GARRETT GAZETTE

SIM USA | P.O. Box 7900 | Charlotte NC 28241-7900 | 1.800.521.6449 | http://www.sim.orgCorey & Katie Garrett | BP 100 | 24600 Kaffrine | Senegal | corey.garrett@sim.org | https://coreyandkatie.org

Bold WitnessYesterday, one of the high school girls in the Kaffrine

Scholarship Project came by our house to turn in some re-ceipts and she mentioned that her set of the 52 chronolog-ical Bible stories is missing a few booklets. She also showed me her copy of Genesis in Wolof which she had in her back-pack, saying that the other girls at school were finding the Wolof too difficult to read. Could she have another set of the 52 booklets (which are summaries of the Bible stories written in easier Wolof)? Of course!

Later, my mind kept going back to this. This young woman is bringing the Wolof Bible to the public high school and actively reading it with other students. There are only a handful of Christians at the large public high school with the overwhelming ma-jority of teachers and students belonging to the dominant religion, Islam. It is not an easy environment in which to start Bible studies! This is one brave girl!

She is quiet when she is around us, and when she comes to our house, she never stays long. She is still just a teenager and has not yet been bap-tized. But there are two other teenage girls who have been attending church with her off and on now for a while. I found out recently that she has already studied through all 52 stories with both of them! We even heard from a more talkative sibling that recently when their mother said she was going to “pay someone back” this girl was bold enough to say, “That is not what the Bible says to do.” Her family teases her, saying that all she does is read the Bible.

But she isn’t just reading it – she’s applying and sharing it, at home and at school! What an encouragement to me!

I don’t think anyone has ever said about me, “All she does is read the Bible.” May each of us be as captivated by God’s Word and as bold and eager to share it, “for God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.” (2 Timothy 1:7) Praise the Lord for this young student evangelist! Pray that through her many more Wolof young people will have an opportunity to read the Bible and find the Way of salvation through faith in Jesus. Home in Flux

We are about to complete this 5-year term and we are ready for a furlough! Corey and I are thrilled to be going

home to the States soon! But for our kids, Kaffrine is real-ly home. So it makes sense that they have very different emo-tions about our fam-ily’s pending trip to the foreign country of America, includ-ing anxiety and grief. Our organization has done a good job of educating us about this, so we under-stand this is nor-mal for TCK’s (Third Culture Kids = kids growing up in a dif-ferent country from the one their parents grew up in). But it is a challenge to navigate so many varied and

intense emotions as the seven of us prepare

to leave Kaffrine. Please be in prayer for us through this transition, as well as later transitions looming ahead.

If you read our Prayer Log*, you already know that af-ter 18 years living here in the rural town of Kaffrine and ministering in the surrounding villages, we are preparing to make a big change. With our SIM leadership team’s approval, we are planning to move to the capital city of Dakar when we return from our upcoming home assign-ment.

Corey & Katie Garrett Serving with SIM in Senegal Spring 2021

Family picture during the girls’ last days in Kaffrine over Easter break. We are in the tree house Corey and Emma built for the boys.

* Email us to be added to the Prayer Log email list.

Garrett Gazette Spring 2021

Why are we moving to Dakar?Our boys’ educational/social needs and related support

is one of the major factors in this decision. We are planning to live near Dakar Academy and are looking forward to hav-ing access to the many great resources available there.

But we also both feel strongly led by the Lord that it is time for us to make this move. We are excited about what God is doing in Kaffrine through the local believers and we know that He will continue to build His church here after we leave just as He began His work here long before we came. What will you do in Dakar?

The social media Wolof outreach Corey is a part of is just being launched now. This ministry has the potential to reach 4 million Wolof people online and connect them with local believers offline to do in-person Bible studies wher-ever they live in Senegal. He can continue his work on this project even while we are in the US and after we move to Dakar. He will also be able to continue with his develop-ment and support of the different Wolof Bible apps. And once the full Wolof Bible translation is completed, Corey will have the privilege of typesetting it and helping get it printed and distributed.

Katie did her student teaching at Dakar Academy, the Christian school our girls have attended, back in 1997 be-fore we were married and she has had a life-long love of teaching so she is hoping to be able to teach at the school.

We will also seek to get involved in a local Senegalese church and see how we can partner with the other mem-bers of the SIM Dakar team and other believers to share the Good News with Wolof people in Dakar. We have be-gun to talk with some folks about partnering in an outreach in a poorer area of Dakar.

Travel PlansWe will be in the US for a whole year, so hopefully we

will be able to reconnect with many of you soon! We are humbled by your faithful support and prayers and it will be a great joy for us if we get to see you face to face. It is always so encouraging when we get to share a meal and swap stories about how God has been working on both sides of the ocean since we were last together. Please let us know if you want to get together while we are in your area. Here is a rough outline of our summer plans:June 10 Molly’s High School graduationJune 14 Fly to USJune 15-19 In ConnecticutJun 20-Jul 2 Adoption-related counseling, MN July 3-11 In MaineJuly 12 bring Molly to Coast Guard AcademyJuly 17-19 Grace Community Church in Lima, OHJuly 19-24 in ChicagoJuly 24-26 in IowaJuly 26-28 in Loveland, OH (Pleasant Ridge Baptist

Church)Jul 29-Aug 5 at SIM headquarters in Charlotte, NCAugust 5-10 in Asheville, NC August 10-12 bring Emma to Union University in Jack-

son, TNAugust 13 in Pfafftown, NCAugust 14-15 in Ashburn VAAugust 16 return to Simsbury, CT for the start of the

school year

Prayer points• Pray for the believers in Kaffrine: for bold witness, strong faith, and the Lord’s provision for all their needs• Pray for the seekers we have been doing Bible studies with. It is hard to leave them! We ask the Lord to continue to

draw them to a saving knowledge of Him.• Pray for the new online ministry to reach many Wolof with the Good News!• Pray for our family, especially our kids, as we go through these giant transitions. Pray for Emma and Molly as they each

begin a completely new life in the US.

Dakar is 155 miles away from Kaffrine, which normally takes about 4-5 hours driving. Kaffrine is a rural town surrounded by peanut fields dot-ted with villages. Dakar is a bustling metropolis of 4 million people. Traf-fic jams in Kaffine happen when horse carts have to wait for a herd of cows to cross the street. In Dakar traffic jams are a constant reality - it can sometimes take hours to go just a couple of miles. The temperature in Kaffrine gets above 100 most days but in Dakar it hovers between 70 and 80 degrees for most of the year. Since 2013, we have often been the only cross-cultural workers in Kaffrine, while in Dakar there is a significant international community of Christians. These are just a few of the differ-ences our family will experience when we transition to life in the capital.

Kaffrine

SENEGAL

Dakar