A Fun Break!!!

These last few weeks have gone by so fast. We have all enjoyed Zach being at home on his break. We have gone to some fun places, hung out here at the house, and enjoyed each others company. Of course, we are sad to see him leave tomorrow. Please pray for him as he travels back to Kenya tomorrow and for us all as we adjust to being apart again. Kevin and I will be going to a meeting in Nairobi in a couple of weeks so we will get to spend the weekend with him then. Thank you so much for your prayers!


One day we went to the Crocodile Farm which we have been to many times but this was the first time we got to touch a crocodile.

Sometimes they just lay all over each other but they don't seem to mind.

One day we went out to Ibis Gardens to take care of some stuff for 40/40 and then had some family fun! There is a lot of pavement there so Hannah took her bike and the boys took their scooters.

Riding on the pavement just wasn't exciting enough for the boys so they rode their scooters into the water. (Of course with permission from the owners)

Yum! Ice Cream!

During his break, Zach made a swing in our yard. The kids have really enjoyed it.

How can a little girl be tomboyish and....

prissy, all at the same time?

Take up your Cross

"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." Luke 9: 23

Amai Banda is the woman I wrote about last month that has diabetes and has had one of her legs cut off at the knee. She walks with crutches if she needs to move around but mostly she sits. Last week I went to visit with her and she seems to be doing better, eating right, and taking her medicine once again. She asked if I could take her to the meeting that day so I did. On the way home that day she asked if I had time each week could I come and get her so she could go the women's meeting. She said she was very encouraged after being there that afternoon. You see, she is not able to go to church on Sundays because it is so far away and also because it is up two flights of steps. I agreed that if I had time I would pick her up. Well, on Thursday I was running late because of another stop(see story on Amai Nkoma below). So, I was thinking I just did not have time and maybe next week I would leave earlier. As I approached the road to go to Amai Banda's she was at the end of the road in a wheel chair and dressed in her purple attire. That is what the Baptist women wear to their meeting. Anyway, I pulled over to collect her. She was so excited that I had stopped. She had asked someone to push her 1 1/2 kms in a wheel chair partly on a dirt road so she would be out at the main road when I passed by.
Then at Chainda II there were several visitors from the local village. I was a little late arriving there so I had not seen everyone come in. At the end of the service as we are about to all file out and shake hands I turned around and saw one of the visitors crawling out of the church all the way to her hut which was about 50 feet away. There didn't appear to be anything wrong with her legs but obviously there was. I'm assuming she crawled in too.
Can you imagine?? Both of these women wanted to go to church pretty badly to be pushed in a wheel chair and to crawl to get to church. I can hardly even write this without tears coming to my eyes. Don't you know how that pleases our Father! One day, Amai Banda will enter into Heaven walking to meet Jesus. I'm not sure about this other woman whether she is a believer or not. As far as I know she hasn't ever been to the church even though her hut is so close. Pray that this woman would know Jesus if she doesn't all ready. Pray she will find the one she may be searching for. Pray that one day she will also walk to enter into heaven like Amai Banda.
As I thought about these two women on into the night and for the last several days I asked myself to what extreme I would go to if I was in a similar situation. Would I humble myself and crawl to church if need be? What about you? How much do we really love Jesus??

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!" Galatians 2:20-21

Prayer Walking Continued

At Chainda II we continued our lesson on Prayer Walking. This time we used our left hand to demonstrate 5 different places you could go to do prayer walking. I was just going to use my fingers this time because I didn't know of any hand signals. Then I had the idea of letting them make up some hand signals that went along with each one. They did a great job and it was fun.
I'm going to list the 5 places to go and then a prayer request for each.

1-Places of Government/chief/headman.
Pray that places of government would rule their people with justice and righteousness. Ask God to bring salvation to those in authority.

2-Places of Education.
Pray that God would transform the hearts of the teachers to turn to God. Pray for the children in the schools to get a good education and that they would learn truth and grow in wisdom.

3-Places of Business.
Ask God to create new hearts in buyers and sellers. Ask God to help them understand that He is their provider, sustainer, Redeemer, and Lord.

