Dear Friends and Family,

I am presently sitting in Bill's commuter lab in the maternity unit typing this as we have had no electricity since before 1pm and it is now 8:45pm. The hospital is on a generator but none of the homes. This will be my last email to you this century. I wanted to send one more so hopefully tomorrow we will have electricity and can send this.

We do pray that each of you finds special peace and joy during this Advent Season. My sister wrote a Christmas poem some years ago. I would like to share the last part of it with you.

We will all experience Christmas
In many a different way.
We will hear, see and smell---
We will touch and taste all day.

But will we hear
What God is saying
With this child
In the manger laying?

Will we see
The gift God's given?
The gift that makes
This life worth living?

Will we feel
The touch of God's hand
As he sends his son
To a barren land?

Will we see the star?
Will we hear the angels sing?
Will we experience the Christ child
And the new life he brings?

Or will we get caught up
In the cooking and the cleaning
In the giving and the getting
And completely miss the meaning

Of God's love, sent to earth
To teach us how to live
How to care for each other
How to love and to give?

For Christmas is an experience
Not a time nor a day.
It is quietly listening to what
In Christ, God has to say.

We pray you will experience the message of the Christ child this season and find anew the joy, the great news that His birth brought to our hurting world.

Yesterday 15 of the street boys were circumcised. Bill helped to pay for the ceremony and the one month care after circumcision when the boys are taught how to be men. In this culture, once a boy has been circumcised and becomes a man, he no longer can live on the streets. We pray that for these 15 boys/men.

This past week we have received very heavy rains. On Wednesday the rain was so heavy that about 50 Km from here where a stream comes down from the hills and meets a river, there was a flash flood and 200 people lost their homes and everything they had and 8 people died. Dr. Mwenda, our Medical Superintendent, went with the District Commissioner to help provide care to these people. Please pray for them. As always there are two sides to every situation.

The heavy rains have also caused significant new damage to the road between Maua and Meru. We are so thankful that on Fri. the Ministry of Works was working on one particular area of the road that was especially troublesome. We are praying hard that the road will stay open and intact so we can get to Nairobi to fly home. It is raining every night and sometimes during the day but not quite as heavy as last Wed. night.

This past week we read the following report. "A new report from the World Commission on Water suggests that more than half of the world's major rivers are going dry or are polluted. The report also suggests that pollution of major rivers contributed significantly to the high numbers of environmental refugees in recent years."

The visiting doctor's guest house is finished and Dr. and Mrs. David Sarson, from England, are settling nicely. Bill is most relieved and everybody is impressed that the project finished so timely. Bill has completed plans for a new duplex that we are prayerful can be built in 2000.

In the last 7 working days, there have been 13 exam papers given to the four sets in the school of nursing. Two of the exams were re-sits and two were the first exams. Thus for the last several weeks we, the tutors, have either been writing, invigilating, or grading exams. I have been desperately trying to complete all my grading and write questions for two possible re-sits. Since I will not be here to grade the possible re-sits, I have been asked to write multiple choice questions and short answers. The short answers are easy but the multiple choice questions take me such a long time. I am close to being finished.

We leave Maua for Nairobi and the US either on Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday depending on how much rain falls in the next few days. We will not be back in Maua until Jan. 10, 2000. We cannot receive messages in the US from email sent to this address. Thus we wish you a most joyous holiday season. We are so grateful for this opportunity to be home with our family for Christmas. It is hard to imagine "home" without my father. I am so thankful we can be with my mother. We have so many wonderful memories we can share of past times together and so many more memories to make. If you have a chance to be with family this Christmas, don't pass it up.

We will be back in touch after the new year, that is if the Y2K problem doesn't disable the world communication system. But whether it does or doesn't, we will hold you in our prayers and hope you will hold us in yours. It is such a comfort to know that God is in control no matter what and He is so good!

Joy to the world,

Jerri and Bill

You can answer this letter at savuto@MAF.org

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