Welcome to
2017! Can you believe how quickly the
past year has flown? Half of my three
year term here in South Africa is now past and I’m sure the next half will go
by even faster.
Over the
holidays, I had a wonderful time at home with my family and thoroughly enjoyed
the cool, wet weather and even some snow!
My parent’s kitchen had heavy use as I filled it with cookies of all
shapes and sizes and even some candy and dipped chocolates. It was so nice to bake with a “normal” size
oven again. My oven here in South Africa
is too small for an American cookie sheet and only has one oven rack. The oven’s booklet also stated that I can
only use three of the four burners at any one time or two burners and the
oven. So why did they make it with four
burners?
Let me backtrack
a bit further into last year and let you know that the university managed to
stay peaceful long enough to finish exams and complete the year (the South
African school year runs Feb-Nov). In
the clinic, we spent two days in November running practical exams for the
students to evaluate their clinical skills.
All of the degree (4-year) students did well, but the diploma students
(three-year) struggled. Unfortunately,
when they are accepted to university they don’t always get to study in their
chosen field and may end up placed in random courses. For example, they may have applied to study
education and become a teacher and ended up placed in animal health. That tends to reduce their enthusiasm and I
can’t say I blame them. Some of the
students are so scared of dogs that they won’t even touch them!
The new school
year starts with registration at the end of this month and I suspect there will
be further protests/riots as there was last year. Last year the students missed so many days of
teaching and days in the clinic due to the protests that it really seemed to
affect their learning.
For this New Year,
I would appreciate your prayers for the following:
- · Please pray that registration will proceed uninterrupted and that classes will start without hindrance.
- · Please pray that the Lord’s spirit of peace will overflow the campus and that he would frustrate the intentions of those seeking to disrupt it.
- · Please pray for our outreach to incoming freshmen, that many will desire to be involved in our witnessing training and Bible studies.
- · Please pray for the new year of AWANA, that the verses the children memorize will stay with them over the years to come and that they will understand the gospel fully.
