Sunday - a hot day to revisit old friends and be prepared for the week ahead - Blog Post from Emma Coy

“Has anything changed?” is a question I've been asked numerous times over the past 24 hours. It’s hard to answer. In some ways nothing has changed. The streets still look the same, the cows still take themselves home in the evening, the roads are still just as bad (the Jonas centre pot hole filling team would have their work cut out here!). However, things have moved on in the 12 years since i was last here. The houses are perhaps a little bit more modern, a little bit neater and more people seem to be growing flowers in their garden. Sitting in church this morning I reflected that the church has grown in numbers and also seems to have grown younger, with more families and young people than i remember. What is obvious is the way that the relationships between our communities have flourished over time. Many of the team have been out on multiple visits and friends greet each other warmly. There is a level of trust that exists that makes everything run very smoothly and certainly things seem a good deal more professional and organised than they did in the early days! This afternoon I have been helping the school set up for tomorrow, I'm sure the children will be having a fabulous time over the next week. It has been wonderful to catch up with the headmistress, Kati, who i first met in 2003 and to see the improvements she’s been able to make to her school, partly with our help. The floors are now all beautifully tiled, the wobbly desks have been replaced, there is much more colour around the place, I spotted TVs in a few classrooms and the school now even has it’s own computer room. What is most obvious is that this partnership has been a tremendous blessing to all involved and it has been a huge joy and privilege to be able to come back after so long and see how something i was involved with at the beginning has grown and changed and mean't so much to so many people.