oh no oh no oh no!!!

I do not know how it happened or why, but my computer rebooted to start up mode! AAGH!! That means I have lost all the files, pictures, and emails!!
I am asking a BIG FAVOR here!!!
Many of you sent us wonderful notes of encouragement over the last year. Would you be willing to RESEND any emails you have FROM or TO us?? You should be able to do a search in your "deleted" or "sent items" folders and then resend them. Or, you may have a "Kallevig" folder where you save things like we do, and just resend that folder too.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU
This would such a blessing and help to us and a sweet momento of our time in Zambia!
THANKS!

van

We bought a van. It is a 12 passenger 2007 Ford E350, a burgundy color :-) and only 38,000 miles!

It is pretty nice. Brian's dad had been looking for us for the last while. Both he and Brian's brother Tim looked at it and asked what we thought. The guy really wanted to move it, so we got a GREAT price.

Not too odd of a thing for us-almost everyone we know in Africa buys their vehicles online without seeing them anyway!

"home"

I guess you could say we are "home". Halfway through the London flight Henry finally perked up.

We plan to write more about our final goodbyes in the next few days, especially one situation that happened on our last day at the school.

We are called to be obedient no matter the cost. We have done that, and in some cases it has been to our detriment (on earth). But we don't look for the praises of men, as nice as that would be! We are all accountable to the Lord. We have (tried) to stand up for what is right, even when it is not "convenient" for us. Sometimes we have to suffer through a trial on earth. But truthfully-we do have JOY through it. NOT happy/feeling joy-but joy in the Lord. Joy is doing what He called us to do. Joy that we have had just a taste of His suffering (and more will come!).

Are you willing to drink from that cup too? To take the PRIVILEGE of drinking from Christ's cup?

And YES!! We do plan on continuing to blog. This is our personal blog about our faith journey. It has never been a blog about the school, we've just written about it, because that is where we were. Sure, we were/are missionaries and we hope this blog gave you a small taste of what a first term missionary may being going through.

But this blog is about "it". What is it??

So, just what is "it"? "It" is our faith in Jesus Christ. "It" is our Christian walk. "It" is following our call-our call to be obedient to Christ. "It" is loving those around us, whether here or in Zambia, Africa. "It" is what we are all called to be. "It" is furthering the kingdom of Christ. "It" is a personal relationship with Christ. "It" is being totally devoted to my Lord and King and following wherever He may lead me.

prayer requests

We are in London right now.

Please pray for Henry. He has been having a fever and diarrhea. He is also chewing his fingers a lot, so most of it is teething, but not fun nevertheless.

Myron has had a fever too off and on, but seems to be doing better.

Have an 8 hour flight tomorrow, then the 2 hour to Minneapolis.

We got on the plane okay. Had to take one bag apart and make it into two, but it worked out!

what's next?

That is a question I do not have a solid long term answer for. I just do not know. I think it is the first time in my life that I really have no idea. Can you imagine how hard that is? Being a husband and father and not knowing or having any real plan. Our plan is to go back to the states and rest. Take the necessary time to process and heal from our last year. Does that mean it was a terrible year? NO just a hard one. One that has taken its toll on us but one we would not trade for anything. Our FATHER has opened a whole new world to us. We have seen that HE has gifted us in areas that we did not know. HE has uniquely equipped us for HIS service. That is exciting but it does not answer “what’s next?” There are things we need to do before we can answer that. There will be some short term things I am sure. I got some very good advice from a missionary over here that has been through a lot, he said I need to keep doing my assignments. What does that mean? Read, study, prepare, whatever that might be. It’s not just sitting and doing nothing as you wait for the Lord’s direction. You need to be prepared for when FATHER calls you into HIS service. HE is not going to call if you are not ready.


