The Advent of small things

Advent greetings to you! After global travels on a rather expansive scale this year, during this holiday season the Lord is reminding me of his interest in small things...

In my role as Theological Education Specialist I had the privilege in 2019 to teach emerging church leaders in Ireland, Burundi, London, Myanmar, India and Thailand, and to stretch out even further through my involvement with Theologians Without Borders and as an affiliate faculty member with Fuller Seminary. Actually, God let you and me do it together – thank you for your faithful prayer and financial support! This sort of work is exciting and wonderful. God’s world is big and dynamic and diverse, and his church is growing strong in what we might consider the most unlikely places.

But right now the Lord is drawing my attention instead to his grace in smaller moments and encounters. Unpacking boxes and painting rooms in my new house in Richmond, VA. Cooking for five for Thanksgiving – my daughter and son-in-law, toddler grandson, and a local friend. Hosting a scaled-down version of my annual Christmas party with lovely friends helping bring this tradition to my new house. Meals and coffee chats here and there with a few special new friends in the Richmond area. This quiet Christmas week in South Carolina with my sweet parents-in-law who continue to demonstrate God’s love to me so generously. And perhaps most of all the birth of another little grandson last Thursday. Simple, ordinary things that refract God’s character and redemptive mission every bit as much as do those larger more dramatic ministry events. I’m struck that the Creator God of the grand cosmic gesture so often chooses to do his work on such an intimate human scale.

Which of course is what we’re celebrating at Christmas, isn’t it? In order to bring us back to himself God entered this broken creation not in his overwhelming power but as a tiny, vulnerable, needy infant. A small baby. Small spaces. Small moments. It surprises me that so often this is exactly where God chooses to make himself known, to initiate his glory to come. “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times” (Micah 5:2). Emmanuel, God with us in the small places, drawing us toward himself as he rules over all the earth.

Namaste from Richmond!

Namaste from… Richmond, Virginia! Here’s my report on September spent somewhere in South Asia. Because of continually increasing sensitivities in that region I don’t send it until I get somewhere else. And I’m not going to mention the name of the institution I visited. You and Ralphie can use your Orphan Annie Secret Society decoder pins to fill in the blanks.

In fact, due to those increasing sensitivities my friend Teresa travelled with me from Ireland this time and we started in Mumbai, India, at the end of August. Since we were traveling on tourist visas we had a great time touring, shopping and drinking tea in various locales. Just two cheerful old ladies enjoying the local attractions! Then as I’ve done so many times before, I got to spend the month of September doing biblical hermeneutics with another new crop of emerging leaders in a first-tier theological training institution in the Majority World. I was curious to see that this year’s students trended somewhat younger and more urban than before. Which meant stronger educational backgrounds, so I was able to challenge them a bit more academically. But I also missed the village-based experiences and ministry contexts that the older students so often bring with them. Still, a great group of thoughtful South Asian believers committed to taking their place in God’s mission in their own contexts. One of the privileges of visiting annually is that I get to track with them from year to year, as well as catch up each September with former students and with friends from the local church I attend. Precious relationships! I'll include below a few of the sweet thank you notes I received from this year’s class.

I left South Asia to fly to Wilmington, NC, in time for the quarterly meeting of my EPC Mid-Atlantic Presbytery. A rare treat for me to get there. I invited them – and you're invited, too! – to come to Ireland next summer to join me for Serge’s Irish Prayer Summit, July 25-Aug 1, 2020! As you’ve probably heard me say, the Republic of Ireland is considered the least evangelized English-speaking country in the world. The percentage of evangelical believers is something like 2-3% of the population. Irish church planters and leaders often work in challenging and isolated situations. We’d love for you to come meet some of these leaders on site in and around Dublin and Cork. You’ll learn what God’s doing in the Irish church as you intercede for and encourage our Irish partners.

And then finally, finally, last weekend I arrived at my new townhouse in Richmond, VA. So exciting! No, I’m not moving back from Dublin, just establishing a homebase in the US near family with an eye toward eventual retirement. After 30+ moves in my 60 years as a Navy child and then international worker, I’m awed to think that, God willing, this is my ‘forever house’ – specially chosen to grow older in comfortably. If your life is even somewhat as mobile and transient as mine is, you can imagine how good that feels. There are boxes everywhere to unpack, walls to be painted, and an endless ‘to do’ list, but it’s really HOME.

