December 15, 2003

Dear Friends,

As we write this we are in the midst of the Advent season of waiting. It is a time of anticipation and a time of sharing special gifts. It is a time of remembering and celebrating that all time is in God’s hands, the God who in the fullness of time sent His Son to be born here in the midst of humanity. As at that time, so in our day, God’s coming is so surprising and so needed.

In the midst of famine and disease, in the pain of wars and hatreds, in the grief of loss and the fears of separation may we still know God’s coming in real ways, because God still comes.

We heard recently from someone who had visited Ethiopia and other parts of Africa. In the midst of a continent racked with disease, wars, and famines, this person was impressed and challenged by the faith of Christians there and by the reality of God at work even in the midst of things we in the United States may find hard to conceive. “How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given,” the familiar carol goes, and so we wait in the fullness of expectation, hope, and faith.

In many ways our life too for some time now has been in a kind of Advent season, a waiting time. The waiting is not over but it is continually being injected with hope, expectancy, and anticipation. Many of you have perhaps lost track of where in the world we are. We are usually not where people think. To bring you up to date...

In the midst of these studies and reading and writing, we have done some speaking and preaching in a few of our supporting churches. To be able to share in the midst of God’s people of God’s heart for the world and of the witness of Christians in Africa is a great joy! We love doing that and have had to limit ourselves so as not to take too much away from the focus of this study time. We have been sharing even as we have awaited confirmation of our return to Ethiopia.

We have the go-ahead to share the unofficial official word that we have been invited to return to Ethiopia to teach in the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology in Addis Ababa and to be involved part-time (as yet to be determined) with the Bible school in Gatcheb and perhaps others of Mekane Yesus’ rural Bible schools. There is still paperwork to be received and acted upon both in Louisville and in Ethiopia for all the various permissions. But we are pressing ahead with the hope that at the end of March or April 2004 we will be returning to Ethiopia for another term. Anticipating this coming departure, we are enjoying family time in Texas and on the West Coast. This will be a special Christmas to share with Anne’s family as it will be the first without “Mom.”

With the exception of a three-week visit to Ethiopia in spring of 2001, we have been back in the United States for over three years now. In thinking about this unexpected duration of “home assignment” in many ways it has been like a term back in the United States. We have enjoyed ministering in a congregation in California and then in the Presbyterian Center in Louisville as missionaries in residence. We have had opportunities to be mission speakers and preachers in presbyteries and congregations and conferences. We have had time for study and reflection about healthy spirituality for those like ourselves, living between cultures and churches.

We trust in God’s timing in all things as we prepare to return overseas and continue in ministry in Ethiopia. We appreciate your prayers

• for the completion of our final projects and degree requirements
• for all the paper work of permissions and permits and travel and resettling
• for Ethiopia, a land of such faith and of so many people in need of such great help

Our Christmas and New Year’s wish to you all: May God’s gifts come to you in abundance so that you may have enough to share.

Blessings,

Anne & John Wheeler-Waddell

Until March 2004:
784 Santa Barbara St.
Pasadena, CA 91101
annejohnet@earthlink.net

The 2004 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 51