Newsflash!!!

Newsflash!!!

Our 10 day vacation to London and Budapest is over and we are on Zambian soil.  Let me tell you, that’s when it felt real.  Because it is!!! We are really here and will be here until next August.  I had all these ideas in my mind as to what it would be like here and I am finding that some thoughts were correct and some were incorrect. But one thing is for sure-it is not like America!  The plane just let us off in the middle of the airfield-no pulling right up to the building.  Right away, Evan says I don’t like the smell!  Most people burn their garbage here so there is just kind of a different smell.  We told him “you will get used to it!”  I have a feeling we will be saying that to the kids and to ourselves all year.  J 

Thankfully all our luggage arrived-we had no problems with getting our luggage the whole trip, which was a huge blessing.  Although as we grabbed it and started walking out of the airport to meet Stephen and Aby (the founders of the GiveLife Project, the organization we will be working with quite a bit), several Zambians just grabbed our stuff and started helping us to the car with it.  I thought, “how nice”!  But come to find out, they just do it without asking and then expect a payment.  Stephen told them what we would give for helping and apparently, it wasn’t enough so they all just shook their heads and left.  I have a lot to learn! 

After leaving the airport, we headed to grab some breakfast.  We weren’t too hungry since we had breakfast on the plane, but after a night of little sleep, we wanted some coffee and Stephen knew a good place.  It was a very nice little café with good service.  Next up was getting our phones hooked up.  So we headed to the mall which is attached to the major grocery stores too-nice that it is all together.  This is where we will go and be able to run all sorts of different errands.  It is actually a really nice mall-not what I was expecting.  The internet and phone packages were pretty expensive, but we obviously want to keep in touch with everyone and keep in contact with others in Give Life while we are here so you kind of just bite the bullet.  We learned you can’t just get like a contract for a year either-you have to go in every month to purchase your data/call package.  Definitely different than the States!  The grocery store was kind of a shock to the system-it was crazy busy with small aisles and Super High Prices!  I knew about that going in but once you start putting it in your cart and adding it all up-it is tough to swallow.  You can’t help but think about the feasts you would be having if you spent this much in the States or just about how much more you could get in the States for the same price.  But I know God is going to teach me a lot through this-not sure exactly the lesson yet, but I will let you know when I find out!  J 

After groceries, we headed to the village of Chongwe where we will be setting up shop this year and where Give Life and the Nelms house is.  We are staying in their guest house this week as we don’t have the container yet (this has all our beds, bedding, cookware, plates, etc.) so it would be difficult to make our home a home at this point as well as the place we are going to live still needs some work.  Our little apartment is just about ready for us though as far as the fix ups-Mickey and Stephen will work hard this week to do the final touches (some paint, new doors, window screens, buy and install appliances, etc.)

Our kiddos and the Nelms kiddos are having a blast playing together.  Their little boy is 4 and has 3 sisters so I can tell he thinks it is pretty awesome to have Ev here-they have been inseparable.  Alea is enjoying all the girls and all the girlie toys they have.  It makes my heart happy that they have friends here-they both love being around other kids.  I know it is helping them so much with the huge transition.

I am loving getting to know Aby better and am learning so much from her about all sorts of things! She is an amazing cook-so will be stealing her meal ideas for us this year.  The Nelms also brought 2 girls with them from the States to help them and to serve with Give Life-one is a 16 year old girl who homeschools (talk about a great school experience for her living here) and other is a 25 year old girl who is a teacher. Both are amazing young ladies with hearts for Christ.  They will be here for 3 months so looking forward to being great friends with them. 

We leave for Livingstone on Friday so Mickey can attend the Farming God’s Way conference.  I think this will be really helpful and informative for Mickey as he sets out to start the farming demonstration plot at the school Give Life built.  It will also be fun to meet other people from all around the world who will be attending.  The two girls who are here may come with us too so they can see Victoria Falls and go on a safari.  I hope they can come with us-it would be fun to have somebody to talk to and hang out with while Mickey is at his conference during the days! 

Anyways, that is about it for now.  We are adjusting.  We did a Bible study altogether today and discussed living in the flesh vs. living in the spirit.  The conclusion was we will not survive or thrive here in Africa if we live in our flesh.  We must choose to act in the power of the Holy Spirit and really love people, even when it is hard, when they don’t deserve it, even when they aren’t even grateful for the love. Loved having community today and time to discuss God's word with other believers-was soooooo needed.  We decided a motto for this year would be "Don't just survive, Thrive!"  Which is only possible with our great God!

