Family – Page 3 – Notes from Bob and Ellen

Happy New Year!

Christmas in Florida and then off to Africa!

Greetings from Florida as we prepare to travel to East Africa for most of January and February. We had a wonderful time at Christmas with our daughters, their husbands, Bob’s Mom and James by Skype!

2010 was a busy year for Ellen and I and 2011 promises to be no different.

Off to Africa

We will start the year off with a trip to Kenya and Tanzania, leaving January 9th. The first week in Kenya we will visit friends in our former
places of ministry in and near Eldoret.

The original purpose and my main reason for going is to oversee an ECHO East Africa Symposium in Arusha, Tanzania which will take place February 8th through 11th.

Ellen will be helping with an AIM Africa-based orientation before the symposium and an AIM seminar the week after the symposium. And then instead of coming straight home the last week of February she will go to Pearl River, NY for US candidate week.

Christmas

Backing up a bit, we welcomed Stephen and Ginny back from Sudan just in time for Christmas. Elliott and Becky joined us from St. Louis and my Mom came down from North Florida. We enjoyed a great time together here in North Fort Myers and included James via Skype for a few minutes. They are all now scattered across the globe:

Mom back at home near Gainesville

James now has a place to call home in Mwanza, Tanzania; a real answer to prayer for someone who has been in a succession of temporary places for more than a year.
Stephen and Ginny settling in Albuquerque for the near future.
Elliott and Becky in St. Louis where Elliott is in seminary for another year and a half and Becky teaches elementary music.

Please Pray

We welcome prayer on behalf of:

The referendum in Sudan that will take place from January 9th to 14th for more information see this UN website.
Ellen’s continuing AIM assignment helping AIM parents with their children’s education
Ellen has also taken on the part time responsibility of writing the AIM US prayer guide
Bob’s continuing service with ECHO and especially the responsibility of coordinating the effort to open an ECHO East Africa regional office
in the next two years

We deeply appreciate you and and your involvement in our lives and ministry and wish you God’s blessings in the year ahead.

With warm regards,

Bob and Ellen

Record Breaking Heat — August 2nd

I walked alone through the shady streets
Listening to my heart beat
In the record breaking heat
When we were born in time.
(Eric Clapton’s version of Bob Dylan song)

Yes, it has been hot. Too hot to work outside very long at Mom’s house up near Gainesville. Too hot for serious birding although the famous birding team, “Grey-haired Bobbys”, did make one foray onto Paynes Prairie and came away with a list of 29 including a couple of gorgeous Purple Gallinules.
I’m back to work at ECHO after a week’s vacation getting stuff done at Mom’s house. The trip to Tanzania in June went very well and there is now an excellent group of people on the planning committee working towards the ECHO East Africa Symposium in Arusha next February.

Ellen has been busy with the AIM Regional Administrator job. She enjoys the travel and interaction with people but it keeps her on the road too much for my liking! It is a temporary position that ends Sept. 14th when our good friends Sam and Bonnie Thomas take over. Ellen also has an MK education trip to Mozambique in a couple of weeks. Actually she just sent out this short update:

Hey y’all!

Hope that you are having a wonderful summer!

God is sure keeping us busy – We have had a wonderful week in Cincinnati where we celebrated my dad, Bob Wheeler’s, glorious first 90 years and then my awesome 40th high school reunion. Both fantastic indescribable occasions!

We just got back from a great week at the Hargrave farm where Bob and sister June helped with a number of projects around the farm. Otherwise, Bob keeps busy as an agricultural consultant at ECHO –

Myself – I have been keeping more than busy as interim Regional Administrator for AIM – which means that I meet with, e-mail, talk with all those who are interested in serving with AIM from the SE United States… I’ll be involved in this rewarding job through the middle of next month.

Next week I’ll be at AIM Headquarters’ to be on staff for our Candidate Week where there will be four of the young people that I have interviewed since starting this job. I am excited about seeing it from another angle! As usual, I will be meeting with all of the parents there to talk about educating their children in Africa!

Following that, I will be Mozambique for a week to be on staff for a homeschool week – I am in the midst of preparing my workshops – so, I definitely appreciate your prayers for that!