Benin Bulletin #6
“Joyeux Noël!”
January 10, 2017
Prayer
Requests
1)
Christmas holidays – Praise the Lord that we were able to visit Graham’s
family in Alberta during the Christmas break.
Kathleen’s parents were also able to visit for a week which was
great. It was their first time in
Alberta.
2)
French School – School begins tomorrow.
Please pray that we would do well in increasing our knowledge of the
French language.
3)
Re Rotlhe – Praise the Lord that He has continued to provide for the Re
Rotlhe program in Botswana and they almost have their new facility built. Pray that the facility will be finished soon
and that the program will continue to thrive.
Introduction
Greetings everyone from beautiful
Sherbrooke, Québec! It’s your old buddy Graham
here. Back again to tell you about all
the adventures Kathleen and I have been on.
We are back from our latest adventure:
Christmas vacation! If I remember
correctly, it was October when we last sent out a letter so it’s about time I filled
you in on what all has been happening.
So, grab a coffee (or whatever you prefer) and I’ll dive right into the
news.
Christmas
Holidays
As I mentioned in our last letter Kathleen
and I were able to visit my family in Alberta this year. Our school gave us an extremely generous 3
weeks of Christmas holidays so we used it as usefully as we could. As usual we ended up missing a few of you in
the area but it was hard with people being away and family gatherings considering
it was Christmas. So, apologies to anyone
who felt ignored, it was not intentional.
Despite missing some of you, we had a great time in Alberta. I had the first Christmas in Alberta since
2012 so it felt like a new experience for the both myself and for Kathleen. Kathleen’s parents came to Alberta for a week
for New Year’s so it was special having most of the Crawford/Davidson family
together again. We hadn’t had that since
the wedding in May. I got to a few
hockey games to see the new arena in Edmonton which was fantastic. We even made it to the Rocky Mountains in
Jasper. A first for both Kathleen as
well as her parents. Thank you for your
prayers for our travel. No lost luggage
this time around. A few minor delays but
all went very smoothly. Praise the Lord!
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| The Legislative Assembly building in downtown Edmonton. |
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| First Oilers game in Edmonton's new arena. |
 |
| The Oilers won of course. |
 |
| Athabasca Falls in Jasper National Park. |
Back
To School
I should probably mention how we did in our
first semester. Is amazing to strong a
word? Seriously though, both Kathleen
and I did very well. I won’t tell you
exact grades but if we were as old as our grades we’d likely both be dead. Actually, never mind, that’s a bit
morbid. Just believe me when I say we
did well. So, as I mentioned earlier we
are officially now back in “The Nation of Québec”. I have to admit I feel a little bit rusty in
my French. We spent most of our time
with “Anglophones” on our holiday so my lack of “parlaying the francais” has
not gone unnoticed. However, my
instructor tells me that the first few weeks is all review so we hope to get
caught up quickly. Actually, I’m kinda
speaking for myself here. Kathleen appears
to have not missed a beat. Anyway, its
great to be back in Québec and we are both looking forward to getting back to
studying the beautiful language of “Français”.
We would appreciate your prayers as we continue with our studies. We will be studying until March where we will
be heading to New Brunswick once again for a week break. In the meantime, we’ll have our noses in the
books! Thank you for upholding us in
prayer. We appreciate it so much!
 |
| Our commute to French class. Its a blessing living this close. |
Re Rotlhe Update
Shifting gears a little I’d like to give an
update to all those who remember the Re Rotlhe project I did a fundraiser for back
in 2015. For those of you reading this
who may not know what the Re Rotlhe Project is, let me give you a little
insight. The Re Rotlhe project is a day
care centre started in Seherelela, Botswana, a small village about 2 hours west
of Botswana’s capital city, Gaborone.
Flying Mission (the mission organization Graham used to work with)
helped support this project by getting it some funding and helping it
grow. The day care takes care of both
orphaned and vulnerable children and does their best to feed/clothe and educate
these young kids. A playground was built
on the small day care plot so the children would have a place to play. Unfortunately, most of the equipment was made
of steel and the shade netting that was put up to keep the equipment cool fell
down. This exposed the steel swings and
slides to the unforgiving Botswana sun.
Needless to say, the children stopped playing in the playground. This got me to thinking. Perhaps a better, stronger shade can be built
for these children. We go an estimate on
what a steel roof structure would cost and it was around $3000. I believe it was in August 2015, we had a
fundraiser to raise the money to buy this structure. We raised a little over $3000! Praise the Lord! So, the money was given to Flying Mission and
the structure was going to be built, however, new news had arrived. The day care was given a new plot as well as
a large donation to build a permanent, more adequate building. Praise the Lord again! However, this meant that the new steel roof
for the playground would be delayed until they moved the playground to the new
plot and built the new facilities. Well,
I heard from Flying Mission and the new facility is nearing completion. This means the steel roof structure for the
playground should be built sometime this year!
I thought I’d let you all know as some of you gave to this project so I
wanted to update you on its current status.
Thank you so much for your generous giving to make this project possible! I’ll update you again when the building is
complete.
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| Wide shot of building progress on new plot. |
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| Front of classrooms. |
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| Inside the classrooms |
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| Kitchen and office building foundation slab |
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| New clay bread oven |
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| Full view of classroom block |
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| Foundation slab for toilets |
Conclusion
Well, I think that about wraps up things at this end. Thank you again to all of you who make this
life possible for Kathleen and I. You
all mean a great deal to us. Thank you
for your prayers and support. Until next
time!
Blessings,
Graham & Kathleen <><
SIM Contact Info:
SIM Canada
10 Huntingdale Blvd.
Scarborough, Ontario
M1W 2S5
Canada
Tel: 1-800-294-6918
E-mail: info@sim.ca
(Our missionary number is 024460)
The opinions expressed in this letter are our
own opinions. They are not necessarily the opinions or views of Serving In
Mission (SIM).
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