A Week in Review and a Look at the Week Ahead

Another week has passed by…

Time is strange here, it seems to go by so slow, but then all of a sudden, the week is over.   I feel like most days in America are a race to the finish line and weeks pass by in a blur.  I have time here to really sit and think and reflect.  Which can be good and bad.  The problems here are so immense to me that it is just too much at times. My mind searches for solutions and there seems none to be found.  No immediate, tangible, answer to help all the people who need help here.  And that pains me.  Ever since I was little, I didn’t like seeing people hurting or sad, and I love helping people.  One time, when my little brother was going to get a spanking, I even tried to help by putting 10 pairs of underwear on him!  Ha! (love you Nate!)

So, I prayed, I asked God to give me wisdom. 

Of course, the answer is immediately clear. (James 1:5) His Son is the answer.  Love like Jesus.  That’s all I can do here.  God doesn’t expect me to adopt every orphan or give every child I see with no shoes a pair of shoes, or figure out how to change the unhealthy diet of the Zambian people, or feed every hungry person I see!  But every day, I can love like my Savior loves me, with grace and compassion.  I can read His word and see how Jesus helped those around him and try to imitate Him how He loved people.  I can take the weight off my shoulders now and trust that He is taking care of the big picture. I just need to do my part.

This past week was full of those little parts. 

Mickey started getting the field ready to plant a garden, which will hopefully help feed the students at the pre-school.  It is dry season right now and the dirt is just rocky and hard so as you can imagine, it is slow going.  Especially without American equipment!  But it is a start to the bigger problem of nutrition and hunger for these little ones. The extra cool thing about this field too is that it is right in the heart of Chongwe, so the hope is people will stop and want to learn about how to garden and farm.  A couple of boys already did, they wanted to be paid to help which obviously isn’t an option on our missionary budget, but Mickey did invite them to the youth group at the team house and they were interested in coming! He also talked to them about how even if he paid them that day, that would only help them one day, but that they were welcome to help and learn so they could farm on their own one day.  So, another small part. Praise God.

I spent a day at the pre-school getting to know the kids and what they are learning right now.  Again, one of those things that I want to just jump in and fix it all and ensure they are getting the same education the kids back in Ankeny are getting, but one thing at a time.  I need to get to know these students and let them get to know me.  I need to develop a good relationship with teacher Doreen so that we can partner together instead of her feeling like I am the American coming in and telling her how to do everything.  She is already doing a great job and I want to make sure she knows that!  I don’t think I could do what she does, the preschool goes from 8:00-4:00 every day!  Yes, you read that correctly.  That is longer than a high school students day in the states.  And she has no helper, no associate, nothing.  She teaches, feeds them lunch (there is a cook that cooks it), puts them down for nap, everything!  More on her in another blog-I am really enjoying getting to know her.  So, have I helped the pre-school in any great way yet?  No…but being there for a full day was another small part.  Praise God.

We have been having a little girl, Margaret, over here quite a bit if you are friends with me on Facebook and Instagram.  Margaret is the half-sister of Doreen, but if you ask Margaret, she will tell you Doreen is her mom.  And that’s because she is.  You see, Margaret’s mom died when she was a baby, and the dad wants nothing to do with her.  He has never even asked about her.  My heart breaks even writing that.  So, Doreen, who is only 25 years old, took her in as her child.  I asked her the other day, will you officially adopt Margaret as your own?  And the answer was an emphatic “yes”.  So cool.  I am thankful God has provided Margaret with a family member to care for her.  Well, Doreen and Margaret live in the GiveLife team house, which is literally steps from ours and Margaret just loves coming here.  I think for one, she is fascinated with our family and how we do things, and for two, my kids just treat her like a queen when she is here.  It is so cute.  They know Margaret’s story so they just want her to come play with their toys, jump on our trampoline, watch movies with us, and so forth!  It is amazing to see my kids begin to understand the world of hurt some kids have and to watch Margaret be so happy to have “siblings” for now.  So, another small part.  Praise God.

