Mission matters continue to keep us busy and this week we have completed a major mail out. There are 800 plus people on the data base who are in contact with Christadelphians. Some are in regular contact and are undertaking the Bible Correspondence Course with tutors based in Perth. Others have less regular contact – we may not have heard from them for up to 12 months and some have been out of touch for even longer than this.

Well, given we have approx 12 months in total to work with these people Ken initiated a major postal project which has had us writing to every contact, advising we are here in Negombo and our contact details (including local phone number) and that there is a now a permanent Christadelphian presence in SL in addition to the local brethren and sisters. The 800 plus people were sorted into about three categories, depending on their frequency of contact, and Ken prepared different letters for each group; the letters included an offer of various publications – again reflecting their frequency of contact. This week we finished the mail out – hurrah, hurrah. This week’s was the largest component of the project and we posted about 648 letters - all the same - but that means 648 stamps "licked" and stuck on envelopes, 648 letters folded twice and stuffed into envelopes, 648 envelopes sealed using a sponge and water, 648 address labels cut out, glued and stuck on, 648 return addresses stamped on the rear of the envelopes, trying all the time to keep them all in alphabetical order to help simplify the updating of 648 records on the data base.

There have already been quite a number of responses from the first two mail outs (which were of course the smaller mail outs) with requests for further literature and two requests, one from a gentleman and one from a lady, for someone to visit to discuss God’s Word. So in addition to the major mail out we now have also had an increasing number of letters to respond to and visits to make.

Once we return to SL in early February there will have been sufficient time elapsed for people to have responded and we should then be in a position to work out who are the keenest of the contacts and develop a plan of action to assist these people further. This program will be further informed by the visits of a swag of short term fieldworkers over the January period.

We’ve also completed the first draft of the Fieldworkers Handbook. It provides heaps of information regarding cultural issues, advice on how to find the residence, where to shop, where to pay bills, contact details in the case of emergencies etc. This has been a big job but the worst is now over – we only have to fine tune it over the coming months.

Yes, we’re leaving SL for six weeks and heading for India. Our SL visas expire in late December and we must leave. We’re looking forward to our break if "break" is how it is best described. It’s been a really stressful week/fortnight and it’ll be great to have a change of scenery and the social and spiritual support of others. India has work for us as well, although with a slightly different focus. Our plans for the period from 20^th December to 3^rd February, God willing, are to head for Madras (India) on 20^th December and have 2 nights there and then fly to Hyderabad on 22^nd December where Tim and Sarah Galbraith live. We’ll have Christmas Day with them and catch up with their daughter Susie, son-in-law Tim and grandson Ethan who will arrive in India on 29^th December on their way to Melb from Wales. We then head off to Moinabad, where the children’s home is, for the end of year studies. Ken is exhorting on the Sunday and leading one of the Daniel studies. Moinabad is about an hours drive from Hyderabad. It is the place where we stayed for a week last time we were in India and a couple staying in the same premises as us had a snake slither over their bed at about 10.00 pm – while they were tucked up in bed L . Why are we going there? After that we are now likely to be heading south to a joint called Adimali and staying there for two weeks or so and we will be undertaking some pastoral work with the local members with Ken leading some studies on James. After that we might find somewhere "nice" and have a 7 day break before heading back to SL via Bangalore.

When asking Sri Lankan children to colour in a picture of Adam and Eve you learn that they both had black hair! Zenomy had coloured Adam’s hair black and then proceeded to do the same with Eve’s hair. I (Dorothy) almost asked "are you going to give both of them black hair?" when I realized how stupid I am – of course Zenomy’s perception is that they both had black hair – maybe they did. She has hardly ever met anyone who doesn’t have black hair!

Yes, were moving into the depths of winter! How do we know? We read about it in the Lonely Planet Guide! Well, actually we had noticed it is a tad less humid. We don’t have any way to measure the humidity (we do have a thermometer) but all we can comment on is that now we can actually dry off after having a wash; the washing dries in half a day rather than taking a day and a half; we don’t get sweaty until mid morning unless we are busy doing something active; and we’ve only had two rainstorms and two thunderstorms in the last 10 days. We still put the a/c on to cool off the bedroom before we go to bed and still have the fan blowing on us on all night in order to get a good sleep. The temperature in the west where we are never budges from around the 27 to 31 degree mark all year! Winter will be over by the time we arrive back in February and we’ll be moving back into one of the two annual monsoon periods.

