3 January 2009

Dear Friends,

Happy New Year and Merry Christmas!

Part of living between cultures is living with different perspectives. From here in North America we can say we wish you the blessings of God in this New Year just begun. But from hearts connected to Ethiopia, together with brothers and sisters in Christ there, we can still say merry Christmas! Ethiopians will celebrate the birth of Christ in the first week of January, and with them we pray for God’s peace and joy and continuing blessings of Immanuel, God with us.

Highlights of 2008

• celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas with family in Texas and on the West Coast for the first time in five years! Nieces and nephews grown up, grand-nephews part of the celebrations, and a white Christmas (it’s not just in the song!) in southern Oregon.
• visiting with churches and friends around the United States who are part of God’s mission around the world.
• participating in our fourth graduation at the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology (EGST’s eighth) with five students completing their M Divs with emphases in missiology this year.
• welcoming Dr. Ermias Mamo to EGST and handing over the continuing development of the missiology program to his capable efforts.

Ulrike Beyer is a literacy teacher with the Suri people, among whom God’s word is growing.
• seeing the building of phase I of EGST’s physical development come above ground. As of a month ago, we heard the building is up to the fifth (and top) floor and was on schedule.
• celebrating Ethiopian Easter with mission colleagues and friends, Ulrike Beyer and John and Gwen Haspels, together with Suri, Amhara, Bensch, and Oromo brothers and sisters in Tulegit.

Hopes for 2009

Doing mission interpretation includes making new friends in Pittsburgh.
• settling into our house in south Oregon for our sabbatical months. This will be our first home together in the United States.
• continuing visits with churches with whom we are partners in God’s mission but who “didn’t fit” into our interpretation months in 2008.
• taking time to read, pray, write and be renewed for continuing pastoral and teaching ministries following our sabbatical. Pray that our sabbatical will truly be a sabbatical!
• supporting and partnering with Dr. Ermias and other colleagues at EGST.
• clearly discerning God’s leading in our part of God’s mission following our sabbatical.

PCUSA’s World Mission is working with EGST in looking for a qualified professor of systematic theology. We are delighted that one of EGST’s faculty development scholarship recipients has begun his doctoral studies in the United States, and another will hopefully begin in 2009 in the United Kingdom, but with their return to the EGST faculty three or four years away, there is a pressing need for someone to fill that position. Please pray and pass this need along!

With 97 students in classes last semester, we can imagine the little house of EGST is bursting at the seams. The new master’s of arts in management and leadership has proved a timely offering with three times the number of applicants as spaces available. Please keep EGST’s building project in your prayers—for timely work and good quality materials as the walls come up and the building is finished within the next few months.

May Immanuel, whose coming we celebrate every Christmas, be with you in blessing, in challenge, in refreshment, and in serving in this New Year.

Anne and John Wheeler-Waddell

The 2008 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 12