Dear friends,

We send you greetings in the Name of our Lord and wish you a happy new year.

December
Thank you for praying for the various meetings we had in December. All went well. It has been good to have a break from the teaching but we have been busy marking. I have almost completed mine but Debbie still has quite a number to mark. We spent the Christmas season here at Kagoro and got together with the other expatriate missionaries on Christmas Day. The Creighton family hosted the main meal with everyone bringing different items for the meal and we moved to Dee's home for dessert. Debbie bought me a tablet computer with a ten inch screen for Christmas and that was a total surprise. One great thing about these devices is you can use larger fonts to display text and that is going to be increasingly helpful as time goes on.

SIM conference
Each year the SIM missionaries and associate missionaries meet at Miango for our annual 'spiritual life conference'. There should be about 100 people present and we are looking forward to the times of worship, good teaching, and just catching up with our colleagues. The conference is from Friday 3rd until Tuesday 7th. We have been asked to lead small discussion groups again this year. Being at the conference means Debbie and I will miss the entrance exam and interview process at the Seminary which take place on Monday and Tuesday. The Seminary normally processes about 150 applications to study on those days so pray the process goes well and admission will be given to those who should study here.

The new semester
I expect there will be an Admissions Committee meeting on Wednesday followed by the registration process on Thursday and Friday which will keep me busy when we get back. Then we both start teaching on Monday 13th January. We have both been assigned new courses to teach so that will involve extra work. Mine is a course on homiletics (preaching) and Debbie's is on Theological Education -- a course she wants to teach and an area of particular interest in her D.Min. studies. We are also supervising students who are writing theses at the master's level so that will be another new challenge. It seems like there is always some extra thing to do here which keeps us depending on our Lord to get through each new semester. Debbie will also be working on another module in connection with her doctoral studies so continue to remember that also in prayer.

Meetings
Debbie has been asked to speak on 21st January from Ephesians 4:1-6 so please pray for her as she prepares that message. I don't have any preaching engagements scheduled for January but we normally have some administrative meetings to attend such as a Faculty Board (all the members of the faculty) and a Management Committee meeting and I am the secretary for both meetings. I have asked the Provost for additional help for the Registry and he is planning to employ another secretary who will work for the new Graduate Dean and my office. That should help and one job I would like him to do is be the recording secretary for some of the meetings I attend. Two of our faculty members are leaving us this month. Dr. Ayuba Bako was our Dean of Student Affairs (DSA) but has been promoted to the Education Director for ECWA (Evangelical Church Winning All). Pray for the Seminary as a new DSA is chosen. The other person is Dr. John Habu who has been appointed a District Church Council secretary in his home area. Changes like this mean some reshuffling of courses and administrate positions so pray for wisdom for the management. Now that Debbie and I have been here for 15 years, we are two of the few people who have worked here that long.

Thank you again for your prayers. May this new year be one in which our Lord is glorified in all we say and do (Philemon 6).

In Christ,

David and Debbie