We reported in earlier editions of the noisy jungle squirrels which live in our upstairs ceiling. Well they are not only noisy they are now extremely unpopular. Unfortunately they also use the upstairs ceiling as their loo and several times now in the last fortnight there has been wee raining down from the ceiling L Foul! On the first occasion it missed our bed by about 8cm"; on the second occasion it missed the upstairs "couch" by about 4cm; on the third occasion it landed on Dorothy’s pillow!!! Aaugh. Fortunately this happened about an hour before we went to bed rather than an hour after. On the fifth occasion it again just missed the upstairs couch. Last night it was somewhere in our room but we couldn’t find it – perhaps it has landed on the boxes on top on the wardrobe – we haven’t been able to find the offending puddle yet but we slept all night in a pongy room. Ken’s had a look in the attic this morning and found lots of piles of jungle squirrel "calling cards". We’ll have to get onto the landlady and have her get rid of the rotten critters. That might be a tall ask. Unfortunately (for us) Buddhists have a very kindly attitude to animals and won’t be too keen to do anything much more than slap its wrist with a feather.

At the supermarket there is now a small stand near the entrance with Christmas cakes on display (in boxes like Lions Christmas cakes). On the same stand there are bowls of things like cherries, sultanas etc so if you want to make your own cake you can buy the exact quantity of goodies that you need.

It is quite a common sight to see families of four on a motorbike – a few days ago we saw a woman with her stack hat on holding a sleeping infant. She had been sitting behind "dad" who had a three year old in front of him lying on a pillow over the petrol tank. The kid was sound asleep.

Many of the roadside stalls sell coconuts and curd. The curd (like yoghurt) sits in the sun all day. One of the nearby stalls had a notice up saying "buffalo curd". Whether "buffalo curd" is unusual or not, we don’t know – but we’ll be sticking with the curd we can get in the refrigerated section of the supermarket. Perhaps it too is buffalo curd – but the fact that it comes in a plastic tub makes it seem a whole lot better J . Like yoghurt it’s good to eat with curry – it takes the heat out of your mouth.

There are some beggars living nearby – some are genuine cases – others we suspect could try a little harder to live off their own skills, resources. There are a couple of families who live down by the railway line. The line is having maintenance works (quite astounding in itself) and there are several rows of concrete railway sleepers stacked about 10 high – each layer of sleepers has bit of wood or something between it and the next layer. That means that the stack is about 2m high. There are tarps strung between the stacks of sleepers. Families live under these coverings. Tragic.

Fire crackers are very popular here. There are roadside stalls with huge crackers for sale. They seem to be used to celebrate all festivities, weddings, birthdays, Poya day (a Buddhists’ public holiday held on the full moon) and any day in between these days. We probably hear crackers every day and some of them go off with a huge bang which makes you jump out of your skin. Why we haven’t seen anyone walking around without a head is beyond me! They must have some dreadful accidents.

We enjoy a barbecue tea about once a week now. The supermarket which we go to which is a 10/15 minute walk from the house has a bbq every Friday and Saturday night. They set up a stand out the front and cook on a grill over coals. We’ve only bought stuff there twice so far (chicken kebabs both times) but it’s been really yummy and is a really nice change to having to cook for ourselves in our sweat box kitchen. They also have seafood kebabs, steaks – though we think they’d be tuff – tandoori chicken legs (Rs70/- $1.40) and other similar things. The kebabs cost Rs40/- each (80c) and two each is more than enough.

We bumped into a local at the post office who we actually knew (our paper delivery man). Quite a scary thought –

• the fact that we know one of the locals well enough to recognize them and say hello; and
• because we almost never bump into anyone we know at Highpoint (the big shopping centre near us in Melbourne).

How do white people make any bunch of SL primary school children giggle uncontrollably? Say "hello". The little girl who lives behind us thinks it’s the bravest thing she has ever done. She says "hello" waits for our response and then runs off as fast as possible in gales of laughter.

We had a wonderfully refreshing day Wednesday about 10 days ago. We "took the day off" as we were both feeling hassled.  Neither of us had had a break since our respective arrivals 8 and 5 weeks earlier.

After a lazy morning we headed off to the beach.  Even though we are living in a fishing centre it's the first time we've seen the beach since we arrived other than when going past the ocean when on a bus in Colombo.