There are some things that we were told we must do when we get back to the States to heal up. There are 4 areas that we must work on. First one is the physical. It is essentially the easiest. We need to sleep, eat well, exercise, and do some light physical labor. But mainly rest- we are run down and it is beginning to show. Very few of us have had a good night sleep in the last 2 months and I especially feel that I am running on fumes. It will need to be more than just a couple of days of rest. My problem has always been I start feeling better and than go out and do too much and wind up having a set back. I am really going to need to guard against that. The other 3 areas will take more time and they are the mental, emotional and spiritual. These are the areas inside and have often been the most neglected. There is a lot of processing that needs to be done to assist in the healing of these areas. You need to look at the questions you have (the why?) and be willing to understand and except that you may not get all the answers and that is okay. And you must come to a point of surrender. That is what I am seeing for myself. FATHER has brought me to a place and has shown me that I have some very important areas that I need to surrender to HIM and then let HIM do with them as HE sees fit.

We had a really good time on holiday. We made several new friends and that was very special and meaningful for us. It is somewhat a strange experience to have people you have only known for a few days to pray over you and even weep over you and with you-a group of people completely open to the Holy Spirit’s direction. We felt such a kinship with these people even though we had only been in the field for a year and these couples had been in the field for 7 to 50 years. The combined years of service of these 6 couples and one single was well over a 100 years of service to the Lord in the mission field. You want to know what I liked so much. There was no fluff. These were straight up, straight shooting, no B. S. kind of people- they called it just like they see it, they did not over spiritualize anything. It just is what it is. Their insight and understanding of missions and the mission field and the culture was/is priceless. There are a lot of wonderful things happening in the mission field but there is also often a thing called “a miscarriage of vision” that is also happening and it is not as rare as one would like to think or hope. My philosophy of missions has changed by being a full time missionary and not a part timer. The picture is much clearer and fuller by living in the field. It is something a part timer can not see and must take the word of the full timer. I plan to try and articulate at a later time what I mean. There is a very clear theme among missionaries in the field about what does and does not work in very specific areas of mission philosophy. The Lord has given us a huge gift by being here this last year. He has opened our eyes to many things that could only be opened by being here. Our challenge is to process, remember, apply, and share what we have see and been taught

PRAYER REQUESTS

There are many things we would appreciate your prayers for:

--chief among them right now are the dogs. We need to at least have arrangements that someone will be taking them before we leave on Tuesday. We have had a few people interested, but no one has decided for sure. We actually considered leaving them at the school to guard the shop and so forth, but they didn’t want them. Of course many of the nationals would love to have them, but quite frankly, that would be too dangerous. They just don’t see dogs as pets the way we do, and when you can barely feed your own family, buying dog food is not a priority. If these dogs aren’t feed, they will get extremely dangerous. And Elijah as the man still likes to assert his authority every once in a while, so you have to show him who is boss, and that also would not be very safe. So please pray we would get a family who would like them before Monday otherwise we will have to put them down.

--we are back to the school today (Friday) to then have Saturday and Sunday to finish the last minute details and packing. People will be coming for last goodbyes too. Please pray we have time to get everything done and not feel too rushed and be able to enjoy the last few days. Pray the packing goes well.

--pray for our flights-especially for Henry. We have an 8 hour flight to London first, then an overnight. The next flight is 10 hours, then a 3 hour layover (for customs and whatnot) at Chicago, and the last 2 hour flight to MSP. Henry is very busy and very LOUD when he doesn’t get his way! Pray he will travel well.

--continue to pray for our housing when we get back to Minnesota

--pray for our income. We so appreciate the many of you that are continuing to financially support us through this period of transition. Yes, Brian will need a job; but honestly, that is not our first priority for when we get back, and would not be the healthiest for us as a family. We need time to debrief, transition, and heal some wounds. This last week at the missionary care seminar taught us some things we need to do when we get back for everyone’s sake.

PRAISES

--we meet and were ministered to by such a wonderful group of missionaries, now friends, this last week. What a humbling experience to have people we had just met weep over us in prayer! It was like being in our prayer group back home! We love these guys!

--We had a great time at Livingstone. We have some awesome pictures of us about 10 feet away from the edge of the Falls. We said fun things like “heart attack” when we took the pictures for the Grandmas. We’ll post some pictures and notes on those too. Had a few elephants get mad at us too!