I plan to be in Richmond until mid-January, punctuated by visits to partner churches in VA, NC and SC, along with a trip to Thailand, November 4-14, to help with a theological education program that brings groups of pastors from a less-accessible country for training. A little later in November I’ll be in San Diego, CA, representing Theologians Without Borders at overlapping meetings of three big academic theology organizations, SBL, IBR and ETS. If you’re planning to be at any of those, message me and let’s meet up! I’m also teaching New Testament Introduction online this fall for Fuller Seminary, which fortunately I can do from just about anywhere. (And fortunately the Verizon guy installed my wifi this morning!) But mostly this week I’m just excited about unpacking those boxes, getting ready to paint a few walls, and starting to work my way down the new-house ‘to do’ list…

As always, a deep and sincere thank you to all of you who join me on these journeys though prayer, encouragement, and financial support. “This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord's people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God” (2 Cor 9:12). I'm looking forward to catching up with many of you in the coming weeks and months!



South Asia highlights

Playing tourist, elephants that suddenly paraded by, classroom time, and hanging out with my church home group

Sweet memories with these students!

Rain in Rangoon

‘Mingalaba!’ from Yangon, Myanmar (the city formerly known as Rangoon, Burma). ‘Mingalaba’ is one of the small handful of Burmese words I’ve learned in my two weeks here. It means something along the lines of ‘auspiciousness to you.’ It’s basically a cheery hello, and I both hear it and use it a lot. So many friendly, helpful Burmese people. So many mingalaba’s.

I’m in Yangon teaching biblical hermeneutics to sixteen MTh students, all men, at the Myanmar Evangelical Graduate School of Theology (MEGST). Everyone I’ve met is absolutely lovely. And I have a feeling that Yangon can be lovely, too – at some other time of year. It’s monsoon season, with a typhoon nearby thrown in. I’m spending a lot of time trying to avoid rain, walking in rain, planning around rain, and/or getting wet in spite of my umbrella. I’ve been looking longingly from a distance at some of Yangon’s major tourist sites, including the iconic golden Shwedagon pagoda, which I can see out the window from MEGST. So far I haven’t found a long enough break in the rain to visit it. Instead I’m on an indoor tour of Yangon’s restaurants. One local speciality is laphet thoke, fermented tea leaf salad. Sounds crazy, I know, but it’s actually amazingly good.

Each morning I walk 5-10 minutes from my hotel to MEGST’s location in a high-rise building at a busy intersection, picking my way along the crumbling sidewalks, which of course are streaming with rain water, and through the relentless traffic. I climb five floors up a narrow dark stairway, and suddenly I find myself in MEGST’s lively main office. MEGST purchased several apartments across three floors in this building and opened them into each other to create their campus. It’s a little circuitous getting from one part to another – up some steps, down others, through one classroom into another – but I’m starting to figure it out. By the time I get to my classroom at 8:30am my students are there waiting for me.

We have three hours of class each morning. It’s hermeneutics (biblical interpretation), so we’ve been talking about how to make use of historical-cultural background material in interpreting the Bible; how to do word studies; differences in interpreting different genres in the Bible (narrative, epistles, prophesy, Revelation, etc.); the unconscious filters we each bring to our own interpretation of the Bible, and so on. Monday we talked about wisdom literature and the book of Proverbs and I enjoyed getting them to share with me some traditional proverbs from their various regions of Myanmar.

These students include pastors, youth ministers, missionaries, Bible school teachers, and Bible translators. They’re passionate about the Lord and eager to learn, but as a whole not quite at the level of academic or English ability I was expecting. MEGST faculty members tell me that most of their top students still go outside Myanmar for their MTh program (which usually comes after an MDiv degree, and is often a sort of pre-PhD). My students are the ones who did their previous studies somewhere else in Myanmar and have come to MEGST for an academic top-up.

