Latest Newsletter

To All Family and Friends

Praise be to Him! I think every day to myself, "You,You are the one
who is in control, who is taking care of Your children." This
frequently comes to mind anytime I am in a car or near the road. It
feels as if Jesus has just been sending me love note. Due to my
frequent feeling of helplessness, I have been forced to stress and do
things on my own or turn to Him in such a different way. As school
has finished, I have struggled with sadness due to the loss of a few
staff that will be leaving along with students. Even though it is a
Christian school, a relationship with Jesus is not a prerequisite for
parents or students in order to attend RFIS. Some students are
Christian; however, their parents are not. As a few of the students
leave, I pray that they will truly see the light of Christ through the
community of students and teachers.

We will be meeting with Peggy about what she has been coordinating for
summer village teams. I think there are 3 options, so we are seeking
direction as to where we will spend a few weeks serving. It has been
really amazing hearing many different missionary parents share about
how they are reaching people with God’s Word here. There have been
different missionaries who use audio recordings of scriptures when
they are working with language groups who are from oral cultures along
with writing God’s Word in their own language. One of the parents of
our students shared how they had been working on translation and often
would read back what they had translated, and the language helper
would fall asleep. So one day he decided to read a translated passage
in cultural fashion, the way the people group actually tells true
stories. They were so excited to hear God’s Word in their own language
and storytelling form.

The plans for next year - we will no longer have our school counselor,
so Mark has been asked to join a group of staff and students to insure
that students will have someone to talk to. That being said, it is
crazy to think we have been here 4 months! That’s the longest I think
either of us has been away from The States, but time here has gone
quickly.

Just as we are finishing this newsletter, we have finalized plans for
moving into another missionary family's house while they are on
furlough until January 2012. We are very excited because we had begun
to look into housing options outside of our mission organization’s
housing. We began this for two reasons: the first was we heard we
could save money by moving into the local community, and the second
was to join the surrounding local community and to live by
Cameroonians. We found this opportunity with the Gaults as they are
missionaries that just left for 7 months to help their daughter that
just graduated from RFIS settle into college. As we mention below, we
hope that this can help extend our stay with the combination of a few
more monthly financial partnerships.

Fundraising update
We have approximately 85% of our full support for our original 2-year
assignment, but to stay the additional 4 months they have asked of us
we currently are only at 70%. Please pray and share with your family
and friends so that we would have enough support to stay until June
2013.

Praises
That staff and students have survived another school year!That transition in Cameroon feels completeFinding housing that allows us to save money

Prayer Requests
Decision on where to serve for a couple weeks during the summerSafe travel for staff that are flying home for the summer or leaving Cameroon for goodSmooth transition for all the staff and students that are not
returning to CameroonMoving into the neighborhood - for safety and to bless othersJoy and Peace in Christ,
Mark and Leah Janowiak

Email Newsletter January 2011

Happy New Year Friends and Family!

So much has happened in the last couple weeks. I wanted to start with a great thanks to all of you for your prayers this past year! God has blessed us, grown and stretched Leah and I over the last year. We have seen God taking us from calling us to Cameroon all the way to giving us the green light to depart for Cameroon. All the encouragement, all the blessings, and seeing God work in our lives week after week has been a truly amazing experience over the last year. We look forward to this next year as we depart for Cameroon and enter the mission field! We look forward to the ways in which God will blow our minds as we works in us and through us in Cameroon. Thanks for all your prayers and donations in this past year and into this year as together with Christ they encourage and make it possible for us to leave for Cameroon.

This newsletter is coming a few days late as Leah and I have both been struck with a strong flu the last few days. We feel blessed that we didn't have to go to the hospital, but we both wondered since we did not have health to take care of each other. We are very thankful we are feeling somewhat better. God gave us each strength at different times to take care of each other and had the kindness of a friend.

We wanted to quickly fill you in on the past couple weeks:
The week of Christmas Mark got his gift he was praying for. Plane tickets! Our fly out date is February 2nd from Detroit.
We filled out our visa application and mailed it in Monday after Christmas.
Figured out our housing with Wycliffe in Cameroon.
Set our move out date at the apartment, our last day in Jackson will be Jan 22nd.
Made plans to see family and friends.
Started packing up our apartment.

When we decided to take the plunge and set a date, buying tickets and sending in our visa had been a difficult, yet easy choice to make. We were not quite where we wanted to be with funding and it was scary not wanting to make the wrong choice. I kept reading all these crazy stories in the Bible, how God asked people to do these outrageous things so He could be glorified. I don't know if you ever read one of these sections and find yourself humored, but I kept shaking my head saying that's crazy who would do that. After deliberation, prayer, speaking with multiple people and looking at Scripture we jumped (set a date), I am happy to report our funding jumped to 85% a few days after we made our decision. We have nothing but peace and excitement (which can get out of control at times) plus a bit of stress of getting everything done.

We have added our story to our blog and will be adding our email newsletters to the blog so that as people get added on to our email listing they can stay in the loop. As always feel free to email mrjanowiak@gmail.com or gracebyfaith711@aim.com if you have questions or interested in more information.

We will be having a going away party during the weekend of January 15 or 16th. I will get more details nailed down here in the next few days for you and will send out a quick email about this. It will be held in Jackson or Ann Arbor.

Please continue to pray with us for 2011 and opportunities to share the Gospel.

--
Peace and Joy in Christ,
Mark and Leah Janowiak

"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20