years and this will be our first experience of an election here. Security at our school is already preparing multiple exit plans and strategies in preparations for February, as are the MAF team. Demonstrations are beginning to take place and traffic congestion will take on a new meaning as the streets become filled with protests and potential riots. Please remember this nation and pray for peace and safety over the coming months.

Thank you for praying and supporting us in the many ways you do. I have really appreciated the cards and emails sent from many of you through our time of separation while Andy had the cancer removed. I only wish I had more time to write individual emails and notes but please know that your encouragement has helped us greatly through a very difficult time. The Joy of the Lord is my (our) strength. Nehemiah 8 v 10

God Bless

Heather

In God's hands.

2015-09-03T11:23:00.000+01:00

My last little update came after my skin graft dressings had been removed, and things were looking positive about how well the surgery had gone. Everything was still uncertain though, as the biopsy results would determine whether more surgery was needed or not. If the tests on what was removed of the original lesion showed there were still cancer cells at the boundary, they would have had to remove more of my ear to get rid of all the cancer cells. If the biopsy results from the 3 lymph nodes showed that the cancer had started to spread from the original spot (the lymph nodes are the first place it would appear), then the rest of the nodes in that particular area would have to be removed. Either of those outcomes would mean I would have had to delay my return to Uganda and go back into hospital for more surgery.

On Tuesday afternoon I had appointments at the hospital to have the stitches removed and meet with the consultant for a review. I also got good news from the pathologists who did the biopsies. The surgery to remove the original lesion had been successful, and no cancer cells were present at the boundary between the removed tissue and my ear! They got it all! The sentinel lymph node biopsy results were also good, with no cancer cells visible in my lymph system. A huge relief!!

On Tuesday I also had a CT scan of my head, which was the last of the checks that the doctors wanted to do as part of my treatment. There is nothing to suggest that anything suspicious will show up, but it’s one more thing to check off the list before we do a complete sigh of relief. My last appointment at Glasgow Royal Infirmary is on Tuesday next week, where I will meet with the dermatologist and hopefully get the scan results as well. All being well I will be home before Heather’s birthday on Sunday!! I can’t wait!!! :-)

The last couple of months have been an absolute rollercoaster, with so many emotions experienced, high and low. I have been encouraged by so many old friends around the world, I have met new friends and come to know them in a really special way, I have been blown away by the care and professionalism in the hospitals around Glasgow (having had experiences on a few different continents over the years, I can safely say that the UK has the best health care system in the world!) and most of all I am confident that in spite of us not fully grasping everything that is going on around us, I serve a God who is in control.

As a wise friend said a few weeks ago, “I am in God’s hands, which is the best place to be”.

Thanks.

Craftsman of the week award!

2015-08-29T10:57:00.000+01:00

I have always had a real appreciation of people who are good at what they do. I remember when I was in my early teens watching fishermen splice ropes, ties knots, fillet fish and shuck clams, all the while having a good laugh with the people around them. It seemed like they didn't even look at their hands before turning out a masterpiece of ropework, or a perfectly boneless fillet of haddock!

This appreciation of good workmanship has carried on throughout my adult life. I have watched welders doing the impossible fabricating steelwork on a rolling ship, excavator operators clearing topsoil and exposing the plastic membrane on a landfill site with same level of care as you put into peeling an orange, and panel beaters taking a damaged car and straightening every dent and ripple before handing back a car that looks better than it did when it left the factory.

I touched on this a little bit when I spoke at Kirkie Baptist church back in the summer and about how God has equipped us all with skills and talents, and how rewarding it is to exercise those talents for His glory. (Go to www.kirkiebaptist.com, then look down in the bottom right corner for the "Latest Resources and Downloads" section, and have a listen to the morning service on June 28 if you want to hear!!)

James 1 says that "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows". I don't know if the surgeon who operated on me has any sort of Christian faith, but I do believe that his talents and abilities were God given, and I am very impressed! I have to give my "Craftsman of the week" award to Mr Thompson for all his handiwork, and close runners-up awards to all the other doctors, nurses and hospital staff who have helped since I got back to Scotland a few weeks back.

I am going to post a before and after pic below, both very tame and nothing near as graphic as most of the tv shows that air after 9pm, but if you might get squeamish, just stop here!!!

Also, if you didn't get the chance to hear us talk when we were back in Scotland over the summer you can listen to Kirkie Baptist's service at the link I mentioned above - Abi sings about the 19 minute mark on the "Opening worship" download, then Heather and I both share a bit about MAF and our time in Uganda at the 28 minute mark. I also do the "thought for the day" bit which is under "Sermon" if you want a listen...