In the next year or two MEGST will cap its annual student intake, becoming more selective so that they can more and more serve as a center for advanced theological training for Myanmar. In that sense they’re modelling themselves on the larger, more established school in South Asia that I visit each year (not named here for security reasons). A number of the MEGST faculty studied there – including the current head of MEGST’s Biblical Studies department, who was my MTh student at that other school more than ten years ago! I'm excited to be part of what God’s doing in this next phase of expansion of theological education into a much less resourced part of Asia.

Meanwhile my current students are struggling a bit to keep up with the course content, and struggling a lot to keep up with my English, nobody's first language and probably the third or fourth language for most of them. Several times each class period I say, “Turn to your neighbor and say, ‘I think what she meant was…’” They laugh and then chat for a few moments in Burmese or Chin or Kachin or Karin, or who knows what else, and try to clarify anyone’s confusion, and then we move on. I’m not sure they’re learning everything I’d hoped, but I can tell that everybody’s learning something.

I'm so grateful for the opportunity to be here, helping shape this group of Christian leaders from all over Myanmar, these "faithful ones who are also qualified to teach others" (2 Tim 2:2). And I can see the strategic value of helping MEGST continue to grow into the advanced regional training center it is becoming. But I certainly couldn't do it without you. Thank you for being here with me through your unstinting support and whole-hearted encouragement!

MYANMAR EVANGELICAL GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY

My walk to work each morning. Setting out from my hotel... Trying not to get run over by traffic... Waiting to cross the big scary intersection... Arriving at MEGST's entrance and climbing the stairs to the fifth floor...

Hermeneutics class with my hardworking students

London Calling

Greetings from London! As I write I’m sitting in a room with a bunch of Serge UK interns who just arrived for the summer and All Souls Langham Place apprentices who are finishing up a year of ministry training. This group of young leaders has come together for an intensive week of spiritual formation using Serge’s ‘Sonship’ material. As our workbook explains, “It’s a course about grace, love, and transformation. It’s a course about embracing the truths of the gospel so deeply that you’re released from the bondages of self-effort, self-righteousness, and self-focus, and released to the freedom of love, forgiveness and mission. It’s about gaining a greater understanding of one of the central biblical images of the Christian life – that of our adoption in Christ – and letting the reality of that adoption inform our being in a way that transforms our lives.” That’s a lot to absorb, but we’ve been working through various pieces of it over five days in large group lectures and table discussions, over lunch and during tea breaks, and in one-to-one mentoring sessions.

This morning’s speaker just made a great statement about Galatians 5:16, “Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.” He said he used to read it the other way around: ‘Not gratifying the desires of the flesh means I'm living by the Spirit.’ In other words, ‘If I try really hard not to sin, the Holy Spirit will stay with me.’ Which of course doesn’t work because we never fully manage not to sin, so that approach just leads to self-created condemnation and defeat. He suggested that instead we correlate Gal 5:16 with Paul’s very similar statement in Rom 8:15-16, “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” In other words it’s about turning our eyes away from ourselves and our own sinful desires to focus our attention on what the Spirit is doing in us and in the world around us. We get to 'keep in step' as God’s Spirit changes us and through us touches others. That’s the sort of thing we’re talking about this week.

Since Serge Ireland isn’t hosting our usual internship program this summer two of my teammates from Dublin and I were invited to ‘pop across’ to serve as extra hands for this Serge UK training event. My part has been to give four of the lectures, write daily devotional materials on Galatians, and mentor one of the All Souls apprentices through the week. They gave me a young woman from Kenya to mentor, a special treat for me! Each afternoon we pick a coffee shop and sit together for an hour or so over a latte (hers) and chai (mine) to talk about how the Lord is stirring her heart in response to the teaching on ‘sonship’ and grace. I love my job.

But it’s London, so yes, it’s been raining. It has rained rather steadily and at times unusually hard this week, and my umbrella drips onto my shoes as I try to fold it up and squash it under my arm whenever I get on a bus or the Tube. Fortunately, before the dreary weather settled in I had a glorious rain-free weekend revisiting a bunch of my favorite spots from years ago when we lived in Cambridge and I did my PhD studies here in London. I’ve also gotten to tick a few more things off my London bucket list – cycling in Hyde Park, a canal boat tour, Camden Town Market, Kensington Palace, a trip to the theatre, and crossing the Thames on the Millennium footbridge!