Off to sleep I go-kind of different being under the mosquito net and there is this lovely rooster in someone’s yard nearby who decided to wake all of us at 6am this morning…not sure what to do about that.  He was a loud thing!  Mickey is off to Lusaka tomorrow with Stephen to see about his work permit, check on our car-it is here but we can’t pick it up without our work permit-and to buy the materials we need to work on our apartment this week.  I will be here with Aby, the girls, and the kiddos, I promised the little girls a tea party with real tea and biscuits so that should be fun.  I also get to go see the apartment tomorrow when Mickey and Stephen get back so excited about that-cool to see our “home” for the year. 

Signing off!  Good night!  (And I know, I know, I will get real with y'all soon about how I am doing with it all-but for now, just wanted to give you the details!)

Anybody else having a CRAZY busy summer???

Seriously...this summer has been crazy with a capital C!  And life is not slowing down for us anytime soon with moving to Africa and all. :)  But we have had lots of fun and below is some picture documentation of summer so far-still planning some fun for the 14 days we have left here in good ole Iowa.

Summerfest Parade with friends-we will miss this next year but can't wait to bring our new son to it the following year!

Alea before her 1st Bix race-poor little girl had the stomach flu but it was only a 70 yard race so she powered through! Atta girl!

More friends at the Summerfest parade

Ev with Daddy after his second Jr. Bix

wild man after the race

Mickey and I completed the Bix together this year since he was just getting over being sick, he slowed down for me, this is another tradition we will miss next year but look forward to it the next summer!

Had lots of special time with Uncle Nate-dawg as we call him, my kids just love this guy, why must our good-byes always be so long and so far away?

Daddy has been working on Ev and his swing a lot this summer, getting pretty good!

S'mores with Oma and Opa-trying to spend lots of fun, quality time before we leave!

Pops bday celebration

Bro and sis-they are best friends despite the little tiffs they get into

Bday celebration with daddy (does Mickey look barely awake?  that would be due to no sleep at the fire station as usual!

The pool was our second home this summer-had no idea Ev was going to turn into a little fish!

Special beach time with the besties, going to miss watching these two grow over the next year!

These two girls are just getting the hang of playing with each other, going to be great when we get back!  A Jr. Erin and  Jr. Mandey! ha!

Wedding with the cousins...what a foursome!  

Ev with his Oma

4th of July fun at Yankee Doodle Pops

Crazy pool girl

These 2 always found something interesting to do at the pool

My fish

What a doll!

Back up the Bus!!!

Ok, so this post has been a long time coming.  As all of you know by now, we are leaving for Zambia, Africa in a month to be missionaries for Jesus and to adopt a little boy into our family.  People that know me now were not much surprised at this turn of events in our lives.  People that knew me in my former life were and probably are still thinking---"she is going to be a missionary?" "did I miss something here?"  "I didn't even know she went to church!" And then after maybe the shock and confusion came questions like---"what happened?" "I wonder what would make her want to serve in Africa?"  "why is she adopting?"
Well, friends/family/acquaintances, this post is to answer all of those burning questions!
I am going to start by apologizing for not being strong enough to resist all the temptations that come in high school.  I made so many poor choices and did not reflect my Lord and Savior.  I look back and I know there are so many people I could have influenced for good-but instead I probably tainted people's view of Christians with the way I behaved.  So, for this, I am sorry!!!  I wish I could go back in time and share the love, grace, and truth of my Father with so many people.  But, I also know God does everything for a reason.  He gave me free will and He knew I would live the way I lived for a while and that someday I would return to Him full force, and the most important thing is to now share my story of redemption. So here it is:
I asked Jesus into my heart at the age of 6 years old.  I knew He loved me so much that He died for me on the cross to pay the penalty for my sins and that by trusting in Him, I could live with Him in heaven when I died.  After this, I was pretty much on fire for God, singing at the top of my lungs in the front row at church, inviting friends to Awana, going to church camp, wanting to be a missionary, got baptized, and so forth.  Then came junior high-y'all know how rough those years are!  I left my tiny Christian school and started attending the public school so I could play sports.  Not going to get into too many details, but things went downhill from here.  My desire to be liked and to be in the cool crowd outdid my desire to follow God no matter what the cost.  I am not blaming the peer pressure at all either-it was my choice to sin.  We are all given that choice everyday.  I was having fun, I was popular, and I figured I could just obey God later when it was easier and I was married with kids.  (ha!)  I was totally banking on God's grace card.  Now His grace is pretty amazing and I know He still loved me through all this and has completely forgiven and forgotten now that I have repented, but I took that grace for granted.  God says clearly in His word to not continue in sin just because of grace. 