Thanks again for all your prayers and encouragement so far, and please continue to pray as we wait for the lymph node biopsy results which will play a big part in determining what happens next...

Andy.

Taken back at the start of the year - yes that little spot is what all the fuss has been about!

My new, completely customised, one of a kind ear!

Post-op blog post...

2015-08-23T15:37:00.002+01:00

I like an illustration with a bit of a story behind it. I was given a card by a good friend last week that has two pictures of the “Tower of Refuge” in Douglas Bay on the Isle of Man. I did two 6 month spells on the Isle of Man in my merchant navy days, and the room where I stayed for most of that time looked straight out onto the tower perched on Conister Rock. It was built in 1832 by Sir William Hillary, who also founded the Royal National Lifeboat Institute. After several ships were wrecked on the reef, the intention was to provide somewhere safe for ship-wrecked sailors to shelter in, until help could arrive.

The card I was given had a picture of the tower in calm seas and nice sunshine on one side, and a picture of the same tower in the middle of a wild storm on the other. Inside the card is a copy of Psalm 46, “God is our ‘Tower of Refuge’ and strength, a very present help in trouble”. I was told to put the card around which ever way worked best for me each day, but to remember that no matter what is happening all around, the “Tower of Refuge” is the same.

The Tower of Refuge on a nice calm day

...and with the waves rolling in.

This weekend has seen the card spin round quite a bit between storms and sunshine.

My surgery went well (as far as I can tell), although it was much more involved than had been anticipated. The cancer removal part of the operation was always going to be intense with quite a bit of skin around the lesion being removed along with the cartilage below it, before everything was to be closed up with a graft taken from behind my other ear. That part of my ear is still all hidden under some stitched-on compression wadding stuff, so it will be another week or so before I see what the Mark II version of my ear looks like.

We had hoped that the sentinel lymph node biopsy would be a relatively small part of the operation, but that depended on where the sentinal node was. It was a 50/50 chance of whether the lymph fluid would drain to nodes in front of my ear, or behind my ear, with aft being preferable because of all the other glands and nerves in my cheek that might interfere with the lymph nodes there. Unfortunately the dye they injected showed that the lymph drained both ways, and they had to remove 2 nodes from in front of my ear and one from behind. I think that is why I went down to the theatre at 1:30, and didn’t wake up again until after 8pm! Needless to say I have a pretty impressive scar that runs down the front of my ear, under the lobe, back up the back side and down again,in a sort of sine wave shape.

There are so many emotions flipping the Tower of Refuge pictures round just now. The surgeon seemed positive that all was well with the procedure. He felt the lymph nodes he removed looked healthy. He felt the wide area excision should have removed all of the cancer cells from my ear. But melanoma is the scary version of skin cancer. It is the most likely to spread and has a very real potential to be life threatening, so completely relaxing is not easy while we are still waiting for biopsy results on the 3 nodes he removed.

I have to say that the swelling and wounds that I have just now look far worse than they feel, and I don’t feel the need to be continually eating pain killers, but having had quite in depth surgery on both sides of my head, my face is feeling a bit tender to say the least. Getting a good night’s sleep is not the easiest thing in the world to do when you can't lie on either side. Everything feels tight, and swollen and the thought of pulling all those stitches gives me the heebie-jeebies! I have lots of little itchy bits that I can’t quite reach, and I am so looking forward to having all the stitches and dressings away and being closer to normality again.

It’s also difficult as a family being separated just now as well. The kids know I have been getting an operation, but they don’t really understand everything that is going on, and all the possible implications, so that just makes it so much harder talking to teary-eyed kids from the other side of the world. Heather has been busy with her new job, which undoubtedly has helped by keeping her mind off things and giving her something to focus on, but it all takes it’s toll, and she is going through a lot, whilst being a single parent for the short term. I am being well looked after by friends and family, and am making the most of being able to spend some time with my family, especially my brother, who I don’t get to see enough of. All that said, I am still living out of a suitcase and would much rather be in my own home, being part of everyday life with my wife and kids.

It is a great comfort to know that God is our refuge and strength, but equally we really value your prayers and encouragements as the weather changes all around us, almost on a minute by minute basis.

1st consultation...

2015-08-11T23:23:00.000+01:00

Sunday afternoon saw me on my way home to Scotland to meet with the Doctors about “The Ear” . The best option for coming home this time was via Dubai with Emirates, so I was back in Glasgow just after lunchtime yesterday.