Mickey also was able to spend a lot of time with James and Moses this week (they graduated from the Gospelink Bible College and are working with GiveLife at this time) and found out from them they really want to learn how to farm.  Watson, our groundskeeper, informed us he has land that he doesn’t have money to do anything with at this time and would be happy to rent it so that Mickey has a place to teach James and Moses.  This is huge because the best way to spread the gospel here is through other Zambians and a great, effective way for Zambians to spread the gospel in Zambia is through teaching farming methods that work and using farming as a platform to talk about God.  So, Mickey may only be helping 2 guys right now, but these guys are going to go throughout the land with what they learn.  Another small part.  Praise God. 

We were also able to turn in our adoption paperwork.  I know many of you have been wondering the status on that.  The truth is, we were waiting on our container to arrive so that we would actually have our house set up before we add another child to the mix…but the container has yet to arrive and we just couldn’t wait any longer.  So, Mickey turned it in last Monday and they were actually really helpful!  And we found out there is an office in Chongwe where we can do a lot of the paperwork (awesome since Lusaka is a 45 minute drive each way).  They also told us we can self-identify, which we are really excited about.  So, one child, very soon, will have a mommy and daddy who will love and care for him the most we possibly can instead of growing up an orphan.  Another small part.  Praise God. 

Ahhhh, this was good for me to write down.  I was getting down today on how slow things were going here.  I still have that American mindset of “it all needs to happen right now!”.  God is teaching me it is all in His timing and He has the bigger picture, I am just a small part and He needs me to keep going and not worry so much. 

A little sneak peek at the week ahead:

Monday-going to Lusaka to visit the orphanage House of Moses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can you tell I am excited?  We could possibly find a child tomorrow!  Hopefully more on this really soon!  Pray God makes it clear and that He makes a way! 

Tuesday-Thursday- Mickey is going out to the bush on a camping trip for a village outreach while I hold down the homefront.  Pray they are able to speak God’s truth to the villagers and that the kids and I survive without Daddy! 

Friday-I will be back at the preschool to help.  Pray I can keep getting to know these kids and assess the needs of the school! 

All I Have Needed Thy Hand Hath Provided

It hit me this past weekend like a truck.  I was about to start swirling down the complaining spiral.  Another week had went by and still no container.  The container that we were shopping for exactly one year ago to date.  The container that we filled at the beginning of this year.  The container that left Iowa in March and arrived in Mozambique in late July.  The container that has yet to make its way here to Chongwe, Zambia.  The items on this container include a table and chairs for us to eat on, our queen bed, 2 futon sofas for our living room, 3 futon beds for the kiddos, pots/pans/utensils/plates/cups/silverware for the kitchen, toys and homeschool items for kids, blankets and pillows, and other such things that would really help make our house easier to live in and plain and simple, more homey.
As I looked around our little place this weekend, God quieted me before Him.  And a line from one of the greatest hymns of all time entered my mind: "All I have needed thy hand hath provided"...
And I realized, I don't "need" these things from the container.  God has provided me with a bed to sleep on, beds for my kids to sleep on, a little kids table for the kids to eat on, a few pots and pans as well as a few dishes and silverware.  He has provided me with food to eat, a safe place to live, clothes to wear, soap to keep clean, medicine if we are sick... He has provided abundantly more than I even think I "need".  My Jesus Calling devotional put it best: "The one thing you absolutely need is the one thing you can never lose: My presence with you."  Praising God today for always being there, for never leaving my side, for always providing, for saving my life through His work on the cross.  If that is all God had ever done for me, that is enough.  But that's the cool thing about God, He doesn't ever stop blessing us-He is too good and too caring to stop, we just have to have the right perspective and recognize the blessings instead of always thinking about what we don't have.
I told you that this would be an ongoing lesson for me this year, the complaining spiral can drown you if your perspective is off.  Watch for some coming stories of people here that are helping shape my perspective and maybe they will help you too.

  Great is Thy Faithfulness

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father;

There is no shadow of turning with Thee,

Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not,

As Thou hast been,Thou forever wilt be.

