Prayer Points from the Gillham family

February 2009
Dear Friends and Supporters,

Yes, we are still here in downtown Windhoek. We are sorry that we have dropped off the communication highway a little. It has been a mixture of moving house, starting the academic year and computer issues. Thanks to our great God and your faithful prayers we have come through it all still smiling and happy to be serving God here in Namibia.

NETS
Starting an academic year is a very busy time for an academic dean/full-time lecturer. But after many long days and even more meetings, NETS is underway with 9 first-year students and 25 full-time residential students overall. In a really exciting new development we have started classes on one evening (called nets@night) and we have an extra 20 new part-time students already in this program!

The Married Rooms
We have come up with a short-term solution to the problem of students leaving their wives and children in the village while they study at NETS. For so many reasons it is better to have the families together, so we designed a way of fitting a small family into a room designed for 2 single people. It is still very small and involves sharing a bathroom and a kitchen, but there are five families who are now able to live together instead of being separated during study. Please join us and them in thanking God for the generosity of our supporters which enabled these renovations to happen.

We love Computers!!??
Well ... we do love the fact that computers enable us to stay in touch very easily. However when a virus leads to a full hard drive wipe (the week NETS started) ... it doesn't make us smile!! Our reason for sharing is that we lost an almost-finished DVD made especially for you. Please bear with us as we attempt to get back the original footage - or pull out the video camera all over again.

Our First Namibian Christmas
One advantage Australian missionaries have over so many others is that we don't spend Christmas wilting and moaning "This can't possibly be Christmas, it is too HOT". So with the first hurdle out of the way, we went looking for Christmas food. We managed to find a whole turkey!! All the ingredients for Margie's family peach salad (YUM), and on Christmas Eve ... some cranberry sauce!! We were thoroughly spoilt with gifts that came over with Simon's Mum, Auntie and our friends the Pattersons. After church we cooked a Christmas meal and shared a lovely day with Pastor Spencer and Tindiree (our Pastor and his wife) and our friends from Zimbabwe - David, Florence, Loretta and Kundi Matsveru.

Growth Groups
One of our first activities for the new NETS year was having Simon's new Growth Group over for a meal. Simon tried to impress with his newfound 'Namibian Braai' skills. Our new home has a great Braai in our outdoor area, but we also have a good old Aussie-style gas BBQ.

Classes at NETS
This semester Simon is teaching Old Testament Survey, Biblical Theology and Study Skills to first years as well as Systematic Theology, Preaching and Death and Dying to the older years. Margie is really enjoying teaching at NETS. Two weeks in marking and grading is particularly challenging, but the classroom is fun. The students seem to be enjoying themselves, and even learning!!

Our contact details:
Post: c/- NETS, P.O. Box 158, Windhoek, Namibia
Phone (mobile): +264 81 365 2020
Email: smgillham@cms.org.au
Skype: gillhams.os
Blog: www.gillhamgazette.blogspot.com