This weekend I’ll have a quick turnaround at home in Dublin before I fly to Virginia on Sunday to meet my new little granddaughter Annelise, who was born a week ago Monday. (See pics below!) Then about ten days from now I’m back to Ireland through the end of July – a blissful long stretch in one spot, during which I hope to rest a bit and catch up with some study and writing. The first week of August I’ll be in Myanmar teaching hermeneutics to MTh students at the Myanmar Evangelical Graduate School of Theology (MEGST). This is my first visit to Southeast Asia – not quite sure what this course will involve and still trying to coordinate logistics, so I definitely appreciate your prayers for that! And then to South Asia for the month of September, where I’ve been so many times before and love being with the friends there. The other big news is that our new Theologians Without Borders website is now up and running! Click here to take a look.

As always, in all of this thank you so much for your encouragement, prayer, and faithful support. So grateful to God to have you with me on the journey!

'Sonship' Week in London

Hanging out this week with a great group of Serge interns and All Souls Langham Place apprentices. Good questions, thoughtful discussions, lots of reflection and growth happening as grace grabs hold of us. 

 

 

 

And yes, I did manage to have some fun! Cycling in Hyde Park on a surprisingly sunny Sunday afternoon.

"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life."
(Samuel Johnson, 1777)

Going 'glocal'

Greetings from Richmond, Virginia! I'm here on baby watch with daughter Caroline till son-in-law Will arrives on May 21 at the end of their school term in Kigali, Rwanda, where they both teach. Caroline’s due date is June 9 but she had to fly internationally before 35 weeks. Now we’re hoping the doctor can hold off inducing delivery due to Caroline’s sometimes elevated BP before Will gets here from Rwanda!

Somebody coined the word ‘glocal’, which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as “reflecting or characterized by both local and global considerations.” I can’t think of a better illustration of the glocalization of world missions today – and perhaps my international theological education specialist role in particular – than Caroline and me flying from where we do ministry on two different continents to a third one (home!) for the small-but-momentous event of the birth of this one tiny baby in God’s big world. While I’m here I’m engaged in the local details of helping plan for my granddaughter’s birth, playing with my other daughter's 15-month-old (and his parents, of course...), and enjoying some face-to-face time with supporting churches and individual partners in the Richmond area. At the same time I'm immersed in the global dimensions of my regular ministry responsibilities – teaching my online course for Fuller Theological Seminary, which this term includes students in Hong Kong, Germany, and Australia as well as all over the United States; submitting final grades for the class I taught in Burundi in February; prepping for courses I’ll travel to teach in London (June), Myanmar (August), and South Asia (September); developing orientation materials for Theologians Without Borders; and just generally keeping my hand in various projects back home in Dublin and beyond. My office is wherever my laptop computer is.

Working ‘glocally’ involves two other words that have come to mean a lot to me over the last couple of years. One is hypermobility. I’ve joined that group of people who travel for work a lot. Yes, there are some exciting, Instagram-able aspects to it. And I’m not gonna lie, I loved the sunny warmth of Bujumbura in February rather than the cold dark of Dublin. But it also means continual disruption, isolation, disorientation, jetlag, and even lowered immunity to germs. Which I proved beyond all doubt in March when I came down with a nasty virus – flu?? – in the Boston airport on a Friday evening, leading to three nights in airport hotels until I stopped throwing up and could get on a plane to drag myself home to Ireland. True story. (Which is why you didn't hear from me last month. Long recovery from that one.)

To balance that hypermobility, I’ve come to depend on connection – with the friends and family God gives me who keep me grounded and in-the-moment wherever I am. Especially, I’m so grateful for the body of Christ in the various places I travel. My church and home group in Dún Laoghaire, Ireland, as well as the one I attend in Bangalore, India, each year. Being able to drop into a lovely missions dinner, women’s Bible study, and weekly ‘parish group’ at Third Presbyterian in Richmond this month. Serge buddies in Ireland and in the various places I connect with Serge’s outreach, like Burundi and London. In Ephesians 2:19-20 Paul writes, “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.” What I’ve discovered is that Christ’s church is ‘glocal’!

