Just a whole bunch of stuff!

WELCOME!
A thankful welcome to the New London Covenant Church of New London, Minnesota who has joined our group of supporting churches. Their church’s website is www.nlcovchurch.org.

PRESSURE PROBLEMS
Our water pressure is only so-so. Someone told us about an inline systems that we should try, but we have no info on it. So any plumbers out there have any info they could pass on to us?? We looked at geysers here in Lusaka. Basically it’s just a tank that builds up. We do have a tank we could hook up outside the house and use. But I was told about this other thing and despite how vague my description is, does anyone have ideas??

THE SCALE
The other day I finally went out and got a scale. I knew that I had been losing the baby weight, clothes were loose. But let’s face it, I am still an American woman who has to have the news from the scale to believe it! But now, I am Zambian too as I am willingly telling you my weight . Only not quite, because I am happy it is going down, not up! I am at 60 kg. When I came in November I was probably around 82 kg-I hadn’t tried too hard to lose the baby weight since we were going to Africa-I was enjoying food!
I told Lucy, Christine, and Carol about Henry being about 10 kg, so then I had to bring the scale out so they could all weigh themselves. Lucy and Christine were about 70 kg each and thrilled. Carol is due to have a baby any day and she is about the same as me, which is a lot for her. Lucy said when she had one of her babies she was only 49 kg!
So Henry is 10 kg.
Joe is 17
Hailey is 19. She has slimmed down a bit as she has gotten taller.
Greta is 24.
Myron is 16, he’s gotten a lot taller and more of a linebacker look.
Cybil is 43. She has really slimmed down a lot since being here.
Mariah is up to 48. She has gotten a little taller, but is now finally starting to put weight on. She was too skinny when we got here. The ladies have commented on both Cybil and Mariah. They also claim Mariah is our Zambian daughter too!
Brian is down to about 62 kg. His belts are all too big. And I think this is the first time in our whole married life when I have weighed less than him!!
(Okay I will tell you…1 kg = 2.2 pounds)

MORE MEAT
Someone came through the other day selling goat meat. We bought a front leg, hind leg, and part of the neck. The legs we cut in pieces and cooked on skewers. It was okay-quite salty as Brian dumped a bunch of meat tendereizer on it before cooking. He didn’t put it on soon enough though, as it was very tough! Today I am boiling the rest to get the meat off, then will try to make some type of stew. It actually turned out quite good!
We also had rabbit today. Yesterday we went to visit the Rodgers in Chongwe. Check out their blog, www.therodgerstribe.blogspot.com to read about it. Anyway, we visited with them, then the guys went to go pack up the rabbits and put them in the truck. Of course, we started visiting again (not us-not the ones who stayed at a friend’s house until 4 am talking!). a few hours later we finally leave, having around an hour to drive. We pull up, Brian puts the rabbits in the hutch and there is one dead one. The other three ended up okay. But one didn’t make it so we had it for lunch. Baked it like a chicken in my pampered chef crock with potatoes (from the garden!), a few carrots, peppers, and onions. It was really good and the kids liked it too.
Lackson also brought us another adder that he had shot with his slingshot (catapult they call it). As soon as John saw it, he yelled that we had “fish!”-that’s what Brian said the last one tasted like. Myron pointed at it and called out for another belt. We didn’t eat this one-it was longer and flatter so we thought it would be fatter, but there wasn’t much meat on it. There are so many bones in it that if there isn’t a lot of meat, it’s just a lot of work for not much.
And in response to Deron’s question, no-we really don’t hear much about kids getting snake bites. I don’t know why that is. I would assume there would be more too. But a lot of the snakes aren’t very aggressive. We’re told that some you can even step on and they won’t strike unless further provoked. Hard to say and know what to believe.

TERMITES
Our first foray into the world of termites…we moved one of the cupboards away from the wall to paint and found a line of termites. They had come up from the floor and onto the wall, then stretched to the cabinet. They ate away a bit on the back but not too much. What happens here is that they use the termite mounds for backfill as it is the cleansest stuff around. Of course that then means that you are purposely putting termites in the floor. It happened that there was a crack in the floor (surprise, surprise), so they were able to come up out of it. We knocked them off the wall and then sprayed the floor before putting the linoleum back down.
If you find a line, you pretty much just knock it down and life goes on. It’s been suggested you can pour some diesel on the crack too and that will help stop them. But considering our rafters are already soaked in kerosene (they mix it with the wood preservative to stretch it out and supposedly prevent termites-although the termites haven’t gotten that message, the wood pieces left on the floor that had the mix still had termites…), we didn’t want to add any more flammable materials to the house!

INFOMERCIALISH
Yes, I just made up that word. So we really don’t like that our blog has been so info-ladden lately and not as much about our thoughts, responses, feelings, etc. We still just have not been able to slow down and really have time to process things. We have two things we would like to garner some discussion on, but just haven’t had time. I say stay tuned-but that may be months. The first group of teams comes in mid-April, besides some other visitors we are having, it may be awhile before we get.
Which brings about a prayer request: ROUTINE. We just have not gotten into any type of groove, any regularity on anything. I am going to blog about our to-do list and priorities coming up. But we go to bed exhausted, up early with kids, and battle with the daily to-do list which can’t seem to get done, because there are so many things that are on a time line that have to be done. A task that should take an hour at most in the States, will often be an all day long affair here-there are just lines for EVERYTHING. And usually they aren’t short. So anyway, please pray that we will be able to get into some type of groove soon.
Also, just found out Catherine will not be able to come back to work for us. We are on week three without her, and we now completely remember why we needed her! Please pray we will find someone else who can work full time for us quickly. Thankfully Mildred (David’s daughter) is around to work some, but we need to find someone more permanent. Thank you for your faithful prayers-God is hearing from Heaven!