Saturday 24 January 2009

Back at Kagoro

Dear friends,

We arrived safely back at Kagoro on Tuesday 20th. Thank you for your prayers. I had to go to London to get our visas processed and, thankfully, they were ready on Friday 16th Jan.

There have been a few changes at Kagoro. SIM has built a wall around the compound and strengthened the security of the house. We appreciate this concern and acknowledge that no matter how strong our security measures are, our security depends ultimately on our Lord. A few things around our home have broken while we were away and we are in the process of getting them repaired.

The new semester starts on Monday 26th. This is later than normal since exams for the last semester had to be shifted to January. This means we have arrived back in time to start teaching. Debbie will be teaching three subjects and they are ones she has taught before. I have been assigned two courses I have taught before and one new course. It will be good to be teaching again and we look forward to engaging in that ministry. The new course will mean extra work for me but a colleage here has taught the course before and lent me his notes which I can use to structure my version of the course. Some of the things I have been studying recently will plug into this course.

Unfortunately, I was unable to complete my dissertation before leaving the UK so I will still be working on that but it looks like the provost understands the situation and will not put me back in the registrar's position since that would be quite time consuming.

Thank you for your prayers as we settle back into life here.

In Christ,

David and Debbie

Friday 2 January 2009

January update

Dear Friends

We send you greetings in the Name of Jesus and wish you a happy new year!

Thank you for praying for our farewell service at Ballynahinch Congregational Church. The meeting was well attended and thank you also if you were one of the people who was able to be there. The church forwarded a substantial gift to SIM to help us buy a replacement car and we thank them for this practical concern. (Our 21-year old Toyota Corolla at Kagoro is almost a ‘classic car’ and good spares are hard to find.)

I am preaching in both services at Coagh Baptist Church on 4th January so pray they go well (texts Psalm 95 & John 11).

We don’t have our visas yet so keep on praying they will be processed on time. We received a call from London and have posted some more documents to the High Commission. We hope to leave N. Ireland on 19th and arrive at Kagoro on 20th January. As I am sure you can imagine, there are lots of things to do before we leave. There will also be many things to do right after we arrive and the new semester will already have started at the seminary.

I am still working on my dissertation. I have received helpful feedback from my advisor which I will work on in coming days. It looks like I will not be able to finish the dissertation before I leave which is unfortunate but hopefully the bulk of the work is done.

Thank you for praying for the situation in Jos. It sounds like things are calm now. Pray for all those bereaved and for peace in that city. (More information can be found if you follow the links.)

Thank you again for your interest in the work at Kagoro. We look forward to being back there though it is always hard to leave family and friends, especially my father who still has limited mobility after his stroke in April.

As members of SIM we are supposed to produce an official prayer letter four times a year. Normally we manage three. We thank the Lord that people in our supporting churches photocopy and make these available to church members each time. We are, however, looking for someone to help us distribute the ones that are posted (approx 140). We thank Lyn at the SIM office for helping in this regard but we feel it is time to relieve her of that work. Anyone who would like to help should have a computer, some knowledge of word processing, and an email address. We will pay for the expenses involved. If someone reading this would be interested in helping with this task, please contact us using davidcolvi@aol.com. Thanks.

Yours in Christ,

David and Debbie