Christmas Letter 2016

“Christmas time is here

Happiness and cheer

Fun for all that children call

Their favorite time of year”

                    - Lee Mendelson

What a blessing it is to be home for Christmas this year!  For some reason, it didn’t really feel like Christmas last December in South Africa. Maybe the 100 degree weather and blazing sunshine had something to do with that.  It just isn’t right, for me, to spend Christmas in a tank top and shorts!  And how can you have Christmas without baking?  But who wants to heat up their oven when it is crazy hot and there is no air conditioning?

Thankfully, Christmas isn’t about baking, wearing hats and scarves, drinking hot chocolate, or even being with family.  It is about celebrating the birth of Christ; come to redeem the world. He brought freedom, love, redemption, and hope to ALL people.  That fact holds true no matter what the weather is like!

It took 24 hours, airport to airport, to get home from South Africa, with a 2 hour layover in Amsterdam.  Thankfully, the flights went smoothly and my baggage arrived, with me, in Vancouver, BC safe and sound.  I must say, however, I’m not looking forward to the flight back on the 27th.  I don’t think I’ll ever get used to these long-haul flights. 

While home, I’ve enjoyed spending several days with my Aunt over this holiday season. She is fighting a losing battle with cancer and so I cherish every minute we spend together. This is the kind of thing that makes living overseas difficult. 

On a happier note, I had a bit of reverse culture shock in the produce department of Fred Meyer recently.  Such an amazing abundance and variety!  Not that South Africa is really lacking in their produce departments, especially compared to other Africa countries.  But still, I looked around, sighed, and enjoyed the display.

Some of the foods I’ve been enjoying while home include: eggnog, bagels, clam chowder, tortilla chips, and coffee shop drinks.  I may have to attempt making bagels back in South Africa when the weather cools down again.

As much as I enjoy being back in the US, I look forward to getting back to South Africa and starting the new year with a new group of students. My garden there likely needs a lot of love after being neglected for a month and I’m sure my foster cat, Leo, will be very happy to have company again.

I’ll skip all the details about the past year in South Africa since you have probably been keeping up with me via my prayer letters and Facebook. If for some reason you don’t receive my regular prayer letters from South Africa, please let me know or sign up at www.cvmusa.org/quam.

I wish you a stress free Christmas season and a heart filled with the peace of Christ.

Dec Prayer Letter - Project in Sixhundred

Can you believe it is December already?  By the time you read this letter I’ll be home in WA for a few weeks enjoying the holidays with my family.  I not only look forward to seeing my family, but also to experiencing a WA winter.  Hopefully we will get lots of rain while I’m home!  After the last year and a half living in near desert conditions, my soul is parched for rain.  The smell of rain, the sound of rain, and the feel of rain will all be a blessing.

Since my last letter in October, we (the Gestring’s and I) took five of our witnessing training students on an outreach in the nearby village of Sixhundred. Although the university had been shut down for two weeks previously due to student protests, we were still able to continue with the outreach.
We worked with a small church in the village to host a children’s program in the morning and a youth outreach in the afternoons/evenings.  Each morning, children came from all over the village to have a lesson in Tae Kwan Do and then to hear Bible stories and discuss them in small groups.  As always, the Tae Kwan Do was a big hit and many of the kids worked extremely hard on their own time to get the pattern down for the contest on the final day.  Thankfully, because this village is near Mafikeng, Dr Gestring will take some of his university Tae Kwan Do students out there regularly to continue working with the village kids.

This year, however, our primary goal was working with the youth of that church to train them in evangelism and outreach for their community.  After several training sessions, our university students took the church youth out into the village door to door each afternoon.  It was so exciting to see the youth of the church gradually taking on the responsibilities of witnessing and, as a result, growing in their own faith. It was also wonderful to see our university students taking on the leadership and training roles so that the Gestrings and I were simply there for support. Our university students hope to continue working with the youth of the church at Sixhundred over the next year.

After the outreach, when the university reopened, violent protests continued for several days and I spent 2 weeks living with friends off campus.  This time, the university decided to actively crack down on the protesters rather than closing the university down.  However, over the first few days, things were quite rough and one of the Animal Health lecturers was hosed down with a fire extinguisher and another was assaulted with rocks. By the second week, campus was calm enough that classes and tests could continue.

During the second week, the Gestrings started a daily prayer walk around campus at 6am and we continued these prayer walks for several weeks, joined frequently by various staff and students.  The first few days we found numerous rubber bullets in our path that had been fired by the security and police to disperse rioting students.  I picked up several for souvenirs

In early November, I spoke at the regional women’s conference in which my church participates.  I was asked to share about living for God as a single woman and enjoyed the opportunity. Quite a few women from my church were also in attendance and we relished the fellowship despite the rather rustic accommodation.