4-Places of Religion.
Pray that people would have their eyes opened to see that no one can come to salvation except through Jesus Christ. Pray that idolatry would be destroyed.

5-Places of Community.
Ask God to transform each community or village. Pray that people would honor God in their speech and behavior as they meet together at the well, the market, at the bus stop, or where ever they may be.

When we finished the lesson all 13 of us chose one of these places and then we had an extended time of prayer for them. It was a special time.

Same day another experience..

"As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped."

Amai Nkoma is one of the women that I pick up from Mphamvu Baptist Church on Thursdays. Yesterday, when I pulled over on the side of the road to wait no one was there. Her husband came running down the road to let me know that she was not going to be able to come because her bleeding had started again. She has had constant bleeding for about one year. Recently, it had stopped but then just water came out. Now the bleeding has started again. For the second time I explained to them that she really needs to go to a gynecologist. They had a bit of money saved up but then just spent it all going to a prayer meeting. They said they are praying and trusting God to take care of her. He is working on a project now to make some extra money and then she can go to the doctor.

Please pray for Amai Nkoma to be healed of this sickness. She is only about 40 years old and still has young children at home. Her husband is one of the church leaders at Mphamvu. Pray her husband would finish his project soon so they would have enough money for her to go to a good doctor.

Experiences

Today was a day full of experiences that I would like to share with you. I don't think I will write about them all in this entry so I will spread them out a bit.
I am an American living in Zambia now for almost 11 years. I love the Zambian people but I am not Zambian even as hard as I try at learning their culture and language. Every Sunday we are in a different church so it is a great experience for me to be with the same group of women for an extended amount of weeks. Today as I taught on the Prodigal Son and forgiveness the women began to open up and share things in their lives and ask questions. I have been there probably 8 different times, but today I could tell that they were finally starting to trust me. As we were talking, I felt a part of them. We laughed, slapped hands together, and teased. They listened to what I had to say and they responded. I felt a real connection, almost like I was one of them, a real Zambian.
Please pray that these women will continue to respond to me and that they would allow God to truly work in their lives.

Prayer Calendar for the month of Ramadan

"When you think of Central, Eastern and Southern Africa you may think of tribal people, with bright colored clothes or wraps, wearing beads, singing with drums and shakers. But in the CESA region the increasing number of mosques and the influence of the Muslim faith impact most people groups. On September 1, with the sighting of the new moon, a time of fasting begins called “Ramadan”. This month of fasting, one of the five Pillars of the Islamic faith, is a result of obedience and causes Muslims to remember the qualities of Allah. Because of the spiritual dimension to fasting, many Muslims study the Koran and visits increase to mosques during Ramadan. We would like to challenge you to pray for Muslims during this month by using this CESA specific prayer guide. Pray that many will hear and entrust their lives to Jesus." (this is taken from our CESA website)
Click below for a prayer guide for the month.

http://cesa.imb.org/stories/ramadano8/ramadanhome.html

One down 169 to go.....

The First Day of School..... ahhh... new books smell so nice, a new box of crayons, new pencils, good attitudes, excitement about what is to come- then, lesson one. Wow! It sure is a big book and still 169 lessons to go.
As most of you know I home school our two youngest children and our oldest son goes to boarding school. Zach leaves next Monday but we needed to go ahead and get started with the other two. So, Hannah began 2nd grade and Justin started 8th grade. Hannah thinks second grade is so easy because on the first day she had to count to 12 and say her ABC's which she has known how to do since before she ever started school. I explained to her that the first couple of weeks of school is usually review but right now she is happy. She thinks she should just skip to third grade. I know she will learn a lot this year. It is amazing to watch her learn and grow and be a part of that.

We always take the kids pictures the first day of school so that they can see how big they are and how much they changed from the year before.

Another Msasa

Today for church we went to another Msasa meeting for the Canaan Association Churches. There were about 10 churches represented here and they had been camping out since Wed. After church everyone headed back to their own homes more encouraged than when they first came.

