clinic pics

This first team has been using the medical clinic building to do a small clinic for the locals.





This is Betty Jo helping Rozenne with patients. The building doesn't have power or water yet, but that is one thing Paul plans to finish up when he gets here.



This is Rozenee with one of the national pastors who was helping her interpret the first day.

HERE WE GO!!!

The first group of American summer teams arrived on Tuesday. It was quite a day as the red bus was still being worked on so we had to use the white truck and our vehicle to pick up the team. The flights arrived at different times and there were some pastors who came in on the bus, and a few things to get done during the day…so it was a little crazy. Lewis and his family arrived around 4 pm; Brian arrived with the rest of the team around 5:30. We all ate supper and the team pretty much just tried getting settled in for the night.
Wednesday morning all the craziness and running in different directions began! The students and the three men from the US began work in the woodshop on beds and picnic tables. I think all the Americans had actual beds in their cabins by the time the day was over. They will work on a few more tomorrow I believe, and Kris will take a little time to work in the solar house so he can’t see if he can get the lights back on.
Two of the ladies (both 79 years old!) sat up a medical clinic in the clinic building. No electricity or water in their yet, but it worked out just fine. Rozeene is a nurse and brought some supplies. As you can imagine, the line was long! They are also passing out hygiene kits and sharing the Gospel with them.
Jennifer and Suzanne went down to Kaziemba Basic School, where the headmaster called the students back from break for a type of VBS for lack of what else to call it. They will be there for five more mornings and brought school kits for all the children. We didn’t think they started until Thursday; so needless to say, we were late getting them there (or on African time??). Brian or I will have to drive them the five kilometers down there each morning and pick them up (we’ll probably end up with a backseat full of kids too!).
Lewis and Henry went into town for supplies, more lumber and to pick up the red bus. It is mechanically repaired, but there are a few welding things that need to be done. They will also be bringing out some more national pastors. They are arriving from Malawi, one from Cameroon, Nigeria; some are here already from Congo and Mozambique. They are going to be finishing some training with a pastor from Florida using the BTCP materials for a few days. I understand some of them graduate on Saturday.
For the most part I haven’t felt it has been too crazy. Each morning we start school in the hopes of being done before noon. Some days we get sooo close…then I have to drive or run something somewhere, but it’s okay. My new washing machine is coming in VERY HANDY!!! We eat lunch and dinner with the teams, so not much for cooking and before bed we make sure the house is all picked up so we can get up and get going right away in the morning.
Brian was helping find things in the shop most of yesterday and getting that set up. He got replacement parts for the John Deere tractor so was trying to put that together. There was one “o” ring they couldn’t get, but we had the old one to use. Of course, that broke as he was trying to put it on. Argh! He jb-kwik-welded it; hopefully that will work; otherwise it is order a new one and wait for three weeks for it to arrive.
Lucy asked me to speak some at the Zambia Baptist Women’s Conference as she is the main speaker-has 6 or more hours to cover. I started looking at the theme verses yesterday- Revelation 3:11 and 1 Peter 5:10. If I remember the theme is “A Year of Dramatic Increase and Taking Back What Satan has Stolen from Us.” Should be interesting…I will see where it goes! I keep teasing Lucy because she hasn’t had time to start much preparing yet either!

PRAISE THE LORD!!!

Just found out our house “passed inspection” and we have a renter moving in on May 1st!! YEAH!!!!

BABYPROOF!

So how exactly do you baby proof in Africa? Henry is CRAWLING NOW!!! He is also trying to pull himself up to stand. Could be an interesting summer! We may have to put the cattle panels around the veranda!

