Dusty and Sherri Ellington, along with their kids, are doing cross-cultural ministry in Cairo, Egypt. Dusty, who was one of the first young scholars supported by PFR's scholarship fund for theologians-in-training, teaches at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo. As "mission co-workers" through the PC(USA), they are balancing many responsibilities -- teaching, raising kids, learning Arabic, building cross-cultural relationships -- all as servants of Jesus Christ. Below is their November 2006 update letter.
Greetings
from Cairo! We'd like to share some things that lead us to give thanks
and also a few ways we'd appreciate your continued prayers. We
are thankful to be in Egypt. We feel so grateful that Egypt has become
a place where we and
our boys are relatively happy and thriving. As a
family I think we're learning that happiness has more to do with who we're with and what we're doing, than with where we are.
We've also realized that the ministry of the seminary is a good fit for
us. We've seen relationships with Egyptian friends and colleagues
deepen, and our friendships from our international church and the boys'
school are also becoming rich and rewarding. We have friends we can
pray with, talk honestly with, and simply enjoy—and we realize these
are gifts one cannot take for granted no matter where one lives.
I
also feel grateful for my students at the seminary. They are eager,
sincere, and appreciative. Just this week one of the students in my 1
Corinthians course turned in his mid-term paper, said thank you to me
(many of the students actually thanked me for the assignment),
and told me that for twelve years he has yearned to be able to read and
interpret the Bible for himself as he has learned to do through this
course. In America we sometimes take for granted the chance to learn to
read and understand Scripture (and other books) for ourselves. But our
seminary students were generally raised to repeat back what teachers
have told them, not to read in order to understand. I feel blessed to
get to help these future pastors and leaders of churches in the Middle
East to grow in their ability to understand Scripture and discover for
themselves what God has to say. Sherri
and I also feel thankful for the progress we've made with Arabic. This
has been an answer to prayer. Sherri's been able to increase her focus
on it now that Christopher is in school, and she's also found an
excellent new teacher. I continue to give the first portion of each
lecture in Arabic, but these 15 to 30 minutes require 6 to 8 hours of
preparation. Next semester, my teaching load at the seminary will
triple, which means that my current 13 hours/week of Arabic lessons
will decrease quite a lot. This is a little bothersome, because I still
feel a need for more intensive Arabic study. Please pray that I will
keep progressing and not be discouraged because of less time to study
Arabic. A solid knowledge of the language would make a huge difference
in being able to train and encourage our students, most of whom have
very limited English. Another
way we’d like for you to pray for us is that Sherri and I would have
wisdom about when to say yes and when to say no to opportunities for
ministry. We're surrounded by much more desire and need for ministry
than we feel able to carry out. Sherri and I can get exhausted
fulfilling basic responsibilities in ministry, language learning, and
family life. Cross-cultural life and ministry are tiring. Like so many
others in ministry, we need wisdom to know what it means to take some
risks and give our lives to others while also living in a way that will
help us to stay the course in spiritual, emotional, and physical health. There
is so much more we could say. Please do pray also for the Presbyterian
Church (USA)’s continued financial ability to keep people overseas
doing ministry such as ours. Finally,
we want you to know that we plan to be on “interpretation assignment”
in America for approximately the second half of 2007. We hope to spend
chunks of time in North Carolina, Kentucky, Minnesota, and California,
and perhaps travel to other places as well. Feel free to be in touch as
we begin to make plans. We’ll be available to speak in a variety of
church settings and we want to catch up with as many of you as
possible. Grace and peace, Dustin and Sherri Ellington
As
you might guess, one of the biggest issues a family faces when doing
overseas mission service is how to make the experience a good one for
the kids. One thing that has helped us is Cairo Covenant School, where
Clayton and Christopher attend. We feel extremely grateful for it. It’s
a warm, caring, and fun place, just 5 minutes from our home. It has
about 40 kids in ten grades. It’s a wonderful Christian school with
students from many different countries. We also love the teachers and
the principal. Despite living in a city of 16 million, sometimes it
feels like we have the community experience of a small town, because
many of the teachers also attend our church and two of them even live
in our building. We'd appreciate your prayers for the school's ability
to find enough teachers long term. Please also feel free to spread the
word of this need!
Thank
you for your prayers for our safety (please keep it up!); we'd also
appreciate prayers for our health as we deal with Cairo's air
pollution. Cairo is the world’s second smokiest city, and October is
the worst month of the year, due especially to local farmers burning
rice chaff after the harvest. It was a very difficult month for most of
our family and many of our colleagues and friends. Our apartment was
quite smoky almost every evening until the wind picked up maybe around
10 AM the next day and cleared things a bit. It’s hard to describe what
it’s like not being able to get a breath of decent air. We wonder what
long-term effects the pollution may have on our health. Feel free to
see the following article on the world’s smokiest cities. It mentions
that Cairo’s air is almost 5 times smokier than Los Angeles and over 7
times worse than New York City. We appreciate your prayers. http://www.ppionline.org/ppi
Are you interested in financially supporting the ministry of the Ellingtons in Egypt?
Donations to support the Ellingtons can be made by mail or by phone. A check would be made out to Presbyterian Church (USA), and in the memo line it should say "MI910055 – Ellingtons." (The MI in the number stands for "Mission Initiative". The Ellington's funding comes from the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts and Hands).
Gifts from individuals should be sent to:
Presbyterian Church (USA)
Individual Remittance Processing
PO Box 643700
Pittsburgh, PA
15264-3700
Gifts from churches should be sent to:
Presbyterian Church (USA)
Church Remittance Processing
P.O. Box 643678
Pittsburgh, PA 15264-3678
Gifts may also be given by phone at (800) 872-3283.
I am Zack Willey and currently a student in Cairo for the semester and I've been trying to get contact info for the Ellington's as I would LOVE to have the opportunity to get in touch with missionaries and possibly even do a little missionary work myself while I am here. If you could offer any help as far as contact information for the Ellington's or any other missionaries in Egypt, I would very much appreciate it. Thank you and God Bless!
Posted by: Zack Willey | March 04, 2008 at 02:55 AM
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