The Hains Clan

Hello dear friends and family who read our blog,

As promised, here is an update for you to bring you all up to speed with where the Hains clan are at on planet Earth.

Our story begins at the end of August 2008:

Matt resigns from his job at Qwizdom as a wonderful opportunity presented itself in the form of being able to teach drumming (West African) in schools in England. Being a dream job and an opportunity not to be missed, Matt leaps at the chance to take his drumming experience one notch higher. Anita also resigns from her job as she will not be working anymore so as to be home more with the kids.

For the month of September, Matt spends his time living in a caravan in a small village called Benson in Oxfordshire. Whilst living there, he spends his time looking for a house so that the rest of the family, who have moved out of their house and are now living with family in Newtownards, will be able to come over in October and settle. He also is able to get lots of drumming work through Inspire Works and starts to gain experience in teaching, travelling and drumming all over the home counties. Towards the end of September, Matt has found a house he thinks will be suitable for the family. Anita is pregnant at this point with their third child.

A few days before Anita and the kids are due to come over to England via ferry, the sad news that the baby has died in the womb is made known. It is a hard time for the Hains clan as Matt and Anita had been apart for a month already and were missing each other. The kids were also battling with not being able to be with their dad as they could not really understand why he was not there. Anita decides to come over anyway and is booked in a hospital for the first Monday that she is there. So, their second official day together in England was marked by Anita having to go into hospital for surgery. Not the best way to start.

Other hassles were with the estate agents (whom Matt has never taken a liking to in any country). The money transferred to the account so that Matt could move in on the 1st of October arrived on the 1st of October, much to the disbelief of a very rude woman who treated Matt with much disrespect and arrogance. It’s a pity that when you are in a business that deals with people, that you don’t have people skills… I feel sorry for that woman and especially her colleagues.

I won’t go into the whole story, it’s too boring to waste my time typing it all out here. But let me say once again and reiterate my intense dislike for estate agents who treat people like cattle. They’re like recruitement agencies, head hunters with no regard for human emotion or context.

[Back to first person]

The night Anita and the kids arrived was a very stormy, windy and wet night. I had arrived after many hours on different trains to Blackpool. They were only going to arrive some time after 23:00. It was a 4 hour drive to our house. So, the only real practical alternative was to stay in Blackpool for one night and leave the next morning after breakfast. So, I braved the howling winds and lashing rain and ran from hotel to hotel on the beachfront of Blackpool trying to find a room for us but everyone was fully booked… why, I don’t know. So I finally arrived the Hilton, the only hotel with one room left. I was soaked through and had nothing with me as I was expecting to get in the car with Anita (that she brought over) and drive home. Plans had changed. So I got the room and tried to dry out while waiting for the time when I could get a taxi to the ferry port and see my family whom I had not seen for a month. It cost me the only money I had on me, my last £20, to get the to the port – a very expensive taxi ride indeed. But it was worth it, I saw my beautiful wife and children in a bittersweet reunion. We had a good breakfast the next morning and then I was able to bring my family to their new house!

Just a few days earlier I had helped the movers move our things into the house and then spent the next couple days opening boxes, setting up beds, eating bad chinese food and trying to figure out the gas equipment and how it worked. By the time the family arrived, I had set up the kids’ bedrooms with all their stuff and Elowyn was impressed, I think, as she thought it was her bedroom from Belfast that had been magically transported here! I even managed to put together our own bed from Ikea which took us 2 hours to put together the last time (yup, with both of us working on it). I won’t say how long it took me to put together but I did do it all by myself and the bed is still standing at the time of writing this post!

I have, in the meantime, been working every day in different schools all over the place. I LOVE my job. Some days are harder than others because of kids who make life a bit difficult.. but it does not detract from the beauty of being able to play the african drums and have that as one’s job! I am very happy to be away from the PC and the 9 to 5 dungeon I was in as an office worker and now meet different people every day, travel around England, play drums every day… what a job! God has been so good to me. Anita is going for an interview for a potential physio post on Friday, it’s more to see if she can get some part time on her own terms. If not, she will just stay home with the kids.

I have been into London a few times and can’t say much for the traffic. I can say that I will never critisize Johannesburg traffic again! I have become quite familiar with the M4 and the M25, something I thought I never would be able to navigate. Although I do have my trusty TomTom as my guide! Without it I would be so lost. I have driven over 2000 miles already since moving here.

The house is in a nice area. I know this because my car insurance was increased by another £50 because I moved… There is a park 1 minute’s walk from here, very nice and big. The kids can get to play there. The rooms in the house, for the kids, are twice the size they had in Belfast. Something I did not think we’d be able to get. We even have a garage attached to the house which I am hoping to set up as a studio to teach drumming and percussion in. It’s amazing how we got this house, and it was all by chance too (well, you know what I mean, God has His plans). But that’s another story.

So, life is good. We are literally living by faith! (Isn’t that how we should live?) I need to find a way to generate income in the holidays as there is no work for me when the schools are closed. So, am working on that. I was hoping to have web design work coming in, but that is non-existent at the moment unfortunately. But, like I was saying to someone the other day, God has NEVER let us down and I am not ashamed to say that out loud on our blog either. We’ve always been able to pay the bills somehow, put food on the table etc.. even in times of financial challenges. In our family, God has truly become a real provider for us and I trust Him even now for impossible things.

We have found a good church here that we feel we may be able to be a part of. In fact, it was Charles Spurgeon’s church! (um, you should Google him if you don’t know, famous English preacher) I would love to get into drums and percussion if the opportunity presents itself in the church. The people seem friendly enough 

Before I end, I thought I should just address something briefly here. You may or may not have heard that we left the church we were a part of in Belfast. If you have any questions or would like to know why we made the decision to leave, please don’t listen to other people or make up stories as to why we would have moved on. Talk to us and we’d be happy to chat to you about it.

We will be uploading loads of new photos for you to see how we’re doing and how the kids are growing! Also, we’ll be in SA on holiday in December so you’re welcome to give us a call or have a coffee, would be great to catch up with friends again as we do miss everyone very much.

Thanks for reading.

Matt