LADIES DAY

This is the new look-for about a month or so, however long the extensions stay looking nice. They are longer than I was planning-I thought the gal would ask me how long I wanted, she didn’t. I also was thinking of a different braid, but this is what Lucy thought I meant. I told her it had to be something so the big white patches on my head didn’t stick out! I went with Chestnut, the same color as my hair now. I didn’t want to do anything too different this first time. They have a maroon that everyone here seems to like, and a reddish-orange. Everywhere at the Chongwe market told me how nice it looks and everyone at the school likes it. The teacher from the basic school at Kaziemba told me it was much more attractive than what I had before! They don’t mince words here-you have to get used to it! The hair cost me about $4 and the fishtail plaiting took 3 hours and cost me about $7! It would cost hundreds in the US!
The idea was to be ladies day, visit and get to know Christine and Lucy some. I didn’t realize what type of shop the salon would be. Basically it was a room not much bigger than my bathroom in the US. There was no real space to discuss and tell stories. People were walking by and coming in and out, checking the white lady getting the fishtail.
The gal who owned the shop wasn’t doing my hair-someone else was. But I got to see the gal set some hair. Christine had hers washed and set, looked very nice. A couple of other people just had theirs washed and dried. So she washes it outside over two bowls. Then she starts combing and drying. Now these gals had the ‘fro hair for lack of knowing what else to call it. Just very high and straight out. While she is drying, I can see the water spray off as she combs. Soon though, it starts to look smoky, like she is steaming it. Then she stops, puts petroleum jelly all over their hair and starts to dry again. Now the blue smoke starts to float! I could also smell the burnt hair. Many had it done, so that just must be what they do, what they use. I wonder what she put in Christine’s hair before she put the rollers in and dried it-I think that was a ton of jelly too!
After we were done there, we walked to the tailor’s so I could get measured. Lucy and Christine both have this really cute dress and I decided I wanted one too! The materials and tailoring will cost me about $10. I hope the colors look good on me too! I’ll post it when I get it back.
I then took them out for a pop and lunch. We headed back to Kazimeba and were home around 3 pm.
Oh yes, I must mention that I drove ALL BY MYSELF! I got stopped by road traffic and they wanted to see my license, but no problems today. It is still very weird driving on the opposite side of the road!

praise team

I am now part of the praise team-which in all truth is almost the whole church on any given Sunday! It is the students, Lucy, Christine, Mildred and I and Faith when she is here. Last Friday was my first time at practice. I gave Lucy a file with some praise chorus from the states. Most of these are older songs, songs I sang when I was in at bible camp in high school! Since I gave the book, I get to teach the songs of course as most of them don’t know it. Basically I have to tell them the words, and then sing them the tune. They caught on to the songs pretty quick. Even after one or two times, we have about an 8 part choir. It is just SOOO cool to here and be a part of. They also like to “move a little” so if there are actions, we do those too. Otherwise we do a lot of the step-shuffle. We also have a “kickline” with 3 shuffles and a kick! Thank God I was blessed with rhythm. Many of the songs are in Bembe or Nyanji so it takes a bit for me to sing them. Most of the songs just repeat over and over again so I can start to get. If I don’t know all the words I can sustain notes until we get to the end of the phrase and hit that.
My problem is my own inhibition I guess. I can do a little groove, but I feel so self-conscious I have a hard time letting myself do it. That is one thing I love about the Zambian people-they just say it, do it, its so matter of fact.

the washing machine

Yes, we have a washing machine. I have it hooked up down in the office. It is the only place that we have that runs 220 50hz. So when we run the genset to pump water Kel brings down clothes. It usually takes about 1 ½ hrs to fill the tank and right now we are pumping 2 times a day so it should not be a problem to stay caught up. Mariah is not happy that we got the machine though. She said she likes to wash clothes by hand. She truly is our African daughter.

sleeping beauties

THE NEW MOMMA

This is Momma Eve. No, we don’t know if she is going to have her own puppies yet or not, but she is momma to our 6 chicks (was 7, but Myron squished one). She growls if Elijah comes ANYWHERE near them. She noses them into the corners, even picks them up in her mouth to try to give them a bath. We had to put them in a bin with higher walls as they kept jumping out. Well, Momma didn’t like that and tipped the bin over! She’s over that now, just keeps checking on them and sitting over them. It’s pretty cute.