Refrain:

Great is Thy faithfulness!

Great is Thy faithfulness!

Morning by morning new mercies I see

All I have needed Thy hand hath provided

Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord unto me!

Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,

Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above;

Join with all nature in manifold witness,

To Thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love.

(Refrain)

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,

Thine own great presence to cheer and to guide;

Strength for today, and bright hope for tomorrow

Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside.

Listen to it here! Click below:

Great is Thy Faithfulness

Electricity, Water and TOMS

Over the last few weeks we have been settling into our lives in Zambia and beginning ministry.  One of the fun things about living here is the unpredictability.  The utilities here are pretty inconsistent.  The water is on, then it is off.  The power is on, then it is off.   So we put in a water tower to keep water 24/7, which the landlord kindly deducted from our rent.  Then I started noticing bad smells around the house. The problem? No P-trap.  That’s right, just a straight pipe from the shower into the sewage.  Plus we still have poor water pressure.  The problem?  I don't know really, probably just a reality of our existence here.  The other problem is that the A/C won't function correctly.  It never seemed to have enough power to run it.  The problem?  There really isn’t enough power to run it.  The entire town suffers from a lack of voltage and it likely wont run during the day until about 10 p.m.  

I know these are relatively first world problems to deal with.  We clearly did not move to Zambia to be comfortable.  I just wanted to make things easier on my family for the transition.  But God is trying to teach me a lesson in all of this.  

What is it?

As we move towards a goal of equipping the poor for a more fulfilled life, God is teaching me that it is important to remember that it is His will and not mine.  In the same way I can bring “western” or first world things like A/C or constant water and find that Africa just isn’t prepared for them, we can find ourselves in the development field bringing things that people here just don’t need or aren’t completely relevant. 

Such was the case as I was walking down Cairo Road in Lusaka the other day.  People sell all kinds of things on the streets, from airtime on cell phones to food to clothing.  I stumbled upon a few pairs of TOMS shoes.  I was like “whaaaaat!”  I couldn’t believe they sold TOMS here.  Apparently I AM as naïve as advertised.  TOMS doesn’t do business here, they donate here.  And the result was the other end of the buy one-give one being sold on the streets for something more useful.   Imagine the irony here: I almost bough a pair of TOMS for $20 on the street… the same pair that was hypothetically donated to the African selling these shoes after I purchased a pair for myself in the States. 

Sometimes people don’t really want what we have to bring.  Sometimes “the west” isn’t really best.

What kind of relief and development did Jesus do?

He was into doing acts of service no doubt.  He fed 5000, healed the sick, raised the dead, etc.  He did awesome miracles to prove his deity.  But He was also miffed when people kept coming to him for food after He fed the multitudes.  He corrected them by saying He is more than just a handout, He was a way to have life abundantly.   God wants more for people than to just receive a handout.  The billions in foreign aid and donations that have landed on this continent have done nothing to eradicate poverty.  It still exists.  There is even a micro-economy centered on handouts from the west. 

What else did Jesus do?

He invested in people, 12 people to be exact.  Only 11 panned out, but that’s not the point.  The point is that Jesus more than anything cared about people through relationships.  He was clearly relational with the disciples, cutting to the core of their existence, getting authentic and serving alongside them.  He equipped the disciples, a ragtag bunch of sinners and misfits, to spread the Gospel to literally every corner of the world.  God would rather us invest in people than projects.  What is needed here isn’t to pity the poor, but to partner with the poor.  Money shouldn’t so much be about special projects, though there is a real need to care for the widow and orphan, but rather to equip the poor through investing time and information. then they can lay claim to the abundant life that God has for them. 

What if someone told you the only thing you are capable of is trying to survive between handouts from governments or NGO’s?  Can dignity exist?  Can hope really exist?  Can you really have life abundantly? 

God is molding and purifying a vision for the long term here in Africa.  It is an exciting time. 

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.  I came that they may life and have it abundantly”  John 10:10

What’s the Latest you ask???

