13 September 2006

Dear friends, family, and supporters,

Family Circus! Dorothy Hanson and Janelle's sister Katrina and her family with us on a hike in Menagasha National Forest in August.

The tractor has cut the tall grass, the classrooms have been thoroughly cleaned, the walkways swept, and the students are slowly filing onto campus. A new school year at BESS is beginning, and we are looking forward to the adventures and challenges the coming year will bring. We had a nice summer spending time in Addis Ababa doing language training. We were also able to take some vacation during this time, visiting the amazing diversity of Ethiopia, and spent time with Janelle’s sister’s family who came to visit us for two weeks.

As this new school year begins, we would like your prayers for a few things in the coming year. We would like to deepen our relationships with the students and the other teachers here at BESS. We developed many acquaintance friendships in the last year, but felt that we haven’t yet developed strong connections with people from the community, people that we can really confide in and share with beyond the daily conversations of life. We realize this is difficult within the context of differing cultures, language barriers, and limited evening time given a 2-year old, but relationship building is one of our primary purposes in being here. Please also pray for our continued language learning, which is so essential and integral to relationship building.

As another prayer request, we would like to pay more attention to sharing our faith in the coming year. Dembi Dollo has been blessed with a thriving Ethiopian church that grew largely out of early Presbyterian mission work, and the majority of people in town and students at BESS know and love the Lord Jesus Christ. It is therefore very easy for us to fall into the trap of thinking that everyone here knows Him and there isn’t a big need to share our faith. Please pray that in the coming year, we might be more perceptive to those that do not know the Lord, and be purposeful in our time with those individuals to encourage them to search their beliefs and find the truth and salvation in Christ’s love.

A bit of personal news from each of us:

Janelle:

It was so wonderful to go out on coffee dates with my sister Katrina when she was here to visit. We talked about everything under the sun, with my theme being “coping with loneliness in a cross-cultural situation” and hers being “doing ministry even with two active children.” I’m looking forward to continuing our letters and “prayer /Bible study by mail.” Also, I’m looking forward to seeing where God is leading us in the future. They are happy with their work with the church and development in Laos.

This year will bring a few changes for me — I will be a homeroom teacher for the 12th grade class, I won’t have another American teacher to bounce ideas with, and I’ll be focusing on learning the language better. Also, it is refreshing to reach the second year here because now I know how to plan better for my classes and how to get to know the students and our neighbors more as well.

Mike:

I recently had the pleasure of Amoebic Dysentery, an experience that can be best described as a uniquely “Dembi Dollo” adventure. It all started with increasingly uncomfortable stomach groans, followed by more and more frequent trips to the bathroom. I decided to take a trip to the Abdi Bori clinic in town. After driving the very bumpy road to the clinic on top of a very uncomfortable stomach and loose bowels, I had the fun time of explaining to the receptionist the details of my diarrhea, to the rapt attention of everyone else in the small room waiting to be treated. Lobbies here do not have elevator music, soft mood lighting, magazines, television, children’s play corners, or other such distractions, so sick farangis make for the highest form of waiting entertainment. I then was taken to the laboratory, and given a “stool test kit” for a diagnosis, consisting of a very small piece of cardboard on which to make my deposit, a match (I still have no idea for what purpose), and a whopping two squares of single-ply toilet paper. You never really know the rustic joys of Dembi Dollo until you spend some time in a fly-infested pit-toilet with diarrhea, a stool test kit, and two squares of toilet paper! More seriously though, I am really blessed that I have the ability to address health issues whenever I need. That is really a luxury here, and many who cannot afford doctor visits or medicine simply live for a while with whatever ailment they have in the hopes that it will go away. Doctor and hospital trips therefore are the one area where we directly help people in need to pay the bill, even when it is not appropriate to directly give for most other things. We firmly believe that no matter where you live, health should be a basic human right and not a luxury item.

Carolee (at 2 years and 4 months):

(As we listen): Giggle, giggle, giggle. (speaking to her friend): Bobbie do it! Giggle, giggle (as he laughs in her face). (Carolee, what did Daddy build you?) A siing (A swing). (How is it?) Fine. (What do you do on it?) Go singing! (What did you think of cousin Madeline?) Fun. (Where was she?) In Dembi Dollo! (Where is she now?) At the gueshaus. (At the Guesthouse, where we spent about one month this summer.)
See later, Mommy! (And she runs off to keep playing with Bobbie.)

As always, please write us and let us know your stories too.

With love,

Mike, Janelle, and Carolee

The 2006 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 330