Letter from Janelle and Mike McCarty in Ethiopia
January 1, 2008
All this took place to fulfill what the LORD had said through the prophet: "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"—which means, “God with us.”
Matthew 1:22-23
Merry Christmas to you. God is with you! We pray that each of you will know his presence in your lives, his love for you, his answers to your prayers, and his guidance.
We know that this Christmas greeting is late for most of you, but here in Ethiopia, we celebrate on January 7th. We have already been celebrating Christmas with Janelle’s brother, Stephen Stobbe, from New York City, and our good friend Dorothy Hanson, also a PC(USA) mission worker, from Addis.
Unfortunately, we weren’t able to take very much time off since we only have five weeks left here in Dembi Dollo. The last time we wrote, we were heading off to Kenya for a PC(USA) missionary retreat. It was wonderful to share stories and ideas about partnership. God truly is working through his church (made up of all nations)!
We came back to Ethiopia and heard from our Synod President, Reverend Wareti, that a major transition was in the planning. Over the course of the last month we’ve witnessed a healthy changeover to a new director at Bethel Evangelical Secondary School. Our new director, Mr. Abebe Muse, has been teaching geography at BESS for the last three years. Before that, he was the vice director at another one of our church (Mekane Yesus) schools in Aira for seven years. We are grateful for Abebe’s experience both in administration and in teaching, his humility, his clear and direct ideas, and his fairness. Please pray for him, as he faces many challenges as he begins his administration. One such challenge is the current split of accounts between the BESS academic stream and the Bethel Evangelical Vocational and Technical College. We work on the same compound, and we pray that we can all work together in a good way. We would greatly appreciate those of you who regularly pray for BESS to take one more step and write a letter of encouragement to Abebe as he works at bringing progress to BESS.
Many of you have asked us to clarify our future plans. It was with much prayer, discussion, deliberation, sadness, anticipation, and trying to look on all sides that we decided back in September neither to seek renewal in our position at BESS nor to seek a reassignment position with the PC(USA). The bottom line was that we just didn’t feel God’s call to come back to Dembi Dollo at this time for many reasons. When we found out we were expecting our second child we decided pretty soon that I (Janelle) couldn’t continue teaching at BESS in the capacity expected of our position. Also, at that time the school was facing much turmoil, which didn’t seem to be improving. I couldn’t figure out a healthy way to be here at BESS in a minor capacity and be a mother as my full time job. We started looking into other positions under PC(USA) with the Western Wollega Bethel Synod. The work that I (Mike) have been doing has been enjoyable and encouraging, but after looking at it objectively I believe I would need more training and expertise in agriculture if I were to be the primary mission co-worker position for both of us (rather than Janelle’s position teaching at BESS), and I don’t feel a call to move into that field. Also, we wish to have more time with our families back in the United States and Canada, who we are very close to.
You—the great supporters of BESS, the Western Wollega Bethel Synod, or PC(USA)—are some of the hardest people to give this news to. We want you to know that we are now more than ever great proponents of the work of PC(USA) in partnership with churches worldwide to glorify God. We feel that as we go back to live in the Seattle area after August 2008 we will take on the role of mouthpieces for worldwide concerns in our church, our community, and our workplaces, and hopefully we will continue to be greatly involved in this rural community of Dembi Dollo. You know as we do that God works in many ways, and sometime sooner or later He may call us back to Ethiopia as mission co-workers. We are completely open to that possibility.
For now we are excited about visiting with churches from mid-February through the end of July and sharing about Dembi Dollo with all of you. We really look forward to seeing as many of you as possible. We’ll keep you posted on our PC(USA) Web page as to our full schedule as it becomes settled and by personal contact. We likely won’t get another posted newsletter out until the end of our mission interpretation time.
Praise to God for
- Reaching the third trimester of the pregnancy with no problems.
- A much healthier and peaceful atmosphere at BESS.
- Carolee’s health, happiness, and quick learning.
- JoAnn (long time teacher at BESS) coming to help at BESS, starting January 23!
Prayer requests for the coming school year
- Our new director’s leadership during this transition period.
- Teachers to get an increase in their salary to make up for the difference between their pay and the pay of teachers at government schools.
- Teachers at BESS who are committed to caring for the students and staff as Jesus cares for us.
- Healthy birth of our baby (due April 3).
- Health, wellness and rest during this extremely busy time of transition for us.
- For us to be able to pass our work over to others well.
- All plans to work out according to God’s will for our mission interpretation time.
May God be with you,
Mike and Janelle McCarty
and Carolee and the coming baby
The 2008 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 12