Sorry no posts the last week or so-another funny thing about Africa is you pay for your Internet month by month and it is just from your cell phone.  When you run out of data, that is it!  So, we waited till we needed to go to Lusaka so we could “top up” as they say here. The other major hiccup was I had my first ever case of food poisoning.  Enough said.  It was wicked and knocked me down for a few days-praise be to God for healing me of that, will be more careful next time!  But we are back online, healthy, and ready to share all the craziness happening here in Chongwe, Zambia.

As I write this, the power is out again-seems to be out more than it is on here.  They say they are working on power lines and this should stop happening sometime in November when they are finished, but we shall see about that.  I am learning African time is much different than an American timeline.  Anyways…

What have we been up to this past week?  Moving into our house!!!  So nice to finally have a space to call our own after living in the RV all summer and traveling this past month.  The bad part about it is all the work it requires-lots of fix ups to do and the need to buy and install all the appliances. This is the major load Mickey has been carrying this past week.  We are going as fast as we can but NOTHING IS SIMPLE HERE! But, I am happy to say our home is really taking shape.  We have a decent sized fridge, a nice 5 burner gas stove, and our washing machine just got put in today!  Hallelujah! You should see our pile of laundry right now-the last time we did laundry was in Livingstone almost 2 weeks ago now…and things just get filthy here.  I have my work cut out for me in the next few days since we don’t have a dryer and we have to hang dry our clothes, then iron them to kill any fleas or other bugs who may have implanted themselves into the clothes.  Fun, huh?  Praising the Lord though I will have help with this monumental task each week in the form of our newly hired housekeeper, Felista.  It is customary in Zambia for Americans to employ Zambians while living here and we are happy to provide someone with a job as well as receive some help with the household tasks.  She will be working for us Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 9 am to 2 pm.  Her jobs will be to help with laundry, sweeping/mopping, and other simple household tasks.  She came on Monday and we actually had to leave for Lusaka, so I gave her a list and man oh man, she went way above the call of duty.  Our house was spotless when we arrived home and she did things I didn’t even think to ask her to do.  I think she really wanted to impress us and she did!  We are so thankful, Josephine, Stephen and Aby’s housekeeper recommended her since we had no idea where to even begin looking for one!  Mickey and I still think it is really weird to have someone cleaning up after us, but we are hoping and praying to really make her part of our family this year and to help her feel loved and appreciated. 

Little bit more about what Mick has been up to besides trying to make our home livable-he has been playing basketball with a local youth team.  He really enjoys this as he gets exercise and he is getting to know these kids, which will hopefully lead to some open doors to disciple them to either first know Jesus as their Savior or to second deepen their walk with Him.  You should see his shiner he got this week though, whooweee!  He was also able to start our garden at our house with our gardener, Watson.  We hired him to work for us to take care of all the fruit trees (mango, lemon, pineapple, etc.!), grass, landscaping, garden, etc.  We have a HUGE yard that we share with the teamhouse and there is lots to do to keep it all growing and producing.  Can’t wait for some of those mangoes-the kids keep wanting to grab them, but they aren’t quite ready yet! He even built me my clothesline today! He is a hard worker and knows what he is doing so that is very helpful. The two guys who live in the team house right next to ours, James and Moses (recent graduates from Gospelink Bible College), also helped with the garden.  They are really interested in working with Mickey to take Farming God’s Way to nearby villages so our garden is a great opportunity to learn the method.  Mick is also doing a wonderful job helping me get acclimated, as well as spend good, quality time with the kiddos.  The kids (and I) absolutely love seeing him more and seeing him when he is not bone tired from being up all night at the fire station!

