Christmas Blessing

Merry Christmas from the KINLAWS!

We are very excited to share with you that on Friday, December 12, our adoption of Grace Joy Kinlaw was approved in the High Court of Tanzania! We thank the Lord first of all, as He has sustained us through this almost 2 year process which included close to a whole year to get approved, a 6 month fostering period, and then the 3 month court process. We also thank all of you who prayed with us through this journey! What a picture of "GRACE", to be abandoned at birth in a muddy rice field at night, to be found, rescued, and placed into a loving family. This is our Christmas blessing :)

Many have asked about the remaining process for Grace to get her US citizenship. We wish it was going to be easier on the US side of things, but unfortunately it is not. Grace will need to live in our home for a period of 2 years before she will be elidgible for US citizenship. She is half way there as she began living with us in January 2025.

These are the next steps for the whole family being able to travel back to the US in March, and also items for prayer if you would like to be praying with us:

1. Apply for the "Adoption Certificate" which will replace the birth certificate, showing her new name.

2. Apply for Tanzanian passport (Adoption certificate needed for this step)

3. Apply for tourist visa at the US Embassy in Dar Es Salaam (TZ passport needed for this step)

We are praying and hopeful we can get through these steps before March, but we will have to wait and see how things go.

In the busy-ness of the last several weeks, I forgot to mention that Jennifer and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary back on November 4th! We were able to get out to a nice restaurant in town, and have a nice evening together to celebrate. What a joy it is to serve the Lord together, and to look back at how faithful God has been to us!

This picture is a few years old, but we dont have many pictures of these two together! Isaac turned 18 on November 19, and Sam turned 13 on December 11! Together with Elaina (17 in January!), we now have 3 teenagers in the house.... and an almost 2 year old! Crazy times.

Emmaus is winding down here at the end of the year as we have our last village trip scheduled for this Friday. We are continuing to see steady growth and consistency in this ministry. I just received a batch of exams from the local prison, another batch from a fellow missionary who has a medical ministry in the south, and the maktaba continues to have students come and go from that location.

The village trip requires lots of good record keeping,and preparation as we need to bring several of each study course with us, and have prepared certificates for the students. Good communication is also necessary as we coordinate stops in each village. Together in all, we continue to have over 300 active students in Emmaus in Kigoma, and the surrounding villages. There is opportunity to massively expand this ministry into other villages and areas as we get invites regularly, but as the Scripture says, "The harvest is great, but the laborers are few. PRAY the Lord of the harvest to send laborerss into His harvest."

The road in and out of Camp Nuru is always interesting. "Traffic" looks a little different in this area! It seems it is either cattle or water filling the road these days. We just had a big rain that almost destroyed our bridge, as the water cut around on both sides of the bridge.

The battle is real, pray for us as we work hard to keep this road functioning so we can get materials in to keep building the camp. We paused the work in November to make some needed changes, and the Lord has been so good in showing us the way forward through prayer and daily seeking Him. We replaced the security guards, replaced the contractor, and dug a well for water to help with the work, and have started the work again on another section of wall. We have the right people in the right places right now, and we are seeing progress. Of coursse, once the enemy is pushed out in one area, he attacks in another (destructive rain).

We are in the process of building this 60 meter section of wall right now.

Everything is done with man power, not machines... EVERYTHING.

The chapel in Kizenga is continuing to go well. We had over 80 children at Sunday School yesterday, and 10-12 adults for the main meetings. This is typical in the village, but we are continuing to seek to grow in the Word, and in numbers as the Lord leads. We will have a special Christmas Sunday next Sunday, Dec. 21st with games, a gift bag, and a Christmas message for the kids. It should be a fun Sunday together :)

Jennifer is preparing for a final exam on her pharmachology course as she continues pursuing her masters in midwifery. She would appreciate your prayers as she has to take this final exam by Thursday of this week.

Our children are all working hard this week, taking exams and finishing assignments to finish the semester before the Christmas break. We are all looking forward to a few days off after Christmas!

We are trusting the Lord to open the way for us to get through these remaining steps over the next month or two so we can all come back in March to the US together. If things delay, John will come back with Sam and Katie for a short visit and to speak at the 26Below CMML conference in NC on the last weekend of March. We will see how the Lord works these things out for us :)

We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!

Thank you for your prayers and support as we serve the Lord in Tanzania!

~ The Kinlaws

Prayer Requests:

• Please pray for the remaining steps to enable us to travel as a family back to the US. (Adoption Certificate, TZ passport, US tourist visa).

• Please pray for the ongoing work at Camp Nuru, specifically for continued progress and for the road to stay open and functioning. We need rain, but not massive, sudden rain storms which are so destructive.

• Pray for more faithful workers to help with Emmaus.

• Please pray for Jennifer as she prepares and takes her final exam this Thursday.

• Please pray for our children as they complete their exams and assignments to finish the semester before Christmas break.