Romans 6:1-2 
1)What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that 
grace may increase? 2)By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 

But that is how I continued to live for a while...I went on sinning...(and I still do, not perfect by any means-I just try harder to stop now because I know grace is a gift that Jesus paid the price for and to be honest, sinning just isn't that fun anymore-I WANT to obey my Father now) I digress...So when and how did things start to change?  Halfway through my freshman year at Kirkwood, I met my hubs.  I knew there was something different about him.  He wasn't really following God at that point in his life either, but I just knew that he was something special.  As we started dating and had some good conversations, we found out we both really desired a better relationship with God and wanted to get out of sin cycle we were in.  I can't say that happened over night but we got engaged, got married, and started attending our current church-Ankeny Free Church.  It was the second church we visited in Ankeny and we haven't looked back since.  The teachings were biblical, challenging, and relatable.  We were invited to be part of a small group, not knowing what a  small group was and started going to that weekly.  (if you don't know what a small group is, please ask-I would love to explain!) This group became our family and the lady leader of the group really took me under her wing.  Not that I really wanted to hear all that she had to say at the time-I thought I had things pretty well figured out!  But thankfully, she dealt with my stubbornness and spoke truth into me-helped me to understand what it really means to follow Christ and live for Him, to be a daughter of the King.  (Thanks Annette Babcock! love you!)  This was all about 7 years ago now and God has just been growing me ever since...I can't even begin to go there explaining all the things I have learned about God these past 7 years.  All I can say is I want more.  More of Him. So that hopefully explains to some of you asking the "what happened" question. 
The serving in Africa question is a slightly shorter answer.  It all started with adoption, which I will explain next, but it has so much more to do with our marriage.  If you have met my hubs, you know he is an adventure seeker.  He is a firefighter for crying out loud, he actually wants to run into a burning building when everyone else is running out.  You also should know the man loves to travel and see the world.  He gets seriously cranky when he hasn't been out of the country for a while.  And lastly, he really enjoys helping people and teaching people something he is knowledgeable about. (God and Farming!)
So what does this have to do with why I am serving in Africa?  Simply put, I love my husband.  This is his dream, to have a family adventure, to live on a different continent, to help people with something that he is really good at, and to bring people to relationship with God.  So when I brought up adoption and he brought up adopting from Africa-even though adopting from pretty much anywhere else would require much less work and us not moving away for a year-I knew this was God giving me an opportunity to support my husband in his dream.  I am not always great at being submissive to my husband like the Bible commands (like I said before, not perfect!), but surprisingly this decision came pretty easily.  We both felt like God really wanted us in Africa for a year.  
Finally, why is she adopting?  GOD TOLD ME TO. Not lying.  I felt His still small voice and I couldn't ignore it.  Believe me, I wanted to at times.  Life would be much easier with just my two.  But as I said above, my desire is now for God...I want to please Him in all I do and when He asks me to do something, I try to do it.  After I said yes to God, it is cool how He has and continues to show me the "why".  1st, I love how it opens up doors.  When you say you are moving to Africa for a year and you are adopting, it starts some great conversations where you get to share your faith.  Love it.  2nd, the more I read in the Bible about orphans, the more I understand the job God has given us believers in caring for them.  3rd, I can't wait to explain to this child that he now has a mommy and a daddy who will love and care for him like he is our own.  More importantly, I can't wait to explain that our love for him grows out of our love for our Father in heaven and for our child to see that Jesus loves him.  4th, I am excited for the opportunity this gives my biological children.  For them to be a part of God's word in action...

Psalms 68:5-6 Father to the fatherless, defender of widows — this is God, whose dwelling is holy. God places the lonely in families.

I know they will learn tolerance, patience, understanding, kindness, love in taking someone into our family and making them a part of us.  5th, I am excited for what I will learn through this-for how God will work on my heart to be more like Him, to love more like Him.  
I know adoption won't be easy-there will be many ups and downs, but I know if I keep these reasons written on my heart, God will be glorified and our family will be blessed.  

So there you have it, thanks for reading this super long post-I tried to keep it short and sweet but it just didn't happen!  :)   I hope this answered some of those questions roaming in your mind, but if you have any more questions or just need someone to talk to about anything you are wrestling with in your life, please don't hesitate to contact me via text, phone call, email, whatever! I would love to help.  God Bless!  

Summer Camp at our Besties!

