Today we said ‘goodbye’ to Chamara and Ramanan – we will see Ramanan again soon but it was the end of our trip together as they dropped us off at our hotel in Hikkaduwa. These two men have been brilliant companions as they showed us round Sri Lanka. I still remember Rebecca’s expression when I […]

Today the accommodation is a bit more upmarket and so as I write this post the girls are outside in the pool and the TV is on in the background showing the first Sri Lanka v Australia test at Kandy. Therefore Jaffna and the north already seems a world away. Jaffna and the peninsular is […]

We’ve been without wifi for a few days – sorry about the lull in communication. The journey on the A9 north from the cultural triangle was dramatic in many ways. The climate, people and political situation changed completely. We were tourists of a different sort as Ramanan and his brother-in-law (Suresh) showed us around Kilinochchi […]

The last few days have been mostly spent playing the part of tourists – as you can see from the photos this has involved doing some of the things that Sri Lanka is most famous for: riding elephants and climbing Sigiriya (Lion Rock). These things are emblematic for the country – most t-shirts have a […]

I hesitate to write this post since it is a criminal offence in Sri Lanka to appear to be mocking Buddhism in any way. Therefore I want to make it clear that what follows are just observations from our trip and, as you can see, put Christianity under exactly the same scrutiny. This blog is […]

The last few days have been fairly humbling for John. It seems that his back has become inflammed next to the subaceous cyst that was removed 18 months ago. We hope that it is unrelated but we can’t be sure. He got antibiotics in Colombo, however, since it didn’t get any better, he had to […]

Yesterday was the start of our tour of the island. Ramanan got us up at 5am (with our driver Charmarra and his brother-in-law Udaya) so that we would miss the city traffic and head up into the hill country. First stop was white-water rafting at Kithulgala. Sophie wasn’t feeling too great so John, Abi and […]

We have learnt a lot about religion since coming to Sri Lanka. Buddhism is the main religion of the Singhala people and so in Colombo most people are Buddhist, and there are minorities of Hindus, Muslims and Christians. In the north, amongst the Tamils, the most common religion would be Hindu. Today we took part […]

Much that has happened this week has caused us to reflect upon Pentecostalism in Sri Lanka. What follows is not meant to be prejorative but simply a way of processing thoughts as we go along. Yesterday we spent the day at the Baby clinic – once a week mothers come with their babies to the […]

All this week we are volunteering with the charity CCS – Community Concern Society. As Nirmala is explaining in the photo below, the charity has been going for over 30 years and has grown to cover many different ministries over the years. Nirmala has arranged different things for us to do each day; so that […]