It is a little hard to see in this picture but we all sat on the ground during the service in a semi-circle. There are a lot more people over to the right sitting in the shade.

This is where the women cooked.

These two little girls were trying to play the drums right behind Kevin while he was preaching. They were really cute.

This little girl came and sat in my lap twice during the meeting. She was one of the pastor's children.

Kevin relaxing a bit after preaching.

Prayer walking

We went out in groups of 3 to practice what we had just learned together in the women's meeting. The topic yesterday was prayer walking. I used a very simple method using our hands to help us remember what to pray for. I just taught using the right hand this time which represents 5 requests that we can pray for while prayer walking. Next week, I will teach them the left hand which represents 5 different places you can go to pray in the community or village. The women really enjoyed the hand signals and knew them very well by the time we finished since I went over them a lot. After I finished we went out and prayer walked, each group going in a different direction. One woman fell behind a little in our group and when I looked behind me she was walking with her eyes closed. I told her she had better open her eyes or she was going to fall. It was quite funny. My group was the first to get back to the church so we just walked around the church a couple of times praying for their church. It was a fun afternoon!
The purpose of us going out and prayer walking is to tear down the strongholds in that area so that people could come to know Jesus.
Please pray:
1-That God would open heaven and reveal himself and his power to the people all around so that they will want to receive Him.
2-That people will have open hearts as they hear God's Word.
3-For open homes/huts. In many homes the people living inside go to the witch doctor, practice meaningless rituals, and feel hopeless because of their circumstances.
4-For open highways or paths so that the church will know how to enter into the villages and share God's Word.
5-That the people of the church will have open hands for ministry. That God would reveal to them acts of compassion or kindness that needs to be done where the people live.

A trip to Lake Kariba

This past weekend we traveled to Lake Kariba which is about 3 hours from our home. The lake is a beautiful place to go and just enjoy the scenery but we did a lot more. We went swimming, paddle boating, hiking, rock climbing, played pool, ate good food, watched a couple of movies, and we even got to watch some of the Olympics. It was a fun getaway!

A view of Lake Kariba

The boys especially liked going out on the paddle boats.

Hannah enjoying the pool. Even though we are nearing our cold season it is quite warm in Siavonga so the kids were able to swim. The water was a little chilly but they enjoyed it anyway.

Last year when we went to our mission meeting our boys and one other mk went rock climbing and found this spot and made this monument as a marker that signified the spiritual things that they had learned at the meeting. It was exciting to see that it was still standing after one full year.

A new family picture

This picture was taken this past weekend while we were at Lake Kariba for a couple of days of vacation.

A day of review

At both locations where I teach women on Thursday afternoons, it was a day of review. At Silver Rest we reviewed the story about Paul meeting Jesus. Then we finished hearing everyone's testimony. It is so exciting to me to hear how God has worked in people's lives to draw them towards Him.
Then at Chainda II, I had a lesson planned but the headman's wife was in the meeting and they wanted to discuss our last lesson with her and get her feelings on it. If you will remember, I had told the story of Daniel and we were discussing ways that we need to obey God rather than man. I thought this review would last just a short time and then we would move on to my lesson but this discussion lasted 1 1/2 hours. Oh well, it was a good discussion and we came away knowing more than we did last week both culturally and spiritually.

Msasa

Every August the churches in our area have what is called Msasa meetings. The word Msasa means "grass walls" and refers to the temporary shelters they build each year for their annual associational meeting. This AGM involves everyone in their association. The meeting generally lasts 4-5 days. During this time, they will do associational business (elect officers, plan for next year etc.), they will have times of preaching and instruction from God's word, and they will fellowship and encourage one another. These pictures are from the Manenekela Baptist Churches Associations annual msasa. We have about 7 different associations in our area. So this time of year is busy going from one meeting to another.

