Jenkins Update Happy Spring

Happy Spring! We have been enjoying the warmer weather here in ND! Living for so many years overseas where we had mainly two seasons--raining and dry or muddy and dusty -- I have been enjoying the seasons here in the U.S. This Spring seems especially meaningful as many are getting their COVID vaccine and we are starting to see the beginning of the end to this pandemic. Spring symbolizes hope.  After a cold dark winter, the longer days of light and warm sun bring joy. Ruth, our daughter was able to spend her Spring break with us recently. It had been a long 14 months since we had been together--the longest I had been away from any of my kids. It was a wonderful week, wedding dress shopping, wedding planning and just catching up. In a little over a week our son, Caleb, and his wife will be here for Easter. Then our other son Ethan will be here for the long weekend! I can not express to you how much having my family gather means to me. We have really enjoyed this season of having our oldest daughter Sophia and her family living close this year. Hanging out with my granddaughter Penny has been a delight! Ruth trying on my wedding dress for fun!  Dave and I have been pretty busy these days. I have been babysitting for a couple of families 3 days a week but have recently reduced it back to two days. Dave is doing a project with Global Neighbors another non-profit that is in town that works to welcome immigrants. Dave is running a leadership cohort of immigrant leaders to learn about our community, each other, and how to make change where we live. For more information check it out here https://www.bismarckglobalneighbors.org/nilp We have also been busy with our EADC ministry. We have started a new series on Facebook called What is the Church?  We are doing these live Sunday mornings at 9:00 am CT or if our granddaughter sleeps over on Saturdays we do it Sunday evening at 5:00. We are discussing what are some of the more important reasons that we as believers gather and as we move out of this COVID season what we are desiring Church to be. What did we miss the most about Church? We have had some great public discussions as well as many private discussions with people who have reached out to us. We see that this series has struck a chord. Dave has also engaged in several conversations on social media as well as many African Whatsup groups he is a part of giving information about the COVID vaccines and helping to correct misinformation that can spread over these groups. This season reminds us of ways we would partner with local medical and government in our early years in Uganda when we were fighting the Aids epidemic.  As we have had COVID and also gotten our shots we have felt safer to engage our community more. We have visited several ethnic churches on Sunday mornings. There are 6 African churches that are currently meeting here in the Bismarck/Mandan area. It has been enjoyable to meet more friends from Africa and we always enjoy singing and worshiping with our brothers and sisters. We have also been invited to eat in a few homes and have enjoyed getting to know these families better. Eating African food has been a bonus!  We are looking forward to starting to host people in our home as things open up more here. I have really missed not using my hospitality gifts. Thankful that we have had so much of our ministry online as it was easy to pivot in this past season. Off to visit an African Church in Bismarck,ND Besides serving Africans living here in our community, missional living has also called us to live incarnational with the marginalized and under-resourced. We are living in low-income apartments and many of our neighbors are native Americans. Dave has gotten to know many of our neighbors as he is out walking our dog and has had many conversations. This last week, there was a knock at our door and one of our neighbors asked if I could give him a ride to help his mother who had recently had a fire in her apt and was moving into a mobile home that had been given to her after her father had passed. I was free so I said sure. Dave was resting at the time or he would have done it. As we were driving I was asking him about how his mom was doing after the fire and how his partner and young child were doing. He mentions how helpful and kind Dave had been the night of the fire. Then he shared your husband is easy to talk to. He said he seems very genuine. I said yes Dave is the real deal. As I dropped him off in the mobile home park, I was struck that God is using us here. Not just with what we think is the focus of our ministry but also just in how we live with our neighbors. I am sad sometimes that we are not in a position to own our own home but then I think who would be a light in this apartment building?    Thank you to all that make it possible for us to serve as missionaries here! Are you wondering what to do with your tax refund or your incentive gift? Please consider either a one-time gift or becoming a monthly supporter. Give Now

 

Dear family and friends,   Wow! It has been a while since we sent an update. What a crazy year 2020 has been for so many of us. As much as we have been trying so hard to avoid COVID-19, as many of you may already know if you follow us on social media Dave, our son Timothy, and I had COVID-19. Thankfully, we did not have to be hospitalized and although the last few weeks are a bit of a blur of survival, we are hopefully through the worst of it. We are now just trying to get back to our baseline and our energy back. We are so thankful for all the support and care that we received. Many of you sent meals our way, and extra cash gifts to help us through this rough season. We also felt all the prayers and kind words that you sent to us!   We are so thankful for our daughter Sophia and son-in-law, Matt who cooked food for us, walked our dog, and organized a meal train for us that many of you participated in! We are thankful to have them living in North Dakota for this year before they head off to Med school next fall.

We hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! I know this is a different kind of celebration this year. We had our smallest Thanksgiving celebration ever.  We were thankful that some of our family could gather. We held space for both grieve and joy this year.

Many of you know that besides following the East African Diaspora to the Dakotas, we were also drawn here because of a part-time teaching pastor role that Dave got. We were excited to be a part of a church where we could both use our gifts unfortunately none of us could imagine what 2020 would bring. For those of you in ministry know how hard this has been to serve in this season. It was especially hard for us as we were new to this church and did not have the bank of relationships to weather this storm. As our COVID numbers began to significantly increase in North Dakota in September and after 6 months of trying to get the church to develop some type of COVID protocol, we asked the church leaders if they could respect the local health recommendations and several adamantly refused. In addition, through this process, we began to see that we had significantly different interpretations of scriptures, and ways of seeing the world with the other staff and many of the leaders. Considering this after much prayer and counsel from others Dave resigned as teaching pastor at Revive Christian Church. We are disappointed but also feel real peace about our decision. Even though this was a part-time job it had taken a lot of bandwidth and energy that we felt was taking us away from our primary role of serving the East African Diaspora here in the Dakotas. We are still wanting to connect with churches here and hoping that Dave will be able to do some interim preaching in the area. In fact, this month he has already been asked to preach at the First Baptist Church of Bismarck as they sadly have lost their Pastor who has recently passed away with COVID-19.

With this loss of income, we really need to find some additional support to keep us viable here in North Dakota. Will you prayerfully consider giving a one-time gift or becoming a monthly supporter?

Jana and some of our new friends from Adoni Evangelical Church

Here are some highlights of the last several months:   We were thankful when the pandemic hit that much of our ministry is online, so we did not have to pivot as much as other ministries. This summer as there was a bit of a break in the pandemic we were able to have a few young people over as well as being invited into some homes and get to know the East African Community better here in the Dakotas.  Dave spoke several times at the East African church we attend Sunday afternoons-- Adoni Evangelical Church. Dave has started a Sunday morning Facebook live series “Neighboring During COVID-19 Pandemic” and many are joining in to watch and we have had several follow-up discussions.  Several of our adult kids were able to visit us in August. We had to quarantine some of the time they were here, but it was nice to have each other to quarantine with.  Matt and Sophia and our granddaughter Penny ended up moving here to Bismarck, ND for this year as they prepare for Matt to go to Med School in fall 2021. We are loving having them in the same town. This consistent time with our granddaughter is priceless!     Thanks so much for your prayers and support! We could not answer this call without you!   Jana Give Now