My Little Easter Bunny

I know it is WAY past Easter, but I can't resist posting some adorable photos of my daughter.

Miesha wasn't comfortable sharing the spotlight with our real bunny. This one is probably going to really cost me with her therapy bills someday...but SOOO cute!

Taking a sip from the cup of JOY

I have recently been challenged recently both by the Joyce Meyer study we are doing in Mom’s Group – Battlefield for the Mind - and also through watching a friend here work through some tough circumstances.

My life here in Africa can either be good or hard and I truly can decide what it is going to be.

I can either focus on the fact that I really miss my family and that my nieces and nephews are growing up without me in their lives, the fact that the crime here is ridiculous and that I need to always be alert and watchful so I don’t become a victim, that ministry is hard and unfamiliar, I make cultural blunders, I don’t understand enough language to get their jokes, I can’t buy some of my favorite things to eat here, imported things from America you have to pay too much for, our car is too small, the cost of gas, and on and on…

OR I can remind myself that being a missionary has been my dream since I was in High School, we are living in one of the most modern cities in Africa so it could be a whole lot worse, the people here are super friendly, forgiving and accommodating when I make mistakes, we have a wonderful church family and are deepening friendships with many people, I am in a great Bible study, the sunsets are amazing, African game parks are SO fun, the ocean is warm, we have internet and web cams for keeping in touch with our families, we love our work here, my husand is watching the baby so I can get some computer time…you get the picture.

My friend started a blog called “instead…bless”. It is this same concept. Instead of complaining…bless. Instead of focusing on yourself…bless others.

It truly is in my mind and I can choose. Today…I choose JOY!

USA trip summary

Where do I begin?

I have four weeks of wonderful memories floating around in my head that I am trying to sort through and decide which to share with you. Warning – this may be a long one!

We are home now, back in South Africa. Funny that I am saying “home” referring to Africa since for the past 2 years we have been referring to “home” as where our families live in the States. I have been thinking about this throughout our visit and on the LONG journey back and I think that I am more settled about living here now that I have been back to the States. Home to me now means both places. While I am here in Africa, I will always be homesick for family, church, and friends in the USA and while we were in the states, I found myself homesick for Africa – wondering how ministry was doing without us and missing friends from here.

There are many things that we love about both places. We love the tortilla chips and restaurants in the states and we love the wild animals and the weather here in Africa. We love family and friends back home and we have great friends and teammates here. I love that there were an equal amount of phone calls from American teammates and African friends calling to welcome us back. We were missed and that feels good.

When our parents purchased our tickets last September so we could visit them, we were terribly homesick, a little depressed, and a lot discouraged. We tried hard to put a good face forward and to press on with the wonderful ministry we have the opportunity to do here, but there were many days where the sacrifice of being pregnant so far from home and wanting to be near my sisters who were also pregnant, the stress from living in a city with so much crime, the unknowns of our future ministry opportunities, the challenges of attending a church where we didn’t feel included in the fellowship life of the congregation, and no friends in our current season of life…lets just say we took turns talking each other into continuing to be missionaries. Thankfully neither of us wanted to quit on the same day!

Last September we changed churches and this has made a huge difference for us. We are now fully embraced and loved by an international church that isn’t too far from our home. We are leading a wonderful group of Christians in a Bible study at our home and Dan is playing drums on the worship team. It feels GREAT to be in a fellowship where we are being fed spiritually and where we can also serve.

Now, after being home to the States and being embraced by three amazing congregations who fully support us and who are extremely excited about what God is doing in and through us in Africa, it feels like we are recharged to continue pressing on here. From the bottom of our hearts we are thankful to all of you! We were overwhelmed by the outpouring of giving financially for our work here, and especially overwhelmed by all the beautiful little baby girl things that were given to Miesha. She ended up with more luggage then Dan and I combined going back! She is a blessed little girl!! Again, we are so thankful to all of you.

Sidenote: please be patient with me on the thank you notes…have tons to do!

Here are a few highlights from our trip ~

Fairfield, ID: This was where we spent our first weekend and it was amazingly restful for us! It was about as opposite to Johannesburg as could possibly be. A small mountain farming community verses a huge metropolitan city the size of Los Angeles. We were told, “The keys are in the car – help yourself. Just follow the tar road into town, you’ll see the church right there.” There was close to 4 feet of snow in Fairfield and we left African weather in the high 80’s F. It was a WONDERFUL and restful change of pace for us. Thank you to all of you in our Fairfield family for taking such good care of us. A special thanks to Jerry for all the planning she did and to her family for hosting us, rescuing us from the snow bank, and for teaching us to snowmobile. Thank you also to Pastor Chuck and Fay for the lovely meals and for keeping us in faithful prayer at your church.