We went to a 5 star (Aussie 3 star) hotel about 7 kms away (beachside) and had a yummy buffet lunch and then lazed by the pool for the afternoon.  The lunch cost $10 per head and it meant we also had free use of the pool.  Not bad.  The pool was a bit tired but looked pretty clean and there were never more than 6 people in at any one time.  One of the chaps who did hop in had a moustache so wide you almost had to dodge to one side as he went past.  He must be pretty ugly underneath to need so much to hide his face!  The pool is about 25m long, 10m wide.  There were no seats in the shade by the pool when we arrived so we took some deck chairs on the top of an adjacent building but under the open verandah roof.  It worked out best as we were overlooking the pool on one side and a wide sandy beach on the other and enjoyed a lovely sea breeze all afternoon.  Had a few dips, Ken read a book ("A Call to Spiritual Reformation – Priorities from Paul and his prayers" by D A Carson---it’s fantastic! [K]), I wrote a post card and didn't do much else.  We packed up at about 6.00pm and wandered down on to the beach. It is a really wide yellow sandy beach - the sand's not as fine as we are used to but it's not like gravel and the water looks pretty clean – there were some people swimming.  It was pretty flat - certainly not crashing surf.  We stood there enjoying the evening breeze and watching sunset over the water and all the crabs busy running to and fro.  So next time we'll probably leave here a little earlier, and make sure we have time at the pool and on the beach.  Given the evening breeze it would be really nice to go for a good walk along the beach once the sun's dropped.  Neither of us has had a good walk since we've arrived; we walk to the shops etc but you just can't step it out as it's too hot and muggy.    We had such a great day we've promised ourselves to do it at least once a fortnight.  It'd be good to have a break from the routine and the house. Given that we live "at work" we tend to work 6 days a week from the time we get up until 8.00pm  or 9.00 pm and then of course Sunday is flat chat - it's certainly the busiest/most demanding day of the week for us, not a "day of rest" as the Scriptures describe.

We were going to catch the local bus to the beach until we spotted it coming with people hanging out the door at a 45 degree angle holding on to whatever they could happen to reach - not our style.  So instead of spending about 10c each to get there we grabbed a tuk-tuk and it cost us a total of $2 for the 7 km trip.  We got ripped off!  The tuk-tuk home cost us a total of $1.60; we did wait at the bus stop thinking we'd get a bus back home but it just didn’t show up.

However unfortunately we look like missing out on this treat this fortnight. Tomorrow (Sunday 8^th) is our normal busy Sunday. On Monday we are hoping a lady (Indika) will visit us, she has been doing the Correspondence Course and she has told us there are some questions which she is having trouble answering and would like us to explain/work through the lessons with her. On Tuesday we will have our regular "preparing for baptism" class with Margaret then on Wednesday we head to Nuwara Eliya to again visit Rajah and the boys and Tyrrel and Analyn (the Psalm 91 reciters!!) whom we reported on in the last Negombo News. Back to Colombo on Friday and pick up our Indian visas before coming back to Negombo. On Saturday we are hoping to visit Bro Noel, a 90 plus year old brother who lives south of Colombo (we’re on the north side). Then of course it’ll be Sunday again and the following week will hopefully include a visit to Sis Laurinda (whose health is a bit "iffy"); Laurinda also lives on the south side of Colombo but nowhere near Noel. After that we then have to prepare for our 6 week departure. Amongst all of this, Ken will be preparing and giving two exhortations, preparing his India material and the last two LTRBE sessions and perhaps one or two impromptu Bible studies as happened yesterday when we went to the home of one of the local ladies. We are likely to have visitors on one or both weekends, there is Sunday School to prepare for, the correspondence to reply too and then the unbelievably time consuming and dreaded "housework/shopping/washing/water boiling/cooking/etc". Phew! I’ll think I’ll go and have a little lie down!!

Sorry every one. They are coming – we hope. We dropped a roll of film off for developing yesterday. Hopefully it’ll have some okay shots on it which we’ll post to (webmaster) Cathie to scan and put on the site. The next roll of film is in the camera and we’ll get this one moving a bit quicker than the last – though neither of us are shutter-bugs so perhaps we’ll still be dragging our feet. Oh how we wish we’d bought a digital camera – we could then regularly provide up to date photos. We might still do that, via our India visit and the duty free shop at Colombo airport.