Klauke Dec 2018

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1).

Last month we had a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with some of our dear friends in the Malawi Village as we attended the wedding of Dumisani and Salem. Paul had hired Salem to teach Language Arts in our secondary school and recruited Dumisani to teach guitar and piano after school. It was fun to hear the mamas’ ululations as we entered the Village and to see how much the children have grown over the past year.

Back here in Kenya our resident children put on a fabulous Christmas show with flute, violin, and choir recitals, along with two plays written, directed, and acted by the students themselves. Rachel King is doing a fabulous job teaching music, and discovering that there’s no lack of talent in this Village!

Safari

Our first personal visitors in Africa arrived as Elin’s cousin, Marianne, and her husband, Egil flew in from Norway. While they were here we went on an incredible three-day safari in the massive savannah called the Masai Mara. We saw elephants, giraffes, lions, warthogs, elands, buffalo, impala, gazelles, wildebeests, ostriches, jackals, hippos, cheetahs, mongooses, and many more of God’s amazing creatures. Stunning! It left us in awe of God’s handiwork and the astonishing mélange of living entities He created. He is the best artist!

Sunset over the Masai Mara

Education stuff

As our resident children graduate and move out of the Village we are converting the empty cottages into classrooms, thus enabling us to expand our Education Program to more of the local children. We have increased our enrollment by about sixty more day students, most of them in our preprimary classes. This has brought our total number of students to nearly 300.

This year we had sixteen students graduate from high school. I like the two quotes they chose for their graduation program: “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but the seeds that you plant.” by Robert Louis Stevenson, and, “There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.” by C.S. Lewis. At the ceremony they sang two hymns and, at the end, a popular tune called Oceans. The last verse goes like this:

Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders.

Let me walk upon the waters,

Wherever You would call me,

Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander.

And my faith will be made stronger

In the presence of my Savior.

It’s our heartfelt prayer that you will experience the presence of our Savior this Christmas season!

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

Merry Christmas.

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