As for me, I have been homeschooling the kiddos every morning.  Working with Alea on counting (1 to 1 correspondence), the girl can count but won’t point at each object and count!  My goal for the next week is to really help her realize what she is counting. J  She is also working on coloring-yes, coloring.  I think coloring is so important and I can tell that she has improved her fine motor skills even in the last week of doing it every day. Ev is doing awesome.  He has such a creative mind.  In our writing workbook, he has to answer a question about what might happen in the picture with drawing his own picture and writing a sentence-love his sentences he comes up with.  Reading is going slow-he wants to learn, but it is hard so we are working on staying focused the WHOLE lesson.  Math comes super easy for him and for science, he gets to watch Sid the Science Kid.  Love that show.  Now don’t think that is all he does, but we are still getting set up here so haven’t really had the means or time to set up any experiments!  But today, after Sid, I put Alea down for a nap and I came out and he had made his own lever just like Sid, with his daddy’s shoes, a long piece of Styrofoam and he was launching stuff in the air when I came out!  Ha!  The rest of my day consists of making food and cleaning up food-I miss my dishwasher and garbage disposal-sigh…I know, I will survive, most of the world does, but things do take a lot longer this way!  I also get a workout in during naptime most days, then we have been heading over to the Nelms to play most afternoons.  Our yard isn’t really set up for kids yet, but the Nelms backyard is perfect for it and the kiddos just love playing all together, all though they are starting to fight like brother and sister since we have been spending so much time together!  After a little playtime, we head back to our house to make supper and have some family time.  I haven’t been able to do too much at the school yet, but hoping after we get settled a little bit more, Mickey and I can work out a routine where I can go a few days a week and meet with the teacher one night a week.  I was able to go with Aby and two other girls who are working with GiveLife to the preschool to do some major reorganization and decorating.  It was so fun-brought me right back to my setting up class days.  With money raised from a Zumbathon, GiveLife purchased some storage shelves, a fun rug, and other supplies.  I guess the teacher was just in shock when she got there the next morning-so glad we could make her smile and hopefully make going to work every day a little more cheerful.  There was one boy too who just didn’t move at first, he was just taking it all in.  LOVE IT.  I can’t wait to see when we are all done with the little renovation what they will do! 

What else?  Many people have asked about the adoption and I wish I could say we have gotten started, but we haven’t.  As you might have gathered from this post and the previous post, things are challenging here and our house needs a lot of work.  At this time, we just don’t feel ready to add another child to the mix.  We feel it is best to get a lot of this stuff squared away, like having a washing machine hooked up to do laundry, and having consistent running water, and our belongings from our container so we aren’t moving in as we are moving a new child in.  Oh yea, the container STILL ISN’T HERE.  This is like the ultimate challenge in patience for this thing.  We got an email last week that says it is coming this week for sure, but I know now, in Africa, you must see it, to believe it.  Please continue to pray it arrives soon-we can get house set up-and move on to the things that are really on our heart here.  Like the adoption. Like Farming God’s Way. Like the preschool.  We are trusting in God that He will use us here and we are continually checking ourselves to wait on Him.  You would think we would have learned by now that His timing is always best!  So, while it is frustrating to have to spend so much time on our house instead of doing the things we think we should be doing, we know that Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that in ALL things God works for the good of those who Love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” We do love Him and we know we have been called and we know we need to look for the good in ALL things.  Continue to refine us Lord and make us into who you need us to be. 

Hope that helped answer any questions you may have about what life is like here, will try and post more about that soon too.  There is never a dull moment that is for sure!  Oh, and power is back on now, and our air conditioning feels glorious!!! J 

 

Typical Zambian home

The kids love watching these ladies carry things on their heads-it is truly impressive.

Kid playing with cattle! ha!

The Complaining Spiral

A short thought this morning as I watch lots of flies, mosquitoes, and other bugs come in through my open doorway this morning.  (we moved into our humble little abode two days ago and have to replace both of the doors coming from the outside in-they were almost impossible to shut and very thin).  More on the move in later and more on why I haven’t posted about that yet later as well. 

Anyways, I digress…as I watched this happening while homeschooling the two kiddos, I found myself getting upset with the workers, being annoyed that the old door was being taken off and it was taking so long for the new door to be put on, and all of these bugs were being allowed to come right in.  But as the kids got busy with something, I decided I should do my Jesus Calling devotional real quick.  As usual, it spoke right to the core.  Today was about not letting the spiral of complaining happen.  Funny how this was just about to occur for me as this door thing was the icing on the cake as they say.

