It is hard to believe that we were in the
United States just 20 days ago! So many things have happened since we visited
with our children, grandchildren, and our dear friends. Louise just returned last
week from a quick visit to her mum in South Africa who turned 90. While she was
in Villersdorp (near Cape Town), I started the process of renewing my work
permit and our residency…sadly, we still don’t have our residency, but we have
been cleared by Federal Affairs and the Department of Labour…so, two very
important steps have already been taken.
Karen Salmon, one of our faculty members
arrived on August 9 and we immediately began to work on all the many things one
needs to do to get a College off the ground. It is such a blessing to have
someone to bounce ideas off of as we move forward with this new and exciting
adventure! There is still so much to do!
Jeremiah Maet Paul, another new member of
our faculty, arrived in Addis from Cairo with his wife Elizabeth and their son,
Wunuar, on August 17. They will be coming to Gambella this Thursday and staying
in our Guest House until we can secure the funds needed to build them a modest
home on the compound.
Karen will be teaching two courses, an
Introduction to the Bible and Biblical Interpretation, and Old Testament 1. She
will also be heading up the student chore program. Jeremiah will be teaching an
African Traditional Religion course as well as heading up our fieldwork
program. I will be teaching English: grammar, reading, writing, and speaking.
Bishop Grant will teach an intensive course on Biblical Theology in December
and two teams, one from the US and the other from Addis, will be taking two
intensive course slots on trauma counselling, healing, deliverance, and prayer.
A full plate to be sure…
We just completed a two daylong selection
conference in which prospective pastors and leaders, recommended by their
church councils, elders, and/or their pastors, were interviewed by a few of us
to help Bishop Grant make decisions with regard to future ordination. It was a
wonderful time of prayer and fellowship as well as a great time to get to know
our leaders better. The presence of the Holy Spirit was evident throughout the
two days and especially when the interviewers reported back to the group –
there was a general holy consensus. Thank you Lord!
We are in the process of interviewing our
prospective students and I would like to introduce them to you one by one as we
go along so that you will know their names and see their faces. Be on the look
out for sporadic emails! I will try to include photographs, but that is not
always easy. Please do continue to pray for scholarships as we are in need of a
few more. We may have as many as 12 first year students and 15 part-time
students…plus a presently unknown number of those who will come in for training
from time to time…there are so many who do not speak, read, or write English
and we will have to find creative ways to train these very able men and women
in the future – exciting, but challenging stuff.
New student arrival and registration starts
on August 26, orientation on August 28, and the College opens on August 31!
This is the stuff dreams are made of!
Items
for Prayer:
1.
Pray for our students. This is
a very steep learning curve for most of them.
2.
Pray for Louise as she works
hard at getting the library up to standard among the 110 other things she does
on this compound! She has nearly 5000 books to catalogue and shelve and there
are boxes yet to be unpacked! Praise God for those who have donated so many
good books.
3.
Pray for the many
administrative things yet to be done. Rosemary Burke, our Diocesan
Administrator General, has been such a help to us with budgeting matters and
dealing with the scholarships as they come in.
4.
Pray for the process of
accreditation that must be started sooner rather than later. I have been
invited to attend an international conference in Turkey the first week in
November where all the accrediting agencies will be present and I need to raise
the funds to make that happen as well!
5.
Pray for the many refugees
still pouring into the Gambella Region. The war drags on, as leaders simply
cannot bring themselves to commit to a form of lasting peace.
6.
Pray that our Residency Cards
will be issued soon.
7.
Pray that we may be able to
raise all the necessary funds for scholarships for both full-time and part-time
students.
8.
Pray for our clergy,
lay-leaders, Mother’s Union representatives and members, all our church
members, many of whom are refugees, our faculty and staff, and for the many who
have yet to hear the Gospel in the Horn of Africa.
9.
Pray for rain – the rains have
been late and insufficient. This has been catastrophic in the past as farmers
have not been able to plant their crops causing countrywide food shortages.
Thank you all for your encouragement, your
prayers, and your support. I know I say this all the time, but it is worth
repeating…we cannot do what we are doing without you.
May the Lord bless and keep you all.
Johann, Louise and all in Gambella
