As I sit here on an unusual yet wonderfully quiet Saturday afternoon, I am grateful for all of your prayers since our last update. I will answer everyone’s questions first’..

What is going on with the conflict in DRC and is it still affecting you? Well it was quiet for the week of and following Christmas. The hospital hasn’t received any more wounded since Christmas time. We do continue to receive many refugees with various medical problems. Malnutrition from hiding in the jungle seems to be the most frequent thing we are seeing. We have started hearing shots across the river this week once again, but it seems pretty random and we haven’t heard any news from the UNHCR about any increase in danger to us here. So, we are still safe and continue to do our work here at the hospital just like any other day.

How are we doing as a family? We are doing pretty well. Don’t get me wrong, the stress has taken its toll on each of us in different ways. Our own personal stress has been pretty low, however, that of our team around is us very high. Our team has been experiencing many growing pains as the team expands both with short-term people and long-term missionaries joining us. Our team needs much prayer, to learn how to communicate with one another effectively and to use each person’s spiritual and physical talents rather than having them go to waste in the chaos around us. The team here has never had this many long term hands to do the work that has overwhelmed the so few before now, and finding how to fit all those hands in to the puzzle is a growing and stretching experience. So we are doing well ourselves, but are feeling the stress of others around us and feel inadequate as to how to help the team function together better. We have started to do some of the training that we received at MTI 2 years ago, including interpersonal skills and cross-cultural understanding. As of yet the training hasn’t done a whole lot, but as we progress we pray that it will. Please pray for the possibility of a couple that may come in March to help with talent and job placement assessment for the team here.

The biggest news that we have is that some friends, the Marshes, from our home church in Perry, NY have been given clearance to come to Congo!! We are very excited to have them come work with us here and look forward to friendly faces from home being here. Because the team is growing, Joe has started making decisions about building and renovating housing. The first house to be done is for the Marshes; pray that things will be done in an organized and timely manner for their arrival in mid-March.

The other housing project that is in the beginning stages of discussion is for a guest house to be built. It will be built on the hospital compound and will house a hosting family, which will Lord-willing be Art, Michael and I, as well as another apartment and 6 dorm-style rooms for short-term people and work teams. This will be the main center for team meetings and feeding the mission staff at the hospital each day. We, as I said, really hope to become the host family. We really enjoy getting to know each new person and I love to be cooking for them all. I am sharing the duties with Becky and Patience at this end for now, but I know that one centralized place for each person to be while they work here will be easier for all. That will allow each family to invite individual visitors to get to know them each better in a smaller setting. Part of what we hope to do when we are home and speaking, is not only try and increase knowledge of what we are doing here and continue to raise our personal support, but also raise funds to help build the guest house and purchase supplies that will be needed for it. There will be a container this summer, so that we can send things here, but the cost for this is very high and each family needs to help pay for a ‘per kilo cost’ to get things here. We have started putting together a list of items that will be needed and hope and pray for the Lord’s provision for the purchase and transportation of these items here to Congo.

Just as a reminder, we will be coming back to the US June 21st. We arrive via Dulles International Airport and hope to spend some time with our Mt. Hope family before heading to NY to settle in for our furlough. Over the next few months we will be trying to reach each of you to schedule speaking dates and just time to fellowship and reconnect with you. If you have a specific date you would like us to keep open email me and let me know. I know many of you wonder why I bother to say things this far out, but we would like to make sure we can see as many of you as possible and in order to do that we need to start planning now.

We continue to keep you all in our prayers and wonder how you are doing. Please remember we love to hear from you and want to know how to pray more effectively for you. In all of our business and with the complicated nature of sending emails we do forget at times to let you know how much you each mean to us, so don’t feel as if we have forgotten about you. That’s all for now from our neck of the woods, let us know what is going on in yours’.