So, I prayed.  God revealed to me rather quickly what I was supposed to learn through this situation.

If they didn’t take the old door off, how could they put a new, better door on??? I could leave the old door on and not have the temporary annoyance of bugs coming in, but would then have to deal with the long term annoyance of draftiness, kids not being able to open the door, unable to lock it, ugliness, and so forth…Or I could endure the short term pain for the long term gain of a prettier, more solid, better equipped door.

So you may be thinking by now, um, duh, I could have told you this.  Yes, I know I am thick headed at times.  You also may wonder where is she going with this??? Well, God helped me to apply this life situation to my spiritual situation.

How often do we want to skip on by the hard stuff? Or complain about it the whole way through?  For example, when you want to lose weight or get in shape, you aren’t real excited about working out and you will probably whine about having to eat healthy, but you are pumped up to be healthy and fit in the end.  Or if you are saving money for something, and you are pinching pennies in the meanwhile, it is not a whole lot of fun, but worth it in the end when you reach your savings goal.  For me, right now, I am struggling to endure some of this short term stuff God has me going through.  I feel like we have been here 2 weeks now and we haven’t done much in the way of ministry or our adoption.  And why haven’t you, you might ask?  Because of these temporary annoyances that keep occurring.  Do we have our vehicle yet? Nope!  We have been given the run around I don’t know how many times-they say tomorrow we can finally have it, we shall see.  Do we have consistent running water at our new house?  Nope! Not even close.  Do we have hot water at our house? Nope! Mickey did a cold bucket shower the other night-I am thankful Aby let me shower at her house tonight. J  Does the power go out every other hour? Yep!  Does it go out right in the middle of cooking dinner or trying to get our kids to bed? Yep!  Is the container with all our beds/cookware/dinnerware/kitchen table/homeschool stuff/etc. here yet? Nope! It has been stuck in Mozambique for about 2 months now.  It made it across the ocean but can’t make it across a few countries.  Are you getting the idea?  Lots and lots of short term aggravations that are dragging me down and making it difficult to see any long term gain. 

Now, here is where you might expect me to say-I see the light now.  I know I am going to get through these things and it is going to be an amazing year of ministry here in Africa…I want it to be and I know God wants it to be-but I JUST CAN’T SEE IT YET.

So, back to the doors.  And this is why I struggle to see yet the long term good of this year…the guys finished the first door and not kidding, there is a gap the size of Texas at the bottom!  A great new solid door with a safe, nice looking lock and they didn’t cut it right so now-those bugs I was talking about earlier, well, just include small animals that now can just come on in our home.  We discuss this with them so they can do the next door better-and what do you know, they do a great job with no gap at the bottom, but wheweeee, a nice gap at the top.  Ugghhhhhh….Now, we must add some weather stripping to seal the doors up so add another thing to our list of to dos.  And it isn’t like you can just run down the street to Home Depot and grab this either! 

To wrap it up, let’s go way back to the whole spiral of complaining and what God is teaching me through all of this.  Does it ever help our situation to complain?  (I have said this to my kids a number of times-I need to say it to myself) And the answer is most definitely no.  I can take all this stuff is happening and call my parents, friends, or talk to anyone who will listen and complain about it, but this WILL NOT HELP! I really wasn’t trying to complain above either, just trying to illustrate how the spiral could occur and almost did.  (It did in my mind, and if it is in my mind, it was sure to come out of my mouth soon enough!)

So even though, I can’t see exactly how this year is going to pan out yet and I so badly want to, God help me, I don’t want to get into complaining mode.  It would be so easy to do here, because honestly, it is just a hard place to live compared to what we are used to.  Please pray for me in this as it takes every ounce of me to not get on this spiral and let me know if you want me to pray for you-if you are also on the same path towards WhiningTown.  J

Philippians 2:14

Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.