We pray you all have had a good start to your new year!  According to the messages I see on social media, it seems many  friends and relatives have recently gotten COVID or have been isolating again and that is so difficult.  Know that when you ask for prayer, you get it!  Even though we are far apart, we still try to stay connected to your stories in the states.
 
Here in the Freestate, we are enculturation…getting to know our new area and the amazing people who stay here.  We are still settling in, adjusting, and learning.  

We feel there has been a bit too much rain (we had approximately 500mm/19in of rain in December!), the mosquitos have been  terrible (probably due to so much standing water) and also the flies and ticks…basically we don’t like the bugs, but everything else about our new location has been a blessing.  The country life suits us very well!
 
During the last month, we have been doing a lot of connecting.  We’ve met some of our  neighbors, had dinner with our landlords, and we have had a lot of people over for coffee and meals to get to know some of the families at our new church and in the community.  At the New Year’s Eve service, we met several Americans who are in Bethlehem at the YWAM base for training which was an unexpected blessing.
 
Dan also was invited to continue the discussion about Addictions on Impact Radio and was a part of the 1pm talk show again.  He said there were several moments where truth he shared caused deep dramatic pauses as the DJs were amazed to consider a perspective they have never heard before.  Glory to God!  Dan also had a follow up zoom chat with a youth group in Zimbabwe who are working through a purity journey together which was amazing.
 
Many of the invitations we’ve received are to help in the various schools with mentoring students, teaching Bible lessons, teaching in assemblies, for after school courses, and to spend time with the kids in the hostels (boarding school dormitories) and in the local orphanage.  Currently the invitations are for 3 school campuses, for discipleship, for evangelism, a few things online, a couple international ministry trips, and for some building projects.  We also are attending some conferences, taking online counseling classes, and homeschooling for my two grade 8s – it will be fun to see how everything comes together this year. 
 
In this area, everyone returns from summer vacation and resting in mid-January and the brand new school year began on January 12th.  We live right next door to a school campus with approximately 800 learners, so now our mornings are filled with the happy sounds of children.
 
On the 12th, we woke up to find Cassie, our new puppy, was missing.  We guessed that she snuck under the fence to find some students next door to introduce herself to, but we couldn’t find her anywhere.  Dan asked one student and he said he had seen a puppy heading a certain direction, but the school campus is 70 hectors (approximately 170 acres) and God directed Dan to find our puppy under a bush on the school grounds and dying.  He rushed her to the vet and we found out that Cassie had a version of tick bite fever called biliary and had parasites in 90% of her red blood cells.  The vet said that she probably wouldn’t make it, but she would give a blood transfusion and see if it helped.  Even after meds and the transfusion, Cassie still wasn’t getting better.  She had multiple seizures during the night and Thursday morning she was lame, blind, and had evidence of brain damage.  The vet asked us to come say goodbye. 
 
We went to the animal hospital and as we were tearfully hugging her goodbye, she stood up, laid her head on my arm, and rested against me.  The vet was surprised that she could stand and suggested we wait one more day before making any end of life decisions and to keep visiting as it seemed our presence gave Cassie motivation.  We prayed, you also prayed and her health from that time began to shift for the better.  Every day since, we have seen evidence of God healing her.  Over the next two days, Cassie could stand a little bit and it seemed her blindness was reversing.  She could definitely see up close.  By Saturday, she was given permission to come home and has gone from super skinny, weak, and shaky to having her appetite return and jumping and chasing her ball around again.  At first, she couldn’t figure out how to back up and it took her a week to bark again.  We feel she is approximately 90% back to herself again, but we are expectant for a full recovery and SO thankful to the Lord for healing her, to the vet hospital staff who added their expertise to her recovery journey, and to so many of you who prayed for us all as we navigated this very difficult thing with our children.  We are so grateful.
 
We shared our puppy testimony in church last Sunday and Pastor Johan followed it up with saying “How many of you have heard that there is no hope for something in your life?  You’ll never make it because of _____, or your marriage is too far gone, or you feel stuck in some area.  God gave us a beautiful reminder this week that He still loves to fully restore and heal something that was declared dead.  There is nothing that is too far gone for Him to heal.”  Many people put up their hands for an infusion of hope during the prayer time on Sunday.  It was so beautiful!  
 
Our new church family is currently in the middle of a 3 week fast and we have all been doing the same devotional book called Experiencing Victory.  Already, we have seen the Lord give breakthrough, freedom, and hope to people and it has also sparked some wonderful conversations with our children.  As you can guess, we absolutely love this focus and are believing God for increasing maturity and freedom in the church family as we all have an intentionality for seeking Him more in this season.
 
Our family was the “middle man” for introducing a Seattle church to our friend Pastor Daniel Lilema in Zambia.  They did a fundraiser to help purchase Bibles to give away to church leaders in Zambia and the project has begun!  Pastor Daniel is creating a team for distributing the Bibles and we are thrilled to know many of these leaders will soon be getting the precious Word of God in a language they can easily read.  Did you know that Zambia has 7 official languages and 72 dialects?  Many Africans we’ve met can fluently speak in 3-5 languages, and Dan met a man in the bush once who spoke over 70!
 
Will you join us in prayer for: 

• Increasing breakthroughs for the BCC church and our family
• Friends for Titus and Miesha (we hope to find and connect with other homeschool families in this quarter)
• For Dan and I to know what to say “yes” to for our ministry year
• For continued and accelerating health

Thank you! 
The Hartley family