stuff

Okay guys, SKYPE is officially off the table. Pastor Brad did a short video call with Pastor Mike (not sure for how long). 350 mb for video, 50 for non. That would translate to either $50 or $12 at the current exchange rate. Sorry . I don’t know what the rate to call from the US is; there are many different cards you can get off the web. It currently costs us about $1.30 to call. Of course those of you who have tried know how tough it is to get through to us due to our location. So if you’d like to talk to us, maybe send an email and we will call you; we can split the rate somehow?
Went and bought a washing machine yesterday. Just had to do it…hopefully it’s a decent one. Hard to know over here! We can thank Uncle Sam and our amazing tax accountant for our fed refund this year!
If you send us a letter or package, below Zambia, write “AFRICA”. I don’t know if it will help or not. But I finally got my birthday card from Brian’s parents…last week! It was sent in November, but the Lusaka postmark was March 30. On it, “Africa” was written by someone other than his mom. I don’t know where that got added or if that is why the delay, but I am sure it won’t hurt!
We went to Lusaka yesterday to go to the revenue house and then the road traffic to FINALLY get the ownership changed on the truck…or so we thought. I don’t know what was going on, but there were literally at least 100 people outside the revenue house in line. Must be some type of Zambian tax day? I know the quarter just ended, but wow! We also drove by road traffic while getting supplies-they gate was closed there and no one was going in. Don’t know what that was about either. Brian’s temporary driver’s license expires on Friday the 18th. But there is no guarantee the card is ready. Our problem is that we are out of Lusaka, so we are subject to 1 to 3 checkpoints each way on a trip to town. Most of the time it is just one, and we know the guys and share a pop with them, so they mostly pass us through. The other stops are usually road traffic (think state highway cops) and most of them are really not very polite to us. Especially when we are in the Gospelink truck with supplies, they think “rich white farmer” and stop and look for any reason to fine us. Two of the times they have stopped us Brian has talked us out of a ticket, the one time we couldn’t get out and it was a fine of maybe $10, so not a big deal. So we still have much town work to do. It is tough on Brian-he hates being in town and often gets a headache, and it is tough on me because the house is chaos when I get back and we’ve lost a day of school. We have asked one gal to come stay with us for a few months during summer teams to help with just the kids and home schooling. We’ll see what she says. If she can’t, anyone else want to come?!
We have the part for our fridge and it works pretty well, most of the time. This last tank of propane hasn’t been very good. We have gotten some pretty cruddy tanks of diesel in the truck-apparently they can do something to the propane too to “stretch it out.” The fridge has gone out a bit and the flames on the stove just aren’t quite right.
Pray for Paul and Lori-they sold their house and are grieving and feeling “homeless” for now. Pray for comfort as they continue in the transition and grieving process and for their support so they can stay here for good in June. We need them here!
I was also told that we need to have more about the kids on the blog and how they are. SORRY! I try to tell them they can write whenever, but it is like pulling teeth. I will try to do a kid post soon with the day to day of what they do and how they are and all that. You can also be looking for some pics soon of me and a big change.
We are up to 7 baby chicks now.
Anyone know how to tell if your dog is pregnant? We figured it she would be due Mid to end of May if she was, just wondering when we would know for sure?
Got the new tub in when Wendell was here…maybe we wouldn’t have needed to? The new one leaked too-but this time we were able to see where-right around the drain. So Brian tightened and that helped, but he will need to work on it some more. We also put a water tank in the rafters to try to increase water pressure. It helps, a tiny bit for the pressure from the hot water tank . We just don’t know the deal is. And the water is still cold! It takes quite a bit of power to use the hot water heater (electric), so we only use it occasionally; and our tank less water heater (propane) is still in GA waiting to be shipped over here on the next container. It could be a long cold season!

April newsletter

Here is April's newsletter!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDPA WENDELL!!!!

