This week all the kids were thrilled to participate in the second long-awaited Super Sports Training Camp, hosted this year by the team in Kara. On the first morning, Jonathan was a bit hesitant to join in the group activities, but by the afternoon was into the swing of things. Unfortunately, he, like several others, became sick with malaria, but he kept plugging away and had a great time. Jeremy enjoyed all the sports, also, but baseball is still his favorite.

The kids have come back from Kara with colds as the harmattan dust followed us south. We are “freezing,” with temperatures in the high 70s, 30% relative humidity (compared with our normal 80%), and cold winds blowing. Maureen commented that all the dust in the air is like breathing smoke. Fortunately, we have to deal with this for much shorter periods than our colleagues in northern Togo and Burkina Faso. For the Watchi people, it’s the time of year to sleep late in the mornings, wear winter jackets and ski caps, and not take as many cold bucket baths.

Christmas vacation has been an incredible blessing. We really enjoyed our time with the Rogers. We spent a lot of our time in Ghana. We went to Mole (mo-lay) Game Park and saw lots of elephants, monkeys, and antelopes. We spent two nights at Coconut Grove Beach Resort in Elmina. Mom, Dad, and Kara really enjoyed our suite, compared to the Mole Motel. They were really in awe of the beauty of the tropical scenery. We were sad to say good-bye, but we know that we will be seeing them again very soon. After they left, we traveled to Kara, Togo for Sports Camp. Josh was really excited to go back to where he had his internship in the summer of 2003. Ky was excited to see the missionaries and loved their company. We are thankful for the Dolingers hospitality in letting us stay with them. We were really blessed to be around another young married couple. Josh really enjoyed coaching the boys and girls in Baseball and Football. The children had so much fun which made him happy. He really looks forward to the day he can coach his son/daughter (though, still a long time a way, Lord willing:) Kyleen helped the girls in Gymnastics. They were so graceful during their performance. We are excited to be in a new year. We decided that we are going to exercise more. We are going to start walking and running at least three days a week. We both feel rejuvenated in our work here. We were getting a little lazy at the end of the year, but we have great hopes to finish out our tenure here with a bang. Josh is looking forward to getting back into language and village visits. Kyleen will start teaching this week. We are very excited to meet Jeremy. Josh has been looking forward to having a male companion his age. Pray for their safe trip here in a couple of weeks.

Pray for their safe trip here in about a week.

Rae and Jeremy were married on January 1.  We look forward to their arrival in Africa on January 15.  Pray for safe travels and a good adjustment to married life in Africa.

Last year during the summer, as some of you remember, we started a tradition called sports camp for the missionary kids.  We taught basketball, football, baseball, and other sports with a spiritual theme.  This year, we changed dates and places.  Our missionary co-workers in Kara, a little over 5 hours north of us, hosted the camp.  This year we had girl and boy activities and a slew of kids that we can hardly count.  The kids had a blast!  All of our team families went there for the three day camp.  While there, there was a lot of sickness.  Ellianna came down with a pretty bad case of malaria.  She is doing better, but is still hesitating to eat or drink.  Please pray for her to have a complete recovery.

After coming back from the north, we expected to escape the dry, dusty weather we had had up there.  Little did we know that we would return home to find the northern winds had beat us home and blown the Sahara dust down to our area.  Saturday, visibility was about a quarter mile in places.  It was like driving through fog without any humidity.   Upon our return, Jeff got back to work with his training sessions and squeezed all of his classes in to two marathon days.  Josiah got back into a book he is reading, and Brenda has stayed busy trying to do the impossible: keep the dust off of the furniture.

Sports Camp was awesome! Soccer, Basketball, Baseball, Swimming and Football. Plus, 20 other missionary kids to run around and play with. We had a great time in Kara with their team and with each other.

The only drawback to Sports Camp was that the whole family got hit with malaria. Christine had a 15 hour vomiting spree on Tuesday all through the night. We kept her hydrated as much as we could and she made it. Matthew, Stephen and myself were also hit with malaria, although not as bad as Christine. It was especially memorable because this was the first case of malaria that I’ve ever had after 13 years of traveling and living in Africa. Everyone is better now after much prayer, medicine and lots of liquids

God watched over us and took care of us. Next week the men are off to Ghana for an annual prayer/planning retreat and also to pick up Rae and her new husband Jeremy as they return to teach in the Tabligbo MK School for the spring semester.