We would like to say to all of you a big ‘thank you’ for your friendship and care during this year. We have a lot of good friends in Ethiopia but there is nothing like contact with friends from one’s home country and past life. So again thank you for hanging in with us.

Christmas time is basically a ‘God’ time but it is also a ‘family’ time. We are very happy to report that all of our children and their families are well. We have had the opportunity to see all of them since we arrived home. Some of our boys are getting some grey hair; the grandkids are growing; and there have been the occasional injury and infection – but nothing of serious consequence.

· Andrew is the pastor of 2 small churches near Townsville. He also does some lecturing at a Bible College and runs the IT equipment at Annandale Christian School. Tricia basically looks after the home and is a chauffeur. All the children are at school but Adam will in University before we blink if we blink slowly. They are all well.

· David is a pastor at the Sunnybank Baptist Church in Brisbane: Sylvia is business manager for her sister’s medical practice and studying Greek and Hebrew. The 3 children are all at Uni and Josh the eldest should graduate next year. He still has the after effects of severe mononucleosis.

· Tim and Ally still live in Bowral Village with Tim senior Maths master at a large Anglican College. Ally has commenced her private psychology practice – which from all reports is going well.

· Jeff and Jan are still in Kingaroy and both teaching. Ebony their eldest is starting Uni at James Cook next year. Annika is doing extremely well with her music. Caleb is growing like the proverbial weed.

· Kevin and Sue with their 4 children live just outside Bundaberg. They are busy ‘growing’ a bee business. Nathan was school captain this year and starts High School next year. Kevin has a bad back and will be having surgery relatively soon,

· Desta is building well. He is driving with a road building crew on a 10 day on the job – 4 day at home deal.

· Our Ethiopian ‘family’ are all well as far as we know. Contact with them is not as easy, but as we understand they are all OK. For a while internet contact has been poor over there but ….

o Naomi is now adopted and is growing up – she is about 18 months old and we think a beautiful little girl. Her adoption is complete and now she is legally Finnish.

o Abel is doing much better at a private school, which he attends all day and has (we think) much better teachers. He is living with his grandmother in another of her grandson’s small houses.

o From time to time we hear from the others by internet or gossip and they all seem to be doing well. Both Markos’ and Zebdeos ‘ wives are pregnant but well.

The exceptions health wise have been

My brother, John, who had lots of problems after a back operation that went ‘bad’. We are delighted that he is now able to walk a couple of hundred yards with a four pronged walker. He had a tough time for some months and still has a long way to go.

And Robin’s brother, David, who recently had major but successful surgery

We offer our congratulations to

Paul & Carla also to Hiram (Haile) and Verena

on their coming weddings both in January – both of which we aim to attend.

Paul is Robin’s brother David’s son – hence our nephew and Hiram is Yigezu’s son, and calls us grandma & grandpa. Yig worked with in Ethiopia in the late 60s and early 70s at Shashamane in Ethiopia.