Dearest friends, family, sponsors, and all others,
You make our life better. Thank you for being who you are.

We celebrated the New Year in Bangkok, Thailand, where we visited with Mike and Wendy and their kids; Wendy is Jean's brother Marlyn's daughter. They have been with C&MA (Christian and Missionary Alliance church) for five years. We found Thailand stunning. It was so good to realize that we are not the only crazy people in the family, but that there are other missionaries there. They live in a land that is 99.5% Buddhist of 60 million people. It makes us rejoice to live in a land that is over half Christian. We visited photo-worthy temples, rode elephants (that's something that will never happen in Africa), drank Starbucks coffee (we were in line waiting for them to open on the day of our arrival), but mostly got to share in their lives (and their sons' lives). We did slip away for three nights on the Gulf of Thailand, which I was surprised to learn is the westernmost edge of the Pacific Ocean. We flew back on January second. As we reached our driveway, Jean said, "It was good to be gone, but it's good to be home again."

Never has she misstated herself more completely. We back our car in at our house, as we pulled forward to back up, we saw a neighbor's tree had fallen. Beneath the tree were our power lines. We parked. We greeted the guard and asked how long the lines had been down. 'Four days,' said he. We walked in the house and smelted the smell that only dead meat casts. There was no water, our buckets were almost all empty. My backup battery was dead. Cleaning out the refrigerator by candlelight is as fine a welcome home party as we can imagine. The school had known the lines were down but hadn't done anything about it, so we immediately encouraged them and the next day they cut up the tree, the power lines rose slightly after being stretched out for days, and finally the workers who had waited until dark to connect the power, climbed the power poles with an aluminum ladder, working by flashlight with 250 volt power. No one died. Now, in our seventeen days since we came back, we got water only one morning and were able to refill our pails (empty again). When power came back on, our phone didn't. It seems that when the lines came down, some power still flowed through the lines and anyone who had a transformer (our phone uses one) or a refrigerator power protector plugged in, fried them. We discovered this Saturday night. On Monday I went to the phone company with the transformer and they would have given me a new one if they had it, but had to send to Arusha for the new one and the workman would be out tomorrow, which is the same thing they said to me on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The following Monday being a national holiday, we eagerly awaited use of our phone, and the school phone as well. So, no e-mails, either in or out. However, and ever so interestingly typical, the phone company did not know and would not believe me that we can use their phone lines for e- mails. They would not let me do an emergency send from their office. The electricity has been out every day since our return but it has been on at night. We eagerly await water, The phone transformer arrived on our twelfth day home. Finally on Thursday we went in and downloaded our e-mails at our server, we got in 92. We think we have answered them, did we? Life here is still a mystery to us, but we survive. Somehow.

School started here on the 13th, Tuesday, at both schools. The academic head at Moringe Sokoine, Eden Kaombwe, was visiting friends in Alaska over the Christmas break and died there of a heart attack. That leaves the entire community stunned.

Marvin is teaching 12 periods (Forms 5 & 6) at Moringe Sokoine and 8 periods at Maasae Girls (Form 4), all English Structure. And Jean has started her usual 24 periods of Bible and Divinity (Forms 2 - 6), plus chaplaincy duties, Career and Project Committees, and TAH-DAH . . . drum roll please .. . she will hit 65 in February without braking for more than coffee and cake!

February also has the Form Six National Exams, think of them as girls you would love to sponsor for three years through university, about $3,000 a year. There are twelve of them; it would be OK if you sponsored only one. Think about it. Pray about it. This is one thing I have observed about life: when things get tough, the world will tell you to be afraid, to close down, and to lock yourself in. I believe, deeply, that when things get rough, we need to look up and expand our horizons. See the big picture from God's perspective. William Carey once said, "God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply." We are trusting that is true for the students and the school as a whole.

We have a great friend who owned a small business, but then an economic downturn came, he realized that it was a losing proposition and he decided to sell. However, so did everyone else who owned a similar business. So, in bad times, instead of selling, he bought up his competitors. That was the move that set him on a new, higher road. Now, if you sponsor one of our Form Six grads in university, I promise you that you won't get richer financially, but there are other kinds of riches in this world. And the recipient, she will probably become richer, more complete (perhaps, that's a value judgment), and independent. We are talking about independent Maasai women: that's a phrase that is revolutionary.

January also holds graduation for us (the Form Six, in Tanzania graduation comes before the exams); we have a few people escaping the weather in the USA for summer in Tanzania. (That's not really true, they are coming for the graduation and, incidentally, the weather is warmer here.) We have some volunteers who are out to help in the library and tutor those needing remedial help in English especially. Bless them! It seems they are here during a 'no water' season, doing 'bucket baths'.
Form Two results are back and all but 4 of 69 passed and have moved on to Form Three. The 4 are now repeating Form Two. Form Four took their exams four months ago, we still have no results for them. We'll probably get them later, but it is interesting that school starts for those who don't know if they passed, so we assume they did. Imagine starting your next year with the thought that you might be told to leave at any time. It is not an easy life to be a student in Tanzania. In America being a student means hard work, here it's hard work with a big, ugly cloud hanging over you. I am grateful for my American educational system. It's not perfect, but it is good.

Again, we want to highlight the need for sponsors for the new Form One class of 60 girls. We have the highest percentage ever of girls who come from 'multiple mother' homes.. .that means classic bush pastoralist where the father has more than one wife. That's 44 out of 45 possible Maasai, since Tanzanian law prevents us from taking pastoralists only from one tribe. (Only 75% can be from one tribe in any one school.) Getting sufficient sponsors is more urgent than ever this year as OBA has set January and February as their target months to get all of the scholarship support for Maasae Girls School completed. It is now $800 for a full scholarship for one girl for one year or $400 for a half scholarship. Please, prayerfully consider helping. Contact: OBA at 612 -87... or bootstrapd@aol.com or deanamilleroba@aol.com .

The building of buildings continues. The A-level classroom is done but for the windows, which were brought out and did not fit. We hadn't sent him the numbers, he came and measured them himself. But it's an almost. The second classroom, the Domestic Science room, is still mostly a pile of bricks and gravel and rock but it's coming. After 15 years, we're still growing, still getting better, better to educate our students! We think.

Our families are well. Jean's mother (at 101+) had her picture taken over the Christmas holiday. She was in the picture with her son, his daughter, her son, and his daughter. That's five generations in one photo: baby, father, grandmother, great-grandfather, great-great-grandmother. Wow!

May your 2009 be blessed, may it be a good year for you and your loved ones. May God's face shine upon you and give you peace. Go forth boldly, this is a year of life for which we all ought to be grateful and which we, in cherishing it, live it fully and gracefully. Amen.

Love,
Marvin Kananen and Jean Wahlstrom
Missionaries serving in Tanzania

P.S. Again, I ask you to not send us pictures or forwards or attachments. We have to delete anything over 80,000 bits, we got some (I'm sure) lovely Christmas letters and pictures, the largest being 10 million bits. For us to download 10 million, it would take five hours. We pay about 50 cents a minute on the phone, let's see, that's $150. Sorry, no thanks. We ask you not to return our newsletters to us. We appreciate your efforts. Thank you.