I guess that makes sense, because the Bible shows us that God’s mission is ‘glocal,’ too. He’s involved at every level from healing and reconciling us to himself in our localized and personalized experiences of brokenness and sin, to transforming communities throughout the world, and ultimately restoring all creation. “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away... And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new’” (Rev 21:1-5). In spite of dislocation and jet lag I’m grateful for the small but unique part that I, like each of you, get to play in God’s ‘glocal’ project. And I'm truly grateful for the many of you who pray and give to make my share in God's work possible. Thank you!

Global ministry, local life = 'glocal'!

Teaching my course in Burundi in February, 
hosting Irish church friends and Serge teammates for Easter lunch at home in Dún Laoghaire, 
being welcomed into a lovely 'parish group' at a partner church, 
and blowing bubbles with my grandson in Virginia. 

 

Burundi and back

Hello from Dublin! I’m just home from Burundi. Where I was surprised to discover that yes, I actually can teach in French if I have to. Very slow, broken, schoolgirl French. That was just one of the adjustments I found I needed to make once I got to Bujumbura to teach Bible interpretation at Hope Africa University.

I ended up with nine very eager Master of Theology students, most of them leaders in local Free Methodist churches, one a refugee from DR Congo, and another an international student from Kenya. Although this was theoretically a graduate-level course, Burundi’s extreme history of poverty and conflict means that these students haven’t had the educational background I’m used to elsewhere in Africa. And their English was quite limited. So I threw my original plans out the window. (Not literally, as there was always a crowd of chatty undergraduates observing us through the open windows.) We also shifted to a mix of several languages. I would say something in English and/or French (sort of), then I’d ask whoever seemed to get it to repeat it to the others in French, Swahili or Kirundi. At one point I asked the Kenyan guy how good his French was and he said, “Um, about like yours.” I noticed that by the second week the others were trying much more of their hesitant English with me. Which either meant that they realized they were welcome to fracture language as thoroughly as I was doing, or it just seemed the least painful option. But we got through the course material and I could feel a lovely camaraderie building as we went. Several of them mentioned to me individually how much they were appreciating the course, especially the chance to discuss, ask questions, and do practical exercises rather than just the lecture and rote memorization they were used to. Let’s pray that the Lord uses this somehow to strengthen Bible teaching and preaching in Burundi. I think these students would very much like that to happen.

Now that I’m back home in Ireland I have two big projects to focus on for the next month or so. The first is a Lenten spiritual formation series we’re running at Dún Laoghaire Presbyterian Church starting this Wednesday, using the Irish version of Serge’s ‘Sonship’ course. I’m helping to facilitate it, along with serving as MC and giving one of the weekly talks. Please pray for my Serge colleagues Tom and Justin, my pastor Chris Kennedy, and myself as we lead this – and for God to speak to each participant as we consider our own identity in Christ.

The second project is to get the first online orientation courses for Theologians Without Borders up and running. The idea is to offer intercultural orientation for Western scholars who are planning to teach short-term at theological schools in the Majority World (Africa, Asia, etc.). While they may be experts in their particular academic disciplines, it's helpful to see how Western our own perspectives on the Bible and theology may unintentionally be and learn more about the cultural and religious contexts they’re going to teach in. As TWB’s Associate Director for Orientation and Training, I’m excited about sharing global perspectives with volunteer instructors who are willing to help wherever they can. All part of TWB’s mission to foster mutuality and equitability in global theological education partnerships.

Beyond that I have my usual bits and pieces. At the moment I’m the second advisor for an MTh student in Ethiopia (really need to read that draft of his thesis this week!), serving on the international review panel for ACTEA’s re-accreditation of a large seminary in Nigeria, helping some Serge colleagues by reviewing the curriculum for Serge’s two-year ‘apprenticeship’ program, and teaching Bible interpretation to 23 Fuller Seminary students online. And still trying to figure out what God’s up to with my schedule after Serge Ireland cancelled our ‘Encounter’ program for college students this June-July. One other intriguing possibility has come up that would start this summer – please pray for discernment!

Last but not least (in terms of how much emotional bandwidth this is consuming), remember I told you I need to speed up my plan to buy a townhouse in Richmond, VA, as my long-term home base, so that Caroline and Will have a place to stay when they arrive from Rwanda in May for their baby girl to be born in June? I’ll be making a quick trip to Richmond the weekend of March 22-25 to house hunt. Please do pray for God to provide just the right house, at the right price, in the right location, and with the best possible timing. Thank you so much!

