November 9, 2004

Greetings from Kenya!

We are having such a great time as mission volunteers that we have decided to renew our stay for another two years.

Lyle enjoys teaching pastoral care and homiletics at the Presbyterian College, and Terry is happy trying to solicit scholarships for students, find additional funding for clinical pastoral education, and acquire computer software to upgrade the college library cataloging system.

We work as a team to assist with clinical pastoral education at the Kikuyu Mission Hospital. Pastoral care skills are greatly needed because AIDS is causing insurmountable pain and grief in this country. Families are being devastated. With the death of one or both parents, children and grandparents are plunged into profound poverty and loss. In some communities gravesites dot the hillsides and homesteads lay barren or in disarray, because there is no adult in the family healthy enough to till the soil.

To add to the misery, due to the misguided belief that having sex with a virgin will cure AIDS, little girls are frequently raped. Grown women within some tribes do not fair much better. Since women have very little power, social status, or financial independence, they are the victims of much abuse. That is why we have been training clergy and their spouses to lead marriage enrichment retreats, which teach couples how to create companionship marriages.

Christian families tend to treat women and girls with love and respect, because they understand that marriage and family life is God’s laboratory for Christian living.

In this dry and thirsty land of poverty, disease, and lack of knowledge, we sometimes feel as if we are lugging around a watering can, nurturing each flower one plant at a time. Yet surprisingly, the can never seems to run dry. Hope is renewed every morning with new mercies, and grace sufficient for the day abounds.

We are sustained by your prayers and support; because you care it makes the burdens of this work much lighter. We miss hearing for you. Let us know what is happening in your lives.

Have a blessed Christmas with your family and friends. Enjoy the twinkle in children’s eyes, the smiles, and the care of others that happens in our homes and churches.

May God equip us all to be an effective part of the body of Christ in the New Year.

Affectionately,

Lyle and Terry Dykstra