Busy Week

As usual, this week looks to be very busy! This is the last full week before the first US “advance” team comes, so there is a lot of grooming things we’d like to do. We still have another month after that before the regular summer teams come but there is still plenty we want that first team to see when they drive up!
We got stopped bringing Brian’s parents to the airport because our vehicle inspection sticker had expired. We got inspected in November, but due to timing issues and more and more papers and places to go, we haven’t changed the vehicle ownership. The mum let us go because the inspection was current, but she said we need to get our papers done. So we need to get into town this week and do that. We have to go to the Revenue House first, where we will probably have to pay 16% tax on the vehicle because we don’t pay Zambian income tax because we are not paid from anyone in Zambia. Then we go to Road Traffic again and wait in line to get the registration changed. Brian’s license should also be in this week (so they say), and I need to do my road test, but I think I still have 30 or 60 days to do that.
We also need to pick up the red bus from the mechanic, hoping it is done this week! The rest of the students come back Wednesday, and there are still more supplies to get for this advance group. They have been out of the lumbar that we need every time we’ve been in, so hopefully this time, or we have to go to the open market to get it.
Brian also has the Shop to finish cleaning up. He started going through rooms awhile back but hasn’t been able to get back to finish sorting, putting back, and doing inventory. The students will be helping get things cleaned up and cabins ready and working on the sunflower patches.
So again, PLEASE PRAY FOR US and all that needs to be done-for the order to do it and not to run ourselves ragged trying, and to BE OKAY WITH NOT EVERYTHING GETTING DONE!.

Easter Chicks

We haven’t decorated the eggs yet, I just am not good at that stuff…before the day is over.
Well, we had our first “easter chick” while making French toast for dinner. Brian grabbed a wrong egg to put in the tray. The chick was pretty close-feathers, very recognizable-a real bummer.
Then he went out to feed and water the chickens later, and lo and behold-our first live chick! He is right now in a box next to me chirping away. We need to figure out exactly where to put our hatched chicks now. One side of the chicken coop is for the rabbits right now. We need to find somewhere else for them I think and then put the chicks over there.
Oh-Brian just said there’s another!

Good Friday

For Good Friday we had a potluck down at the church. We were encouraged to invite villagers around and some did come. We were suppose to start at 5 pm, but…I’d say it was a lot closer to 6 pm!! We did some singing to start. Problem is I sing higher than the people here, so they had a little bit of a hard time following on songs they picked that they didn’t know, but I did. I have to explain that whole singing an octave lower thing to them. I try to bring it down some, but I have it so ingrained in my mind how it is sung it is hard. It’s also VERY HARD when they try to join in and they still don’t know the tune yet! Anybody remember trying to sing “Happy Birthday” at auditions while the pianist changed keys on you?!
We didn’t have quite the miracle of the feeding of the 5000, but at least everyone got a little to eat! There was goat, sausage, kapente, impaw (sp?), rape, rice, lots of good stuff.
After the meal we showed “The Passion of the Christ.” After a bit Luka got up and did some interpreting/explaining of what was going on. He did a really good job-it is a powerful movie. I heard a lot of “tsk, tsk” from the headwoman during the scourging and walk to the cross.
Please pray with us that the message they saw visually will impact them into a deeper commitment based on what Christ has done for them, and also that those who don’t know the Lord will be impacted by what they saw and seek to know Him.

FEEDING OF THE 5000- Matthew 14:13-21

Just got a VERY TIMELY sermon review from Rachel on Pastor Milke’s sermon from a few weeks ago. I don’t know which comments are directly from PM or Rachel, so I will just throw mine in too!

Matthew 14:13-21 (NASB95)
13 Now when Jesus heard about John, He withdrew from there in a boat to a secluded place by Himself; and when the people heard of this, they followed Him on foot from the cities.
14 When He went ashore, He saw a large crowd, and felt compassion for them and healed their sick.
15 When it was evening, the disciples came to Him and said, "This place is desolate and the hour is already late; so send the crowds away, that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves."
16 But Jesus said to them, "They do not need to go away; you give them something to eat!"
17 They said* to Him, "We have here only five loaves and two fish."
18 And He said, "Bring them here to Me."
19 Ordering the people to sit down on the grass, He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up toward heaven, He blessed the food, and breaking the loaves He gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds,
20 and they all ate and were satisfied. They picked up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve full baskets.
21 There were about five thousand men who ate, besides women and children.