Being in Portland and Vancouver was my favorite simply because that is where I grew up, where all my family still lives, and were I attended the same church for 11 years and have deep friendships. My family got together almost every day we were there. We made some amazing memories and have some really fun pictures of all the babies. Baby Uriah was born in Oct, Miesha in Dec, and Kyla in early Jan and Jake just turned 4. Here are my sisters and I with all the babies!

Being at Summit View Church…it is hard to describe. The depth of friendships, all the memories from retreats, worship team, and working in the office all have meant so much to me and helped to form both Dan and I into the people we are today. It was good for our hearts to be back, great to be with friends, amazing to sing familiar worship songs again, and to share our passion for Africa. A special thanks to all the SVC staff and to all of you who contributed so generously towards our ministry here. We are so blessed to have you partnering with us!

We also loved being in Seattle. I love Dan’s family and it was really fun to spend time with them all. We ate salmon with the family at Jon and Elena’s and we went to a local game reserve with Tommy’s family and had a fantastic time spotting deer, moose and bison. We think it is ironic that Miesha’s first “safari” was in Washington! I loved staying up late talking with his parents and we learned a lot about them while planning their 50th wedding anniversary party. It was a beautiful celebration of their life together and it was great for Dan and I to get to introduce Miesha to many relatives and close friends who came. Dan spoke at a men’s retreat and enjoyed talking with many of his friends and mentors in the camp setting and I got to visit with many friends at a baby shower they did for Miesha.

What we wanted on this trip was for our families to get to meet Miesha and to spend some quality time with us and we really feel that happened. We also were able to spend time with the maximum amount of friends because of all these special events and all the baby showers! We love you all. Our next visit will be longer and we hope to connect with many more of you.

We had a wonderful visit home – thanks to all of you who made it so special! If you have good digital pictures to share, we’d love to receive some. Please send them via email in a condensed format to me. (janellhartley@oci.org)

My husband is SO lucky!

Dan tends to drive with a bit of a lead foot and easily picks up speeding tickets.

This last month Dan was ticketed 6x in the same speed trap about 4 blocks from our house. It is at the bottom of a hill and we were pretty sure that wasn’t legal. He went this morning to renew his license and to ask about the tickets. He got ALL 6 of them revoked since the police hadn’t done the proper paperwork to be at that particular site.

SO LUCKY!

Just after Dan called me with this news, I was driving and saw a similar speed trap which was also at the bottom of a hill. This car was flying down the hill and the policeman actually jumped out into the street in front of the car to flag it over to ticket it since there wasn’t a squad car there…just a couple guys hiding in the bushes with a camera. I was certain he was going to die. CRAZY.



One more ticket story – our Canadian teammate Craig’s middle name is Clinton and on Canadian licenses the first and middle name are on the first line and the last name is on the second. He has gotten out of so many tickets because the police think he is related to Bill Clinton. "How is Bill? Do you think Hilary will win?" Pretty funny!

thanks for your prayers

I am enjoying the few minutes of quiet here at my computer desk since I have so many things whirling through my mind as we are getting closer and closer to our return to the States! We are really looking forward to seeing everyone again and we have only 10 days left till we get on a plane. In those 10 days we are packing in way too many things!! We have a wedding to attend, a trip to Swaziland for short term team planning (we hope to do the trip in one day!!), a massive conference to help with, and ministry things to wrap up before we leave. Our checklist is long, but definitely not impossible. We are taking a mental break tonight and are going to our teammate’s home for a game night.

First of all – Miesha’s visa did come through and we had it in our hands as of last Wednesday. I don’t want to tell the long version of the story because it was excruciatingly frustrating for us…but the short version is – praise God, it arrived in time!

The guys who traveled up to Zimbabwe had an amazing week and said it was on of their “best ever” trips. God moved in hearts, pastors were trained and they said “even though the electricity is out (often for weeks at a time!) God’s fire is burning bright in their hearts!”

This week we celebrated our anniversary of living and working in South Africa for 2 years. Wow! God is good.

Please pray for us as we prepare for our journey home and for safety in our travels until we see you again.