July 2000

Dear Friends,

It’s hot in Houston and we’re missing Gatcheb. Since leaving Gatcheb two and a half months ago, we have been on the move, with Houston as home base. Stopping and settling is still somewhere in the future.

We left in mid-April after a satisfying two-week course in the Bible school facility for evangelists and other leaders from Southwest Bethel Synod’s 16 parishes. After packing and storing things in Addis Ababa for our anticipated year’s absence from Ethiopia, we landed in Houston at the end of April. We spent a few weeks reconnecting with family, sorting through pictures and preparing for interpretation travels to the Midwest and East. We had a wonderful time visiting churches, seeing old friends, and making new ones in
Ohio, Illinois, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Then in late June Anne was off to Long Beach as an overseas advisory delegate at General Assembly. After the missionary sharing conference in Louisville during the last week of July, we’ll go to California for more mission interpretation…and Ethiopian friends kept wishing us a happy vacation!

A new director for CHBS

The last four months in Gatcheb, January through April, were well worth delaying our return to the United States. In February, answer to over a year’s prayers were wonderfully seen as the synod executive committee appointed Qes Yohannes Sherab to a four-year term as director of the Charles Haspels Bible School. Qes Yohannes, formerly secretary of the synod, is in his third and final year in the first class of masters students at the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology, in Addis Ababa. He has agreed to take on responsibilities at CHBS while finishing his thesis. Qes Yohannes loves teaching and has had a vision of the Bible school since its inception.

CHBS in full swing

In early April, 31 students attended a two-week "mini-Bible school" in the facility, with classes on the Gospel of Mark, worship, counseling, preparing to preach, AIDS, the Holy Spirit, teaching, and stewardship. After three years of waiting, we were excited to be among the teachers! Synod officials and other pastors also stepped in to complete the staff. The students, who serve as evangelists, youth leaders, and elders in their parishes, were eager learners and very involved. They kept asking when they could come back, and we had to explain that two other groups of leaders would be coming for the same course in May and June. We hope that some who take the short introductory courses will be among those selected to come for the one-year certificate course that will begin, Lord willing and staff available, this September.

Blankets and goats

When we were invited fours years ago to help start a Bible school in rural Ethiopia, our thoughts were on developing curricula, resourcing, teaching. Little did we anticipate that the bulk of support would be in overseeing construction, buying pots and pans, blankets and sheets, beds and chairs, tef by the quintel and goats on the hoof.

We thank God

• for the patience to hang in there longer than we thought we could
  
• for the resources provided through PC(USA) churches and members
  
• for the tireless work of our two colleagues and teachers, Weizero (Mrs.) Sara Kebede and Qes (Rev.) Yosef Indreas, over the last six months in getting the facility in ready-to-use shape and overseeing hiring of cooks and cleaners
  
• for the satisfaction of seeing buildings with people in them, people learning to love and serve God better in the challenging environment of rural southwest Ethiopia

Please pray

• for Qes Yohannes Sherab as he completes his thesis and gives leadership to the Charles Haspels Bible School for the selection of students for the one-year certificate course
• for peace in Ethiopia—a true end to the war with Eritrea, needed help to those still suffering the effects of drought and famine, improved health initiatives in the isolated corners of rural Ethiopia
• for us as we move to California in August. Beginning in September, we will be "missionaries-in-residence" at the Menlo Park Presbyterian Church for nine months. Also, during the remainder of this year in the United States (through May 2001), we will begin doctor of ministry studies at Fuller Theological Seminary and continue to be mission interpreters for the PC(USA).

As we travel and meet people we are asked where home is. We get quizzical looks when we do not immediately respond. "Well, most recently we have been living in Ethiopia, and now we are on the move." But it is so good that we are here, in the United States, now. There are health concerns on both sides of the family and we truly believe that God who knows all things also knows the best timing of all things. We are grateful that PC(USA)’s Worldwide Ministries Division agreed to continue our support for this year-long study
leave/interpretation assignment that gives us this time to share with family.

Our California address is unknown at this writing, but we can be reached via: c/o 57 Politzer Drive
Menlo Park, CA
94025.

Or by email at annejohnet@earthlink.net.

Wishing you every blessing,

Anne and John Wheeler-Waddell

The 2000 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 34