The background from Matthew 14:3-12 is that John the Baptist was just beheaded. So the passage starts out by saying Jesus withdrew (remember they were related)

In v.14, “Jesus had compassion on them (the crowds).”
We need to have compassion no matter the cost or HOW WE FEEL. We need to see people’s needs as God sees them. How quickly our faith weakens in times of hard ministry-it’s easy to say we have faith-that we know that God will take care of us. But…then the rubber hits the road. Is it our faith that weakens or just our resolve? Often I feel it is more the resolve to walk out what my faith is telling me.

In vv. 15-17 the disciples ask Jesus to send the people away. Having been with Jesus for two years already, you’d think they would know He wouldn’t!

vv. 18-19-I need to obedient to Christ without knowing all the reasons or rationales
Jesus gave specific directions but didn’t say why or what would happen. We have the creator of the universe at our disposal when we are in ministry, yet sometimes (often times!) we take matters into our own hands and send people away “to town to get food”

WE ARE MOST EFFECTIVE FOR CHRIST WHEN WE ARE OBEDIENT TO HIM
v.20 I need to realize it is God who provides
When God meets a need, He meets it FULLY! GOD gets the glory. When you are obedient to meeting others needs in ministry, your needs will also be supplied.
I (we) need to accurately weigh my basket…of gifts and talents that I can give towards ministry.
God wants you to feel inadequate to meet others’ needs because then you will rely more on God and that’s exactly where He wants you to be.
Give your basket to God and see what HE can make of it. Not just your basket of gifts and talents-how about your expectations? Your responsibilities outside your gifts and talents? How about your obedience? What amazing things GOD will do when we give Him our baskets!
But are we only to come to him when our baskets are full? Are we not also to come to Him when we are empty? We bring them full, to use for His glory. We bring them empty also (whether because we have already poured them out, or because we don’t know what we need), that HE may fill them with what we need!

MISSION/MINISTRY ADJUSTMENT

I have a feeling this is going to jump all over-who knows where it will finally end up!!

MINISTRY-the office, duties or functions of a subordinate agent of any kind

MISSIONARY-pertaining to missions; one sent to propagate religion

MISSION-a sending or being sent, usually the later; a being sent or delegated by authority with certain powers for transacting business, commission, as sent on a foreign mission. Persons sent, any number of personas appointed by authority to perform any service, particularly the persons sent to propagate religion, or evangelize the heathen. That which a person is destined or fitted to do, calling