This afternoon I had an appointment with the plastic surgery team in Glasgow who will be doing the actual operation to remove the cancer. I didn’t really learn anything I don’t already know (having googled melanoma to oblivion for the last couple of weeks!), but it was good to meet with the surgeon and talk through the specifics of my case. While skin cancer is completely curable (or rather ‘cut-out-able’…), melanoma is also a serious condition that can spread quickly, so it was good to talk to the experts about what will need to be done for me. The ear is an awkward place to have a growth removed from. The guidance is usually to have a 2cm margin around a lesion of the size of mine, although doctors are now doing studies into whether a 1cm margin is sufficient to remove everything that needs to be removed. That is good news for me, as taking away a piece of my ear 4cm across wouldn’t leave me too much to hang my glasses on! The surgeon who is now leading “my team” seemed very knowledgable, and confident that he could remove the cancer and still leave the ear looking reasonably sensible… (albeit, the tragic end to my ear modelling career…) It looks like I will have a reasonably large piece of the skin on the front of my ear removed, along with the cartilage beneath it, leaving just the skin on the back which will then get a skin graft from the back of my other ear to cover the hole. Although it will change the shape of my ear a bit, and leave me with a squidgy bit in the middle, it will leave things as close to how they are just now as is possible. At the same time as that operation is going on, they will also do a sentinel lymph node biopsy to determine whether the cancer has spread to anywhere else. There is going to be a lot of waiting around for appointments and then for biopsy results to confirm all is well before I can return to Uganda again. In the meantime, Heather will be home alone with the kids, so we still appreciate your prayers for life at home, as well as prayers for the melanoma situation.

Thanks.

Another turn in the road...

2015-07-29T21:15:00.000+01:00

Today marks 12 years since Heather and I got married! In some ways it seems like it has flown past, and in other ways it seems like we have been together forever! We have certainly covered a lot of ground in our time as Mr and Mrs Swanson; we have lived in 5 homes, on three continents. We’ve been blessed with 3 beautiful children. I have had 4 different jobs, while Heather has had 6 if you include being a stay-at-home mum, and some of the part time ventures she has had whilst raising the kids. We’ve had the joy of making new friends, and we’ve felt the pain of loosing old ones. All that said, if you had asked us how likely we thought it was that we would be living in Africa when we first got married, I don’t think we would have believed you! Life has lots of unexpected turns along the way.

Last night I got another unexpected turn that I would appreciate your prayers about.

A month or two before we came back to Scotland this summer I noticed a spot on my right ear, which was growing and changing shape quite quickly. I wasn’t hugely concerned, as it didn’t match any of the other criteria for suspicious moles (other than the changing shape) so I made a note to discuss it with the doctor when I went for my medical exam back in Scotland. That doctor also seemed not overly concerned, as the shape change was the only suspicious thing to notice about it. He did however urge me to speak to my GP and ask for a referral to a specialist before coming back to Uganda. I did that and was thoroughly impressed by the NHS and Glasgow Royal Infirmary, getting me an appointment in just over a week, and seeing me before my flight back to Uganda. Again, there wasn’t a huge amount of concern by anyone who looked at it, but a biopsy was taken and sent off for analysis as a matter of course.

Right before bed time last night I got an email from the dermatology department at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, explaining that 4 pathologists had confirmed it was a malignant melanoma, and that I would need to have further surgery to remove what is left of the lesion. It still all feels a bit surreal as I have spent today talking to MAF-UK, health insurance people and doctors about what happens next. Whatever way it all pans out, I will need some sort of surgery in the next few weeks, and my preference would obviously be to have that done in Scotland. Until further checks and tests are done, we aren’t sure exactly what that will involve. There might be a need to do a “Sentinel Node Biopsy” to confirm that the cancer has been caught before it could spread into my lymph nodes. There will need to be discussions about the type of surgery needed to remove the cancer; can the cartilage of my ear remain as it is with a skin graft, or will I have a “shark’s bite” left on my right hand ear? All these things (and lots of others!) are rattling around my head just now (now’s the time for jokes about there being lots of room in there for the ideas to bounce!), fuelled by my good friend Google, who kept me up far too late last night, looking at pictures of cancer on the ear!

'Chuffed' with my newly dressed biopsy!

I suppose I now have a fine opportunity to live out Phillipians 4 v 6&7 (Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus), although it is always far easier to say those first six words than it is to live them out.

I will try to keep blog and Facebook pages up to date with my news, as and when I have anything new to share, and in the meantime, I would truly value your prayers as we set off down this new and unexpected turn in the road. We felt incredibly encouraged by so many people during our time back in Scotland this year, and I feel blessed to have so many people supporting us in so many ways.

Right now I am off to bed before 'Google Images' sucks me in again!