Chongwe Bible School

In the area that we serve in we have 3 Bible Schools. One is here in Chongwe where we live. Another is in Manenekela association which is about 1 1/2 hours away. Then lastly, we have one in Luangwa which is about 3 hours away from our home. These Bible Schools are not like Vacation Bible School for children in the USA. It is for adults who want to go a little deeper in God's Word. Usually, these are pastors or church leaders that come. In the past the students have had to complete 5 books of TEE(Theological Education by Extension) before coming to Bible School. Recently, this has been changed and they no longer have to complete these books. It is quite a big committment for the students. They have to come for one week, 3 times a year, for three years. This is a big sacrifice for them to leave their homes and travel to a central location to study the Word of God.

This picture was taken this week at Chongwe's Bible School. There are about 14 students this session.

Pray the students would come each time eager to learn and study God's Word. Then that they will take what they learn and teach it to others in their churches.
Pray for their families back at home as they are separated for one week.
Pray the students will persevere through the program so that at the end of three years they will be able to graduate.

Kevin's Trip

On this trip I was able to visit Mboshya Baptist Church which was started about 1 1/2 years ago. Since that time this church started Mwenda and Tumbwe Baptist Churches without the help of a missionary. This is a very good thing because a lot of times churches believe that the missionary has to plant the church. In each of these places, I showed the Jesus film and many came forward to ask Jesus into their hearts. I was very encouraged to see all that these people had done all on their own and how they had grown spiritually in this short amount of time. I didn't get a picture of Mboshya Baptist church but that is where the ice story happened(see below). Please pray for these 3 churches to continue to grow in the midst of some persecution. They are surrounded by another denomination that will not help them in any way because they are Baptist. It will be a long time before I go back. The distance was just too far. A safari operator is in the process of building a bridge on the Lunsemfwa river. If and when this is done it will be a much quicker trip, maybe just 5-6 hours away instead of 15. So, pray that this bridge would be built soon.
Kevin

This is the first church we got to, called Mwenda. You can see where they constructed crude benches for the Jesus Film program we would have at night

This is the truck with some of our equipment out back. This truck is provided for us by your giving to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. The mountains I had to go through were quite steep and dangerous. Thankfully, this truck was up for the task. Behind the truck is a grass shelter they erected so we could put up our tents inside and have some privacy.

This the Mwenda Baptist Church building from the outside

And from the inside, full of people!

The second church we went to was called Tumbwe and we could not get the truck all the way to the church building so we had to walk a few kilometers across the valley carrying our equipment.

Tumbwe is named after the nearby Tumbwe stream and you can see that they are able to grow crops year round here. This is quite unusual in Zambia and it is nice for these people. This is a bean field.

We had to walk across a little creek too. This wasn't as easy coming back late at night in the pitch black.

Almost there... Tumbwe seen from a distance.

Ice

This week Kevin traveled to a very distant place called Mboshya. It took Kevin 15 hours to get home yesterday. He got up at 4:30am, packed, and left by 5:30am. He arrived home around 8:30pm and was very tired. He told me many stories about his trip but this one really stuck out to me. These people had only seen one other white person in their life, a Catholic priest that lives out there. They don't have electricity, grocery stores, cell phones, or ice. On the last day Kevin was emptying the cooler he had brought and all the kids came over to see this stuff he was dumping out. As he began to explain what ice was he had to run and get his camera so you could see just how excited these kids were over ICE. One of the men that went with Kevin explained what it was and gave a piece to each child. Kevin said they all smiled and said things like "aahhhh" when they touched it because they were not expecting it to be cold. I wish you could see the video he made but it is too big to put on here. Wow! What a reminder of how I take so many things for granted.

Chongwe

A few of you have asked what Chongwe looks like so I took a few pictures.

Prayer Request: Kevin has traveled to Mboshya this week. It is an all day drive to just get there. As the crow flies it isn't really that far but because he can't drive directly and has to go around about way it takes a long time. A lot of it is on a dirt road also. He will be visiting 3 churches and showing the Jesus Film at each location. Pray that these churches would be encouraged. Two of the churches have never been visited before by the missionary. Pray many will hear God's Word and believe in Christ. Pray for safe travel also. Kevin should be back home Thursday night.