BALTIMORE LIFE

exactly a week ago, we were landing on US soil, after a wonderfully long trip. 2 10 hr flights and a 22 hr layover in london. the long layover turned out to be a blessing. -thanks to Kathy Corbiere- we spent it in a charming/inexpensive little hotel in the suburb of the city right accross from a park -with such lovely cherry trees, the cherries were alllllmost ripe- and THE best breakfast i can remember ever having/ which came as a shock since we were on british territory.... i mean, i'm french come on! :)

We are absolutely BLESSED to have been able to come back to our appartment -as we left it- furnished and ready to go /the cherry on the top: a FULL refrigerator thanks to an amazing mother-in-law...!
and a car that works! The transition has just been sooo smooth. We are very thankful.

Last saturday morning I took Kezia to visit our dear Gemma at the nursing home. She remembered her from last year. When she saw the building she said: This is where she is in her bed! the pictures are from last yr, i didn't have my camera this time. I just love to watch kezia give of her joy and love to 'miss gemma' and learn to minister that way. She did give a hard time to a sweet old black lady who called her baby; kezia frowned at her and said: I'm not a baby i'm a girl! :)
Last time we had brought her a little flower to put in her hair, she glowed! and this time we braided her hair and took her out on the patio, she kept putting her hand on her chest and letting out a huge happy sigh, her eyes taking in the birds, the clouds, the trees and flowers.



We love miss gemma sooo very much...

Tomorrow we head out to West Palm Beach to visit some dear friends. The church there has been supporting us this year and we are so incredibly -once again- blessed. Pray that our car will make it, that kezia will have a special grace for the car seat-after not using one for 6 months! and for $ to cover the whole trip. We are also hoping to visit the Clearwater church and stop by some relatives' in north carolina, and the Saddlers (Rob and Sally, for those who remember them!) probably on the way back.

WE ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO THE NEXT MONTHS WITH YOU HERE IN BAL'MORE!!!!

one more WEEK on Zambian soil for this season!

Apologies for such a long time of no posting! our internet connection has been plying tricks on us....

The Zambian winter has started! So far it's around 50-55 in the mornings and evenings.... Okay this photo is not Zambia, but needless to say we were blessed to be able to purchase a space heater!
This season will continue until aug-sept then the REAAAALLY hot season hits!

Today we're looking forward to....

* FOOD FELLOWSHIP sunday (all the satellite churches gather once a month for a service and a meal together!)
* Packing the house up this week
* Eating our 'last' nshima at neighborhod 'restaurant'
* Hanging out with friends before saying bye for the summer..

Finally flying back to Lusaka on Wednesday, but here is south africa still, for another 2 days

yes we're still in South Africa! and having a little too much fun... :)

KEZIA and THANDO!




JEDIAH preaching in Nellmapius under a tent and under the rain




BRAAI night (bbq) at Jako and Joh-Ann's after a paint the house day
(we just moved in their house after staying almost a month at P Jabu and Buyi's lovely place!)

JAKO and the first batch of unbelievable meat!


JOH-ANN and her brother








LAST MONDAY was a public holiday and the Zwanes took us to a park with wild animals, the scenery alone was worth it and we also saw 3 of the big 5!

SOUTH AFRICA!!

Buyi, Rene, Thloki and Sarah after church on sunday


Sunday morning service under tents in Nelmapius, a poor area on the outskirts of Pretoria


Girls bible study night!

i can see the smoke...

sunday morning. driving to church with the armans in their zam-mobile.(please pray that they can sell it soon)
it's 8:29 and already very hot out, kind of unusual. can you believe we all 4 adults and 3 children fit!? all windows are open. we get on the main road. the girls are commenting on the huge "bus blanc" next to us. At the next light it's sitting ahead of us. when the light turns green it lets out the huggest, blackest cloud of exhaust. of course we're all too late trying to roll our windows up.
from my window i see the smoke of a thousand buses which no mechanic has ever touched...

.................................................................................
Nshima and pumkin leaves sauce. Typical Zambian meal. yummy? hmmmm.... filling definitely :)

well... have been trying to upload pictures for a while and each time i do i loose our -already weak- connection.... will have to come up with another plan.

Thank you for checking our blog. There's so much to be grateful for. Our lives these days are spent being faithful to the team schedule; getting to know the Zambians and our surroundings and learning a little nyandja here and there...

For those who don't know yet, our family is growing. Baby #2 is due august 4th, Lord willing. We will be in the States by then. And after over 2 months of serious nausea and vomiting and being confined to my bed.. i am finally getting better!!

