John 1:14 "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."

We have been back in country for nearly 2 months now, so I think it is time we published a new blog. Life has been a whirlwind since we returned and we are wondering where all the time went??!!  We have had several weddings of staff with all the parties associated and they have been fun. We have two coming up this next weekend. The children are nearly finished with their school year.. ending this coming week. The National schools here have already finished for 2018 and are looking forward to 2019. Our laboratories are making great progress but we still do not know if our registration will be ready for January 7, 2019. If we are not approved we will be sending our 8 students plus 7 new students to the National School. Please pray with us that the district will look favorably on our efforts and our students will again be at the Rafiki Schools.
Ayness and Joseph's Wedding

Speaking of prayer requests, we have two wonderful answers to prayer! Peggy received her work permit on November 2nd and the Visa is purchased and good until November of 2020!! Our new head mistress, Laurie Eastup also received her work permit and that means the visa is on its way soon. We are thankful for answered prayer. Kent’s has been applied for and is due in March so keep praying for that one. 

Kent and I are happy to be going to a not too far away hotel in Karatu for a few days over the Christmas break. We decided to go before Christmas so we can celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary on the 20th of December. Most of the children will be on their holiday with relatives so the timing is perfect. The Nickels will go to the beach right  after Christmas day to enjoy a few days of holiday. 

We had 3 girls chosen to try out for the National team in basketball in our country. They left today for a week of training and tryouts. They are indeed excited for this opportunity. We also had 7 of our students (4 residents and 3 day students) chosen for the National tennis team to compete in January. They are also so excited for the opportunity to travel and do this. The International tournament takes place in the southern part of our country this year but they will play against teams from about 5 other African countries.

We do have up our Christmas decorations on our porch. The weather is hot so we are mostly on the porch in the evening. Sara gave us an artificial tree and we have it decorated and colored flashing lights around the porch. It looks very festive. Those of you who know me well know that I love white lights only and NOT flashing, but you take what you can get and enjoy the process. :).  
Rafiki School Dec 2018

The 3 ladies on our Village decided to do a cookie exchange this year. We are doing two different kinds each so we will all have 6 dozen cookies of 6 varsities. In the past I have done a cookie exchange in town but making 13 dozen +++ is not fun when the weather is terribly hot so we are cutting it down to reasonable. I made my first kind today and hope to make more next week.
A nice retreat for a few days

There are quite a few fun things to do here during the holidays. We have an international carole sing on Friday evening December 14, and that has been fun in the past. There really aren’t many Americans here but many many Europeans. We also share Christmas cookies after the singing. On Christmas eve there is a “Lessons and Carols” candle light service at church, which is wonderful and we plan to take the 5 children who are not able to go with a relative, with us to the service. There is of course a service on Christmas day. We missionary staff here cook all the meals on Christmas so the kitchen staff can have the day off. It is always fun to do this and the staff are grateful to have the day with their family. We have not yet set the menu but it seems that chicken is the most requested. 

I decided to post this now, even though the holidays have past! Another post coming soon on starting a New Year of 2019!!

Verynice our first student to complete all levels of RICE

Comments

  1. Randy AlexanderJanuary 7, 2019 at 7:45 AM

    As I read your comments about the Christmas season events in your village community, I was grateful for the simplicity and the interactive nature of everything. In America there is so much busyness and commercialism that the Spirit of the Season if often diminished. How refreshing to consider a cookie exchange and an international carol sing as a means of celebration! We did actually pull off singing Christmas carols this year with family and friends on one of the days around Christmas; we sang many of the traditional Christmas songs, most of which were written in the 1800's by authors from countries other than America, so the extended verses were quite unfamiliar. It was fun for all none-the-less!

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