Don and Elizabeth are beginning their seventh year of working in Pemba, Mozambique alongside a large group of missionaries and Mozambicans serving there.

"It has been a joy to see the impact of the opening of the wonderful new church and community centre building at our Mieze project. Sunday church attendance has increased from 300 to over 700 on a regular basis in the past eight months, and every Sunday new families come forward to receive the Lord.

Don and Elizabeth have now completed five years of fulltime service with Iris in Pemba…making them the longest serving missionaries there currently apart from Heidi and Rolland themselves. (They were also fulltime missionaries at the Zimpeto Base in 2002 and have been part of Iris since 1999.)

"We were grateful to be able to be in Canada in October for the birth of our beautiful new granddaughter, Zoe. She is sister to Evan who is now nearly 6 and Jonah, 3.

Don and Elizabeth are completing 4 years of service with Heidi and Iris in Pemba...in addition to previously serving with Iris in Zimpeto. And their current commitment remains “open-ended: as long as the Lord, Iris, and our supporting churches and family enable us to continue serving fruitfully...!”

Don and Elizabeth continue to be part of Heidi’s administrative and leadership team at the Pemba Base. Elizabeth also has a wider perspective in Iris as coordinator of the Long-Term Placement Committee; and Don’s involvement in the Mieze and Noviane village projects also gives him a development focus beyond the Pemba Base.

The “Mieze Model” we were developing throughout 2007 is now running wonderfully. Built around a vibrant Iris village church, this prototype includes aood program for orphans and vulnerable village children, on-going medical care for villagers, creation of a children’s playground and soccer field, provision of potable water, a program to get more village children into school, building an orphan-village (“Village of Love”), and development of chicken, goat and vegetable farming projects to help support the orphan village.

During the past several months, Don and Elizabeth observed a couple of notable personal milestones. Don received his doctorate in leadership and renewal from Regent University in Virginia; and we celebrated our 40^th wedding anniversary.

In addition to growing responsibilities in their respective leadership roles at the Pemba Base—that of Associate Director for Don and Long-Term Placement for Elizabeth—the Kantels have found ourselves increasingly focused on facilitating medical ministry and outreach in the region and on model development projects in the nearby village of Mieze.

The Pemba Base continues to expand in size and complexity. We now have over 175 children living here. The 150 Missions School students have just left, but planning is already well along for the next school beginning in October. A new group of student-pastors has begun Bible school classes this week. And our number of visitors at Pemba is more than double last year’s figures (averaging 30-40/month). We also have 450 children attending our newly opened Christian primary school.