MORE PHONE TIME!!!

30 more minutes!! YEAH! The director of Gospelink just let Brian use his phone for me to call him back at (don’t even want to think about that phone bill…) So here is some more tidbits from our call. And of course, this is our personal journal of the whole process, so some of this stuff might seem “unblog-worthy” to you, but it’s for us too!
Today they did a bible school at a new housing development in Lusaka and tomorrow they are going back there to start a new church. They did the Jesus film there and door-to-door evangelism as well. Some of the older residents were a little nervous when they first came (until they realized they were believers). It seems the younger ones love white people, but the older ones are afraid they are coming to take their little ones away. He didn’t know where that came from. As this one woman was walking away, she was praying that Jehovah Jireh would come. They have nothing, but they still have their faith.
Brian’s roommate tonight is Zach. Zach has been working on the bible campus since January, and will be there until August. He is a single guy, younger than Brian. He is very knowledge about the agriculture and has some ideas. He asked if Brian wanted to stay an extra week to see more. No, I don’t think so! Brian said he’d come back later! (FYI-Brian and I have never been apart for a full week, let alone two in our 11+ years of marriage).
He’s taken 150 pictures so far, 10 minutes of video (saying the tape for next week).
The days are hectic, yet they are on African time. The schedule and what they do aren’t always the same. Sometimes you just gotta wait for the bus to come, whenever it gets there!
There is another gentleman there named Pete from Illinois. Pete is a new staff member for Gospelink. He is going to be away for 3 weeks (you can pray for him too-he hasn’t been gone from his wife either, and they’ve been married a lot longer than us!). Pete is doing some of the training of the national pastors these 2 weeks, and the third he is going to Mozambique to get more national pastors into Gospelink’s program. Both Brian and Pete are not there for the same reasons as the rest of the teams, and they are the ones experiencing terrific spiritual warfare. It’s like satan knows they are there for a purpose. Both Pete and Brian have been up at midnight numerous times praying. If I remember Pete was a youth (?) pastor at a church, and he has said he has never felt spiritual warfare this intense. Brian has. Brian said the 2nd night he went out walking at midnight when he got up (yes, believe me I asked if that was such a good idea!! But he said they are staying at a resort. Went to the bar area last night to watch the news even.) So, a more specific time to pray for Brian (and Pete) would be 6-10 pm our time. That is 1-5 am there. Brian seems to sleep well until 1 am, and then is up, usually praying until 5 when he falls back asleep and gets up between 6 and 6:30 am. So those of you praying for us, know you are being prayed for too!!!
He said it is just amazing being with the national pastors and at the schools. They go into classrooms where there are 20-100 kids. They are able to share the gospel message and pray with those who would like to accept Christ. Brian has been able to pray with many of the kids-amazing he says. These people are so poor-they have nothing. They have 3 terms of school-some schools have 1500 kids-and NO BOOKS. Today at VBS, one of the kids was in his underwear, he had no clothes.
They were also at a hospital today; he said it was almost more than you could bear.
The people all sing and dance and it is amazing to watch, lots of fun. There have been a few times where he has just had to laugh as he sees the little boys play. Some of the quirks we see with Joe-well, they are just African things. He sees some of them play, and its just Joe (which of course makes him miss us more!). He likes to pull out the family picture-gets some interesting reactions! The biggest and more frequent question he gets asked is if we are keeping him! Is he actually going to stay with us?
They went and did some shopping today. Guess he got us some jewelry and me some dresses (or tablecloths-whichever I prefer to use it as on any given day!).
He misses me, wishes I were there, but knows I would hate the city. The driving is horrendous. Sometimes you just have to laugh, others just close your eyes! He is surprised there aren’t more people killed.
Monday morning they go to the bible school. Will pretty much have the week to himself, and Zach will show him around some. He is feeling a nervous anticipation, but not as much as before-but who knows what the ride on Monday morning will be like!
He is starting to get more headaches, partly due to sleep, a lot due to spiritual stuff. When he does a lot of intercessory prayer here at home, the next morning he usually has a headache.
The 2nd night he said he and God really needed to talk. It was good; there were some things to deal with. He said that is why he had to be in Lusaka this first week. He had to deal with some things before he got out to the campus. He wrote it all down for me, so it will be neat to read about it when he gets back, says he is filling up the notebook for me! We at first didn’t even know if we wanted to have him in town at all, rather spend the whole 2 weeks at the campus. But he says it has been good to see what all goes on, be with the national pastors. When he tells them what is going on in our lives they about start dancing!
I asked if he has gotten the clear direction for us. He said he hasn’t been willing to say a full-fledge yes yet, but he is feeling like it. There is no awkwardness around the people, he doesn’t feel unwelcome, for a way to describe it, he said it kind-of “feels like home.” He didn’t know how else to put it. Zach has been very straight up with Brian about what life is like, and he tells him it won’t be easy. One thing Zach didn’t do was pace himself. There will always be more to do-he knew he’d only be there for awhile, so he pushed himself. You gotta get into the “African” mindset a little. Looking back, we have asked for and received so many clear confirmations, and we expect the same this time as well. I know that when he comes back and says “yes” I will have had that already revealed to me in my heart. And if it’s “no”, I will know that too. God has been faithful to us, showing and leading us on the path to doing His will. Whatever it is, we are willing.
Oh!! And Zach has a laptop that he uses to get email whenever! Yeah! When he gets back, and if we go, that guy is going to be a treasure of information! They also have a generator out at the school and run it a few hours a day. When Brian called back he was on a satellite cell phone and there weren’t any problems getting through (before he was just using the resort’s phone).
Well, that’s it for now. As Prayer Bear would say, “KEEEEEP PRAYING!”