Brian says he is feeling really good, only one headache, but that was because he hadn’t slept well. When I talked to him, he said he’d made it to sleeping until about 4:30 am so far. As I am putting the kids to bed around 9 pm (Brian’s 4 am), we usually try to pray that he will sleep well for another few hours. Please pray for his toe-he had an ingrown toenail fixed close to two months ago. It is red and sore still (I am sure it didn’t help that he didn’t take care of it like he was suppose to).
Friday Lewis had to go into the dentist. He went to an Indian woman, said she was the gentlest dentist he has ever had! I told Brian he better find out her name and address! There are quite a few Middle Eastern, Asian, and Indian business owners in the capital city.
At 7 am all the workers from the villages come and share in devotions/prayer for half an hour before they begin working.
Brian asked one of the locals what kind of animals they had around; he said impalas, hyenas, and zebras. They aren’t around too much right now with all the commotion/building. They have and like to eat Mopani worms, a type of caterpillar. Brian hasn’t had it yet, but I am sure sooner or later he’ll try. He was with them the other day when they butchered a goat. It was interesting-they started skinning it while it was still alive! I never asked if he ever did eat it, but they had said they were going to save the intestine for him-that’s what the real men eat. We’ll need to get us a big dog and train him to hunt rabbits. We were told the Zambians are afraid of dogs, but out in the bush they do have them for a specific purpose-to catch supper! I asked about the termites-I was hoping we were elevated enough for them not to be a real problem; no such luck. He says he sees them on all the trees.
On Friday one of the guys was suppose to go in and order doors and windows for Brian. He spent the last couple days of the week clearing our lot (and having a few fires…had to remind him it was DRY SEASON!). He said there are quite a few guys there who can fell a tree with an ax just as fast as any chainsaw could! He’d never cut trees with an ax before, so was he sore!! He needed to do a little clearing across the road from our lot so the trucks could get in. The Africans are always interested in how many rooms he will have. He tells them one for us, one for the girls, one for the boys, and one for people coming to visit (hint, hint!). The national pastors start joking, “oh you have room for me, and room for me, and room for me…”
There is a little work that needs to be done of the backhoe, and then Brian plans on digging the footings. He is realizing that he really needs to be there the whole time during the work. If he isn’t, they just don’t do as good of a job as they could. He is hoping to start putting walls up by the end of next week. It will take them two full weeks to plaster the inside and outside of our house. They can work on that while he is doing the rafters, etc, but even that he really feels he needs to be there to oversee. Please pray that all the materials will start arriving and he can get going on the building. It’s super tough to be gone from the family for two months, if he had to go back for another extended time because they didn’t finish, he won’t be happy (yes, he will probably have to go back for two weeks before we go as a family, but two weeks is a lot different from two months!) There are of course modifications already being made to the house-the windows and door sizes are a little different from what we were told/planned for.
Oh yeah-the walk-a-thon…so far we have raised $162 from our homeschool co-op’s walk-a-thon for seeds. There are a few ladies also planning to give, but I am not sure what yet. I think I am going to wait until the stores around here start clearancing their seeds, then I will pick them when they are cheap and get more bang for the buck!
There are nights Brian says he wakes up and just aches inside. Understandably some of this is homesickness, but it is also spiritual. The spiritual battle is very much on the surface in Africa. One of the gentlemen told him about his first time there two summers ago. He got up in the middle of the night and saw some guy dancing and flapping his arms around. He figured he was drunk, and asked a national pastor about it. The pastor said that was the local witch doctor putting a curse on them because he wasn’t happy with them being there. This is probably the same witchdoctor who lives a few kilometers from the school. The spiritual warfare is very real.
We found out it was good we were learning Chinyanja-it will be helpful in the city and it is a main language that the tribal languages go off of. But we will actually be with the Sulu tribe of people, which is it’s own language, and there ain’t no course for that! I’ll have to look up some more info on them, but they are a smaller tribe in this certain area. Henry (one of the head nationals at the school) is going to write down some phrases and their meanings for us to be learning.
The two teams from Iowa which were in the city doing evangelism will arrive at the bible college on Monday morning to begin construction projects there.
The men and women (this last week anyway) didn’t eat together. One night a bunch of the guys were sitting around a coal fire. One said it was a tradition to tell stories, so they asked Brian to tell his story. What do you do? What is the story of your life? He started talking and shared quite a bit. The Africans too wonder how it works that I am willing to come without seeing the place, so Brian told them about that and shared how he knew he was suppose to be at the bible college. When he was done David, one of the national staff whom he had shared his vision for the agricultural part of the school the day before, told the men there that “We must support Brian in his vision. We must come along side him and what he is going to do here.” Brian thought that was pretty neat. The other day after Brian had shared with David, David told Lewis that not only are we getting a pastor, we’re getting a preacher too!
There is gentleman named Paul from Nebraska that will be there through July too. He is sensing a call to being at the college as the construction/business manager, but he is not quite sure. He was asking Brian how he knew, and Brian shared how he went up on Mt. Kaziemba last year and spent the day with God. The nationals told Paul maybe he should do that too! Paul is 53 years old, celebrated his 33 year wedding anniversary today. His wife is ready to come in a heartbeat too. Please pray for God’s wisdom, for discernment, for Paul to know if this is truly where God has called him to be.
I am having Brian write out some descriptions of who some the nationals that he will be working with are. When his parents come back from their two weeks there, I will try to post some of that so we’ll all know who we’re talking about!
On the home front, I have been decluttering and cleaning. There is a realtor’s open house here on Tuesday, so I am trying to do all those things I didn’t before. Thankfully my neighbor moved the lawn for me today! A friend is having a garage sale, so I have been getting that stuff ready to go as well. I am so dreading cleaning up the flower beds. I took the rest of the crab grass out of the tulip bed, but there are 2 HUGE beds, and one small one that need to be gone through too for weeds and grass. Plus I have some windows and doors to wash outside. Can someone please tell me how birds can poop sideways on a window?!
One week done, seven to go!
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