As y'all know, we are staying in Oma and Opa's (my in-laws) motor home for the remainder of our time here before we leave for Africa. I swear Mickey and I are planning on showing our "crib" in a video soon, just need to find the time!
But last weekend, Mickey's sister had promised some friends a while back they could all ride in the RV to a summer fair/concert so we had to pack up and move on out for the weekend.  It was a lot of work and poor Mickey had to drive back and forth twice to the farm in 2 days, but we did get the pleasure of staying at Camp Port, and that made it all worth it!
They were the most generous and kind hosts, making us feel right at home, cooking a great meal, having a movie night for grownups, allowing us to take over the laundry machines, making yummy coffee and croissants in the morning, and the list could go on...My best friend Erin is truly the hostess with the mostess!  And I love how both her and Scott feel like God has blessed them with a large, beautiful home and they are to open it up and use it for His glory.  They certainly did that last weekend. So thank you Ports!  Oh and thank you to Grandma Wetherbee for getting Vera the pink convertible-the boys and Alea LOVED driving it all weekend! Evan keeps asking when he can go back and drive the pink car. :)
Here are some pics of all the fun we had!

The huge stuffed bear from Auntie Ellen was a hit with all the kids!  

Wish Alea would have stayed in her cozy spot, but alas she thought the bed with mom and dad was much better...haha.

Tucking the boys in for their first sleepover together

The infamous pink car where they spent the majority of their time

I might be biased, but these are two pretty cute little girls!

I adore this little girl-she is such a bright light

Up and down the sidewalk they went, actually taking turns pretty nicely since only two can fit!

Our yummy dinner-thanks Erin and Scott!

I brought stuff to make S'mores trail mix-it was a hit!

And more car driving...I kept fast forwarding about 12 years when these two are actually driving around together in a real  car!-Ahhhh!

Summerfest 2013

Best day yet for the Ankeny Summerfest parade since we have lived here!  Normally, it is about 95 degrees and we are all sweating and trying to keep hydrated and keep kids from getting sunburnt...so when we arrived to our spot (set up by the wonderful Scott Port-thank you!) and it was about 70 degrees and cloudy-we were thanking God for a beautiful day to enjoy the parade with our kids.  Mickey was working this year so he missed out-but me and the kiddos had a ton of fun and got lots of unneeded candy.
For those of you who don't know, the Ankeny parade is like PARADE EXTRAVAGANZA! Before we moved here, we had never seen anything like it.  The whole thing goes for 2 and half hours and just about every business and organization in Ankeny participates.
We will surely miss it next summer while we are in Africa, but will be excited to bring our new child to it the following summer-I can just picture the look on his face when he experiences the fun for the first time!  Brings a smile to my face...

Here are some pics of the awesome morning spent with great friends---

Best buds-these 4 love hanging out together

Love how one little friend of ours sits back and kind of just watches all the crazy kids!  

Friends of ours enjoying the parade

More of Evan and Alea's buddies-the Whitaker kiddos!

Alea quickly learned what parade means this year-candy!

Ev was on a mission to fill that bag!

Our MOPS group participated this year-love all these mommas!

Future couple?  Only time will tell...:)

Party Time: The 1st of Many Goodbyes

The time is drawing near for us to go and it was a holiday weekend when many people had a day off or two, so my mother in law threw us a fabulous going away party at the farm.  It was sad and happy all at the same time.  There was swimming, lounging, 4-wheeling, visiting, and food.  Did I mention the food?  Wowza.  I kept justifying trying all the desserts since they probably won't have it in Zambia.  I have been doing that a lot lately-at this rate-I will gain 20 pounds before we leave in month and a half! haha!
Anyways, back to the topic at hand. Truly a great time was had.  The cousins loved all being together and we really enjoyed all the love poured out to us and time spent just talking.  The extra special treat was the Stolzers were there (Mickey's cousins from Omaha who are now living in Canada for a few years).  We are incredibly thankful they made the extra effort to be there.  And we are thankful to all who came-you made our day and we will miss you so much!
Last, but not least, thanks to the awesome host, my in-laws.  It was all put together wonderfully.  They even got a cake made and it had little African animals on it!
Here are some pics of all the fun:

Our yummy delicious cake with African animals (yes, farewell is misspelled-everyone makes mistakes! haha!)

Mickey was first to dig into the cake of course!

The outdoor scene-everyone enjoying their food

Opa and my little niece Chloe

Miss Alea-she was my in and out of the pool girl all day and quite attached to mommy!  

The pool scene!

Aunt Cari with Alea and cousin Brandi with Caden and Chloe

Family enjoying conversation

Sis in law Cari with her daughter Chloe

Uncle Casey with Ev (Ev spent about 5 hours straight in this pool-couldn't believe it! He was just having so much fun!)

Ev with cousin Chris and Sophie

 

Love this Iowa landscape with kiddos enjoying the 4-wheeler