--American Dictionary of the English Language, Noah Webster 1828

We’ve been doing a lot of evaluating lately. And believe me-the devil doesn’t like it! The oppression we fell over us physically has been very real. The heavy chest where it is hard to breath, you feel very tired, drained, almost paralyzed into doing nothing. It moves to the head often into a bad headache. He is not happy, because it looks like we are working toward admonishing ourselves into a ministry adjustment.
Lately we’ve been very caught up in our “ministry”-what we were called to do (duties, functions). Caught up, because for various, numerous reasons we haven’t been able to do that mission very well.
We’ve been so worried about doing our ministry (office, duties, functions), we are often missing or having a hard time seeing the mission (that which we are destined or fitted to do-the calling, performing the service) we are do here.
It’s not a secret to some that we have been ready to pack up our bags and a leave a time or two, one quite recently, one quite seriously. You can say that should be expected, and it was, but actually going through it is a lot tougher than just talking about it!
So we were called here by Gospelink to head agriculture at the college. We are here as the subordinate agent to do that, and we are, just not how or at the level we believe we would be by now. More important though, we are called as GOD’s agents to do the duties and functions HE has called us to do. Most times they are the same; some times they are a little different! We knew there would be many other things we would be called to do as well-just didn’t think there would be as much of those either! And there are lots of day to day ministry/mission stuff that needs to happen that we didn’t know about; nor could Gospelink know about because we are the first full-timers here. But GOD knew! And He probably hid it from us just a little so we could get us here! J
We’ve been evaluating our call to obedience-what is it? Was the call to Gospelink? To Africa? No-the call was to OBEDIENCE-wherever, whenever, however the LORD would have it be. Will it look like we think? Apparently not! We are just the subordinates to the authority of Jesus Christ!
Recently after a very tough day, I commented to Pastor Henry that I didn’t know how long we’d be able to stay here. I had recently taught in Sunday school about being called-we are called to different things-pastors, teachers, laborers, etc. But each is CALLED BY THE LORD for HIS purposes. Of course Pastor Henry brought this up to me-You weren’t called by Gospelink-you were called by GOD! Remain faithful to HIM! (OUCH!) It was almost like being back home being challenged by one of my battle buddies. The morning devotional we posted on the 5th of April really hit home.
Our Father has been reminding us this last week that it is HE who called us-whether we like what is happening or not. And we will suffer at the hands and words of non-believers as well as, if not more by, believers. Anyone can be used as a tool for the Lord or for satan-believer or not. I have witnessed both and am sure that most have if they really stopped to pay attention. I have had the Lord use non-believers in my life for HIS good and HIS purposes and I have had believers used by satan to try and discourage, frustrate, even destroy what God was and is doing.
So where does the mission/ministry adjustment come in?

Mainly it comes through an attitude adjustment:
-it’s PEOPLE, not project
-it’s RELATIONSHIPS, not achievements
It’s spending five hours waiting for the Chief and listening to a meeting for 5 hours in Soli/Nyanji because we called to be there.
It’s meetings with villagers to help them talk through their differences to come to reconciliation.
It’s letting half the students come up and have barber shop because they don’t have any electricity right now.
It’s buying and transporting breakfast meal for the village so they don’t have to bike 20 km to get it.
It’s borrowing a bike to let someone go see their brother.
It’s giving rides to town to people we really don’t know, but love to yell “Hi Mr. Brian!” and wave us down.

Some things have happened in the past week so that many of the villagers around here have burned their bridges with us. We don’t want it to be that way-we came to BUILD bridges. But really, we’re discovering that’s very much a Western thing. Here they do what we call the “African phemonomen”. They can argue and fight tooth to nail in a meeting with each other, and then when it’s done, shake hands and ask about the family! We just have a hard time acting like nothing out of the ordinary happened! We need to be faithful to the Lord’s word, but also balance that with building relationships in a culture that doesn’t match ours.
Pray that our attitude would be a right balance-not to close off lines of communication, but also to help them realize some times that their actions are wrong and there ARE consequences.
Pray that our mission/ministry adjustment will be in the heart and the mind-that we will get past the very large TO DO list and get done what we can, but focus on the ministry that happens in the relationships!
Rebuke finished :-)

Great devotional today-don't know the source-sorry

April 5
Morning Verse
"On Him they laid the cross, that He might bear it after Jesus." Luke 23:26


We see in Simon's carrying the cross a picture of the work of the Church throughout all generations; she is the cross-bearer after Jesus. Mark then, Christian, Jesus does not suffer so as to exclude your suffering. He bears a cross, not that you may escape it, but that you may endure it. Christ exempts you from sin, but not from sorrow. Remember that, and expect to suffer.


But let us comfort ourselves with this thought, that in our case, as in Simon's, it is not our cross, but Christ's cross which we carry. When you are molested for your piety; when your religion brings the trial of cruel mockings upon you, then remember it is not your cross, it is Christ's cross; and how delightful is it to carry the cross of our Lord Jesus!


You carry the cross after Him. You have blessed company; your path is marked with the footprints of your Lord. The mark of His blood-red shoulder is upon that heavy burden. 'Tis His cross, and He goes before you as a shepherd goes before his sheep. Take up your cross daily, and follow Him.


