It was a rainy super bowl weekend in 2006 when Dan and I got on a plane and moved to South Africa.  This week we celebrate 17 years of living and ministering here.  Wow – all glory to God for sustaining us, growing us up, healing us and giving us opportunities to give back into the lives of Southern Africans.  How blessed we are to be able to continue to live and minister here!! 

Last year when our vehicles both broke down, several donors gave very generously to help us replace one of them.  We were looking for a vehicle since October and finally found a great option for us in mid-January.   We are now the happy owners of a 2019 Nissan X-Trail and we are sure that it will be a blessing to our family for many years.  We bought it from a dealership and loved having the “big bow on the car” experience!

We were also given a week’s vacation at the beach by some friends in January.  It was amazing to have a bit of time to catch up with them, to rest as a family for a few days in the sun and warmer weather, to catch a movie in the theater, eat at the beach restaurant, and to go shopping at a big mall.  We also were super blessed to connect with some former missionary teammates with OC who are now serving in Zimbabwe.  They were also on vacation in the area and we really enjoyed having coffee and milkshakes with them and catching up on what God has done in the 11 years since we worked together.

This time of year is the beginning of a new school year in Africa and the kids and I are beginning our 10th year of homeschooling together. They are both now freshman in high school.  (How did that happen so fast!?)  

We are still having so many issues with electricity (the power is usually cut off 4-8 hours every day) so we transitioned them from online schooling back to a literature/books-in-your-hands curriculum for this coming year.  The online/electricity issues caused a fair bit of unneeded stress to their last school year and we are all tremendously relieved to have a different plan for this year.

We are thrilled with all the open doors we have for ministry this coming year.  Dan is continuing on with Align on Monday evenings and we are hearing these amazing testimonies keep pouring in.  There is so much fruit on the lives of the people who are faithfully coming and a few more have joined in the new year.  Last Sunday someone asked if Dan could meet with her friend who tried to commit suicide that morning. There was a brilliant, life giving conversation and then the guy joined Align and was ministered to by the whole group the following evening.  Another guy in the group sent a text saying that the things he learned from Dan and the Align group have changed everything about his marriage and he never imagined this level of healing with his estranged wife was possible.  We are celebrating these breakthroughs and also are asking you to add your prayers to ours for the deep healing still to take place in many lives and marriages.  

We also are doing relationship coaching for 3 couples and enjoy pouring encouragement, hope and life into them as we help them process pain and grow closer to one another and the Lord.  We are also going to help serve at a marriage course being hosted by our church in March.

Dan has also been asked to teach the Life Orientation class at Caritas College (the High School that our church founded) on Friday mornings for the seniors (matric students) and he begins this coming week.  He is going to do such an awesome job!

We both are helping with weekly devotions for the grade 5-8 students at Caritas this year and that has been so fun!  We still are leading a large connect group on Thursdays, we both serve on the worship team, and Dan is a part of the finance committee now.  We are blessed to have so many different avenues for serving.

We have a meeting this coming Wednesday evening to talk about how we can serve the New Horizon College campus this coming year also.  We are hoping for worship nights, movie nights to show The Chosen films, or possibly holding an Alpha Course on campus…we will see what we are given permission to do.  Already they are asking for our help to mentor and counsel some hurting students and we have six students coming over to chat in this upcoming week.

We have a team from the World Race coming to Bethlehem in March that we are going to lead – more on that in an upcoming letter!

The Carmichael family from Canada who have been raising support to join us here in Bethlehem have hit yet another road block in trying to obtain their visas.  Please pray for them as they are fighting discouragement and pray for favor for them as they submit an appeal this week.

We have made Plans A, B, and C for our next visas as well.  It is really challenging and expensive process, but we hired a consultant to tell us the best way forward and we will keep doing what we need to do in order to stay legally here. We ask for your prayer support as we begin the process again.  Both our family and the Carmichael family need lots of wisdom, favor, and for the right person to review our applications.

This year is our year to return to the states for furlough but we’ll need to wait to hear what happens with our visa application before we can make firm plans. 

We had planned on having a slower start to our year, but you can see how that worked out – ha ha!!  We are enjoying this season and look forward to partnering with the Lord to make a difference in this beautiful part of the world.

We are so thankful for all your love, support, and prayers for our ministry and family.

May blessing and joy and favor follow you in 2023!  Please let us know if we can pray with or for you about anything.  

With joy,

Janell and Dan