Shortly before Christmas, we urgently had to dig out  the electricity and the water pipe connection to the hostel. The building department of O wanted to begin building their road. They want to build an 8 meter wide road through the forest instead of the existing 3 meter wide dirt road. We are glad they didn't  take some of our land for making the road. Many trees were cut down. The only good thing about it was that we could gather a lot of fire wood with the students.

 

Short term Bible school
January, the next short-term Bible school began again. The 26 students will study through module 2  of the chronological Bible study. Books have been bought in the city along with vegetables, as prices are always much higher in the village and there is not much choice in vegetables. We hope that the Karen churches will support in what they grow like tomatoes, cabbage, pumpkins or with money for this month. We also invited a few young evangelists, so that they can get to know the course and will be able to teach themselves later on. We are glad that they came.

• Pray that the students are motivated to learn and that they can apply what they learnt in our week-ends in the Karen villages. Pray that we are protected form colds and illness because the nights are cold.

Oat Experiment 
The experimental oat crop did not give a crop. The fence was not good enough, so cows got into the fields and ate it.

 

Jesus videos and solar energy
We received  30 Jesus videos in the Karen language for free. We will give them to the evangelists. Since a few months there is solar energy and video players in many Karen villages.

 

Car Accident 
Last weekend a serious accident happened, as Karen came back from an outreach to the village of Th. On the way back one pick up truck slid down a hill and landed on the roof. 9 Karen were hospitalized, 4 had to be referred to a city hospital as they had complicated bone fractures. 2 Karen are still in the hospital. We thank God that no one died. It's a big loss as the car is badly damaged and hospital bills have to be paid.