Monday, I went with a group of ladies to accompany a bride-to-be to try her dress on. We walked deep in the heart of a... i guess you could almost call it a slum, but not as trashy or crazy, just reallly really poor. I finally felt like i was truly back in Africa. I have no pictures to show you but the whole experience was memorable. I told Sophie " I love this place, there's nothing to love but i love it." Maybe it's the familiarity of it, the memories that come with it.... Little zambian boys calling out Muzungu! muzungu! (white man) and we'd reply Mwana Mwamouna wa blacky! Little black boy! after which they'd burst out laughing :)

We got to a house, just raw cement bricks on the outside and inside. A few windows but none were open. You could barely see your way to the main room where we were led. There was sitting a widow and her daughter making favors for a wedding in a room so dark it took us a while to adjust. We had been told they also have wedding dresses for rent. With much effort a window was opened and some light poured into the room, lace curtains were draped over the walls all around the room, a tv entertainment center covered with their little confections intended to support a family of many children with a dad recently passed away. Our precious Devote, a lovely lady from Burundi getting married next sunday and who speaks not a word of english and barely of nyandja, tried a few dresses on and finally one was the right one. The price was way beyond her budget but upon learning we were all either missionaries or pastor's wives etc, the owner gave us a much more affordable price.
On the way back to where our car was parked, we bought some bananas and boiled cassava on a little market, walked by a carpenter's shop busy making multi-plugs out of wood (save for the cord of course), heard the noise of many hammers beating the heck out of huge old metal containers - to turn them into who knows what creative thing-, almost gagged passing by those aweful dried caterpillars (they are supposedly delicious, but I will never know)and laughed at Justina's reply to a very insistant young bus driver...

We're excited about Devote and P. Victor's wedding next week end! a great missions minded couple.

until next time...!

Through gates of splendor....

I just re-read Elisabeth Elliot's account of her husband's and 4 other men's massacre in her first book Through Gates of Splendor. As motivating and insightful and powerful as the story is, it was her comments written decades later at the end of the book that struck me this time.

Referring to God's conversation with Job, she wrote:
"On and on the unanswerable questions went, overwhelming the man on the ash heap with proofs of divine control, origin, generation, legislation, authority and wisdom. Job's only reply was that he had none."

There is a weakness in our faith when we measure God in a situation and imagine the only "fair" outcome that would make sense of our trials. The only way the murder of the 5 young missionaries (all married with children) could make sense in our understanding of God's dealings with men would be for a revival among the people that killed them to take place.
There wasn't one.


"Where were you when i laid the earth's foundations?"

She goes on to write: "For us widows the question as to why the men who had trusted God to be both shield and defender should be allowed to be speared to death was not one that could be smoothly answered in 1956 nor silenced in 1996. God did not answer Job's question either. Job was living in a mystery-THE MYSTERY OF THE SOVEREIGN PURPOSE OF GOD-and the questions that rose out of the depths of that mystery were answered only by a deeper mystery, that of God Himself."

Praize God their death sent a wave of missionary revival around the world to a certain degree but even beyond that, praize God for their widows who lived the verse
"Though he slays me I will trust Him."

4 DOORS DOWN

JUST heard from owner that he's agreeing for the price we asked! now we'll just have to settle the rest of the details.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS and Merry Christmas!

UPDATE

HOUSING:
Well... so far nothing specific has come out -long story- BUT a couple days ago the owner of a 'cottage' (smaller house behing bigger house, called servant quarters back in the day) just a few houses from the armans knocked on our door. We are scheduled to go look at it this morning... The location is even better!! I hope the price is great too! They even have a chicken coop in the back :)

WEATHER:
We are finally getting a break from the rain after 2 weeks of almost constant rain. Heat is also back but it's been staying in the low to mid-80s. Zambia is generally on the cooler side and has even been named the 'air conditioned african country'!

HEALTH:
A few of us are a little under the weather, some with chiki (diarrhea) others with nausea and callia and poema with a cough. Life goes on, P Chris made everybody French Toast on this beautiful day off (As Fridays are on Zambia Team) Right now the girls are playing outside and the parents are catching up on the net -thanks to neighbors internet connection which we can connect to every now and then!

VISITORS:
Julie's mom is here visiting for a few weeks!

CHURCH LIFE:
We are getting more involved with visiting church members, it's quite something to see people in their environments. Last week, Julie, Sophie and I visited a precious church member who through tears told us she was once married and had been recently tested positive for HIV. Her frail body and constant sicknesses testified to the horror of the facts... In Zambia, 1 out of 5 people have AIDS and the ratio is even higher in urban areas...
Imagine; life expectancy is 33.