I wanted to write this weekend’s note now since I finally have a few quiet minutes with my laptop and the power is still on!

This Saturday and Sunday, Dan will be helping to lead the “spiritual side” of an extreme sports camp for at youth. A friend from church, Matt Carter, is a paramedic for the camp and together he and Dan will be doing some teaching and leading some worship music.

We were asked to lead a home group at our church and we now have a very diverse group of people meeting with us to “do life together” every Wednesday evening. This last Wed was a wonderful time to get to know one another. Within our group of 10, there are 5 different mother languages spoken and we range in age from 21 up to mid 40s. We were paired together because we all live in the same neighborhood. I think it is going to be wonderful!

Our missionary friends from Cape Town, Kevin and Erica, are staying with us for 9 days, then our house sitters for while we are in the states will be moving in a bit early. We will have people living with us up till the day we fly now. We enjoy hosting, but we’d appreciate your prayers for great communication and that we will still be able to have some family space too.

Please also pray for our teammate Heather Witherow. She has had a really lousy week. Her Aunt committed suicide the first week of January which was absolutely devastating for their entire family. Her Mom’s other sister is dying of cancer and could go anytime. Then last Friday she developed a very painful lump on her neck that the Dr couldn’t identify and she was on 3 different strong medications to try to reduce it. Then, on Sunday, her second son Jake cut his head open on the coffee table just hours before her husband John left to travel to Zimbabwe for the week. Then Monday, her third son Caleb developed a horrible rash called Fifths Disease, so she has been housebound with him. Then, their helper’s son Joseph had a friend shot (critically wounded, but not dead) and another two of his friends were killed when their car hit a donkey this week, so she has been a sounding board for Joseph’s mom Selena. Lastly, their internet completely crashed and on top of that she has to deal with the multiple power outages… Her husband John should arrive back in Johannesburg on Friday evening, but please pray for strength and energy for Heather and family as they face all these things.

Lastly, I am sure many of you are following the Kenyan unrest in the news. It hits a little closer to home for us because we have OC Africa teammates living and working in Nairobi. All the violence there has really impacted them. This week one of the key politicians was shot in an area close to one of their houses. Please pray for safety and wisdom to navigate in day to day situations for the 4 OC families living there.

18 days till we get on a plane!!

Looking forward to seeing you all soon.

Love,
Janell for us 3.