Dear Mom,

….. Am here in Arusha for the quarterly meetings again. The second set of two boxes arrived, so I have received four boxes in all in the last month. Thank you for the jeans, shirts, socks and boots. The town pants and shirt are really nice. I wore them for the first time last night when a few of us went out to dinner. Thanks a lot for all the trouble you took to send the clothes. I’m the best dressed missionary in the diocese.

There is something which I haven’t mentioned because there has been no certainty about it up to now. The one American, Ed Kelly, on the team opening up our work in southern Ethiopia is an older man and because of health will not be able to carry on any longer there, so needs a replacement. It seems best that we send someone from here who has had some experience with evangelization, since we are just beginning there. The actual work has not started yet – water only just gotten and the house still in the process of being built. At any rate, I’m the logical choice at this time and Vince Stegman will follow me at the beginning of next year. We will join the two Dutchmen already there. Eef Naus was with us in Maasailand for a while and the other also used to be here in Tanzania, but in another Diocese.

So I will be going back to Kijungu to pick up my stuff and returning here to Arusha in about ten days. From here I will go to Ethiopia where I will stay a couple of weeks to look things over and get a chance to talk to Ed Kelly. Then I will come home, stateside, for a couple of months. So tentatively I’ll be home in a month or six weeks. The decision was finalized this afternoon and I want to get this letter off to you right away…..
Love,

Ned