Do not forget, also, that you bear this cross in partnership. It is the opinion of some that Simon only carried one end of the cross, and not the whole of it. That is very possible; Christ may have carried the heavier part, against the transverse beam, and Simon may have borne the lighter end. Certainly it is so with you; you do but carry the light end of the cross, Christ bore the heavier end.


And remember, though Simon had to bear the cross for a very little while, it gave him lasting honour. Even so the cross we carry is only for a little while at most, and then we shall receive the crown, the glory. Surely we should love the cross, and, instead of shrinking from it, count it very dear, when it works out for us "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."
—Morning and Evening

MY HOW THEY CHANGE!

HENRY IN OCTOBER






















HENRY NOW

















GRETA OCTOBER


















GRETA NOW




















MARIAH AUGUST



















MARIAH NOW

CYBIL AUGUST & NOW

HAILEY NOW

baby Kelly

On Sunday I had the privilege of witnessing my first African birth. About 10 am Brian came to tell me that Henry had whispered to him that Carol (Lackson’s wife) wasn’t feeling well and I should go see her. We figured she was having her baby. I got down there and she had been in labor since about 4 am. The midwife thought that maybe around 2 pm she’d deliver. She continued to progress well and at 11:15 am a little girl was born! Mary, the midwife, did a great job. There really weren’t very many things they did differently. Carol was amazing! That was the quietest labor I have ever heard of! I’ve had many babies myself, but never seen one being born.
Since I was there, I got to name the baby. Talk about pressure! I didn’t know if it was a big deal-biblical names, names after relatives, I was a little stressed! I suggested a few, and then jokingly told Carol she could call her Kelly! Well, everyone liked that! The headwoman was there, Lucy, one of the headwoman’s daughters, Mary. They all thought it was great! So we now have a baby Kelly!
Witness’ wife may be having her baby now-maybe we should have him call the baby Brian if it is a boy! They could get married some day… :-)
Pretty soon we won’t need to learn any new names-2 Henrys, 2 Carols, 2 Kellys…

SEASONS CHANGING
Well, it looks as if the rainy season has about ended. We may still get a shower or two, but it’s pretty much done. No real warning signs; it just stopped raining. Brian’s allergies are bugging him and my nose is plugged.
That also means we are having to start to irrigate the gardens and our grass. We are pumping water almost every day now.

HOUSEWORK
Tim and Jeremiah came over from Malawi for a few days. Jeremiah painted one of the bathrooms-so cross that off the list!! They have been a huge help. Tim helped Brian mount a water tank in the rafters above the veranda. We were hoping that would mean more water pressure, but it hasn’t improved that much and we are having trouble filling the tank, so we must have air somewhere.
Still hoping to have Wendell help change the tub out soon. We took a holiday at the Safari Lodge with his parents so we all took long hot baths. We know we need to get as much as done before the first team arrives on 4-20, otherwise we won’t be working it again until after July when all the teams are gone.
Please continue to pray for us as we deal with the preparations for summer teams. We have never done something like this before and are doing the best we can; but it is hard to know where to begin, what order it should be done, and how to keep our cool under the pressure. Pray for us.

more meat

First off-sorry it’s been awhile! But we are keeping busy with Grandma and Grandpa here! Yesterday we came up to the Safari Lodge we went with Tim to in December, so I will try to get some things up!
The other night Elijah decided one of the guineas was too close to the house. Kelly heard a bunch of squawking and asked what was wrong with the guineas. Sure enough, Elijah had caught one and killed it before I got out there. So I took and breasted it out and we stuck it in the fridge. OH! Did I mention Fred brought our fridge part? It is working GREAT now!
Anyway, the next day mom and Kel made it into a meat gravy, it was pretty good.
We almost ended up eating chicken for Sunday dinner. Elijah decided to help get the rooster back in the coop-by biting its rear end. I had to beat him with a stick to get him to let go.