Hope Africa University - Burundi

A few glimpses of Bujumbura and the flood of students at HAU. (Grateful to Serge colleagues for these pics because I forgot to take any beyond my classroom. Whoops.)

Here's me and my students. Working hard!

In that last photo I'm awarding the textbooks I brought with me to the top student in the class. Leaving books where there are none may be the most significant lasting impact I can have.

En route to Burundi I got to spend a wonderful week in Kigali, Rwanda, with daughter Caroline and son-in-law Will. So lovely to see their home in Rwanda and their work at Kigali International Community School (KICS). And of course a special treat to be with my baby girl as she prepares for the arrival of her own baby girl in June! 

 

 

Bujumbura?!

Hello from Kigali, Rwanda! Because we’re such a far-flung family – living on three different continents – it’s a treat for me to spend this week with daughter Caroline and son-in-law Will, teachers at Kigali International Community School. [** Mom brag alert **] I’m so proud of both of them and the way they’re helping shape Rwanda’s emerging young leaders in this first post-genocide generation.

But this is actually a mid-point stop because I’m on my way tomorrow to Bujumbura, Burundi (the county just next door) to teach biblical interpretation to Master of Theology students at Hope Africa University for the next two weeks. The course starts at 8am on Monday. Or not, depending on how organized we all manage to be on that first day. And there’s an extra layer of challenge because this a new country for me and I don't know what contexts these students minister in, what they've studied previously, how able they are in English v. French, or really much of anything else about this situation. I'd love for you to pray that I stay flexible and gracious (and healthy and safe) with all the unknowns!

Then my last weekend in Burundi, 23-24 Feb, I’m hoping to visit the Serge medical team who are doing amazing things in much more remote Kibuye. (You can see lots of stories on their team blog.) Maybe offer an English Bible study for the team, preach at the local French-speaking church, who knows... I'm trying to be uncharacteristically malleable during this whole Burundi trip.

While all that’s going on I’m also trying to make some plans for this summer. Serge Ireland recently cancelled our ‘Encounter’ discipleship and outreach program for college students for June-July. A good call on their part, I think, due to various local circumstances. We hope to be back up and running next summer. But it's thrown me into something of a tizzy personally because it was one of the three ‘big rocks’ in my teaching schedule for 2019, along with Burundi and then India in September, joyful opportunities to be in the classroom face-to-face with students. It’s also one of the very few times each year I can join in on an existing project with people nearby rather than having to create something myself. (My job involves a lot of Making Stuff Happen. Mostly in other countries.) So a bit more wear and tear on me in that sense. Traveling out of Ireland is also complicated this June because I need to be available for an immigration status renewal interview. So now I’m prayerfully seeking out other opportunities for July. What unexpected avenues might the Lord be opening up??? Two tantalizing possibilities so far, one in East Africa, one in Southeast Asia. Please pray for me to hear God well and for wisdom to know how to respond to either of these opportunities, or neither if he just wants me to stay home.

In and around all that I’m keeping busy helping get Theologians Without Borders up and running, teaching my Fuller Seminary courses online (at the moment, 23 students for biblical interpretation), connecting with Dún Laoghaire Presbyterian Church (we’re about to run a Lenten spiritual formation course based on Serge’s ‘Sonship’ curriculum), and just enjoying life in Ireland.

As always, I’m deeply aware of and grateful for the prayer, support and encouragement from so many of you laboring in your parts of the Lord’s vineyard so that I can be here doing the things he’s asked me to do in my part. Thank you! So privileged to work with and for you in his Kingdom!

Family News

Nana loved spending Christmas in Virginia with 11-month-old James (and his parents)! So blessed to play with my grandson and see the sweet, wonderful ways Linnea and William are loving and nurturing him.

And now also blessed to see in person Caroline and Will's work at Kigali International Community School (KICS).

But wait, there's more...

A new little granddaughter arriving in June!

Nana's part is to speed up my plans to purchase a townhouse in Richmond, VA, as my long-term home base – now needed in time for Caroline and Will to arrive from Rwanda in May to get ready for Baby Girl's birth.

Please pray that all the logistics come together in good time!