Here’s our latest prayer update:

” I will go so far as to send you on this adventure. Very amusing for me, very good for you – and profitable, too, very likely, if you ever get over it.”
– Gandolf, speaking to the title character in Tolkien’s The Hobbit
Praying Friends,
Reading The Hobbit this month with our kids, we are reminded of ourselves. Not great adventures here in Africa fulfilling a childhood dream of missions but comfortable middle class Americans doing something we never wished for or dreamed of and finding it hard. The Hobbit joins a band of dwarves for whom high stakes adventure is everyday stuff. Meanwhile he longs for his safe burrow, his hourly snacks and warm tea. They have a treasure to find, though, and it is Gandolf’s belief in him that draws out His best. Even when not only others, but also the Hobbit himself, don’t see his potential, Gandolf sees it, calls it and nurtures it.

Our Gandolf, Jesus, does the same for us, a soft Navy family who dreamed of life on the water-front, and non-traditional education for our children. We got the non-traditional part all right!! In all of our yearning for the safe burrow of life before Africa we are also glad, like the Hobbit, to be part of this great adventure, part of this epic journey towards the Kingdom where treasure awaits. There are great challenges along the way but also great rewards. Rewards, not for our monumental efforts, but for perseverance, for staying the course.

Recent great Rewards on the journey:
– Deliverance from our debt at CSB! WHM, our sending agency, stepped forward this month with a promise to pay the entire pre-existing debt of Christ School ($80,000) to free us from carrying the burden developed over many years before we came. This is a HUGE release for us and a truly amazing gift from our mission during this very difficult economic time in America. It signifies their commitment to us, their trust in us and a belief that the adventure will lead somewhere GREAT, somewhere worth risking for, because they’re risking too.

-More financial deliverance for CSB!! additionally by using some of the money given for capital projects during ’08 we have miraculously broken even this year at Christ School!! And while capital projects are always helpful, God has also allowed us to survive with them through free water tanks and batteries that just keep going and going (though they’re definitely not Energizers). This has been our prayer since we took over the school; to break even this year. It is NO SMALL THING during a year of doubling food costs. We are in awe of God’s work through your prayers and giving.