Sanders August 2026

“While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22).

Greetings from Ethiopia!

The verse in the sidebar was the conclusion of God’s promise to Noah following the flood. It reminds us that God is faithful, through every season of our lives, God’s steadfast love never fails. We are experiencing this reality.

Seedtime and harvest

On the weather front, we are currently navigating the rainy season, and growing season, which begins at the end of May and stretches into September. It is “summer” here, yet the weather is cooler, and the rains are frequent. On the school front, we have concluded the school year with our kindergarten graduations, end of the year programs, and high school graduation. These events mark not so much the end of something, but the beginning of something new. With the conclusion of a school year, the preparation for the next school year begins—a new opportunity to sow the seeds of God’s Word into lives, young and old.

Marty presenting graduation certificates

Jan presenting certificates to early childhood students

This current season of “summer break” has given us the opportunity to get know, much better, the twenty residents who had graduated before we arrived. It has been our joy to lead them in Bible study everyday as they have come to work in the Village, helping to prepare the grounds and buildings for the next school year, the next “crop” to be nurtured.

Bible study with graduates who are working in the Village this summer

Like Spring back in the U.S., the season we are in right now reminds us that new beginnings can be all around us. Not just new beginnings of moving from kindergarten to first grade, from middle school to high school, high school to university or some other career path, but a new beginning in life, eternal life that is only found in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is this new beginning that has brought us here. It is this new beginning that we experienced years ago that sustains us here and now. It is this new beginning that we desire for our residents, day students, teachers, staff, community, and the country. Until a person is in a right with relationship with God—life will not work. It may appear that it is working from the outside looking in, but inwardly it is not. All around us are men and women, boys and girls just like us, who either need a new beginning, or need to walk in the knowledge and assurance of God’s faithfulness and steadfast love for them in Christ. That is why we are here, at this season in our lives.

Thank you for your prayers and support. We cannot express how important they are! We ask that you continue to hold us up and pray God’s faithfulness will uphold you as well.

Learn more about Rafiki’s expanding opportunities.

Visit our newly designed website RafikiFoundation.org to learn how to:

Purchase the Rafiki Bible Study for small groups for your church or neighborhood
Serve as a missionary with Rafiki
Sponsor a child with the Rafiki Foundation to bring God’s Word and the best education in the world to some of the neediest children in the world in Africa.

Explore the Rafiki Foundation YouTube channel.

Visit (youtube.com/@RafikiFoundation) for videos from Rafiki children, teaching at our annual Enrichment conferences, and the teaching at our African classical Christian conferences.