Clean UP! Everybody! Everywhere!

Last month we got a letter from the District Council informing us that there would be a city wide clean up day to prepare for the upcoming Independence Day celebration. They told us that a church would be assigned to clean the orphanage property and then the District Commissioner would come around to inspect the work done. 

For this reason we opted out of the activity (being used for a photo op for someone who didn't even do the work didn't appeal to us much), but decided that the kids should take part for community unity. 

Johnny (9) raking the leaves, dry grass,  and baby mangoes in the courtyard

Unfortunately we got confused about the dates, and ended up doing the clean up day a week later than the rest of the village, but the kids didn't know that, so it's all good.

We decided to make it into a game. School was canceled for the day and a special afternoon movie was promised as well as a Field Day the next day for the 2 oldest grades.

On the morning of the Clean Up Day, Mary and I made lists of possible jobs and figured out how much time each job would take. We divided the jobs into 30 minute increments and wrote the jobs on little slips of paper.

Elias (11) checking out his new job. He's concentrating, not complaining, I promise.

I put all the job slips into my popcorn bucket and the kids could pull out a job to do. They only had to work at that job for 30 minutes, but if their job supervisor saw them slacking off their time would be increased in 10 minute increments. When their 30 minute job was done they got the little slip signed by their supervisor and then delivered it to me and pulled a new job slip.

Sandra (8) helping check if markers work as we decluttered the classroom

The idea was that the first graders would pull two slips out and the second graders would pull out three. Once they'd turned all their slips in to me they were free! Work day would be done!

Jack and Ana (both 5) sweeping the corridor around the courtyard.

We wanted the Kindergarten class to take part too so they worked with their nanny to clean their own bedroom, classroom and the hallways in that area.

One of the jobs was to cut the grass in the laundry area with scissors. Moriah (7) patiently cut away. 

All the kids worked really well. We had a couple who had their time extended, but for the most part everyone dug in and got the job done. It was a really good day!

That afternoon they all got to pile into our living room and sit on the rug to watch Astro Boy.

I hope we can make Clean Up Day an annual event so our kids can grow up seeing the value of a solid day's work. 

Just Over Two Years Ago: A Little Hump Day Humor This made me chuckle yet again!

Nearly Four Years Ago: Baby Bonanza Celebrated the birthday of two of these a couple days ago, and I can't believe they were ever that small!

Nearly Five Years Ago: San Diego Has Nothing on Us

Recapping a Weekend

The dust has settled (mostly) and the guests have all gone home. We have just 3 volunteers remaining (including Brent and Sarah) so life is much quieter. This is good. I didn't quite make it to the end of the 7 posts blogging challenge, but I posted more last week than I had in many previous weeks so I'm going to call it a win.

The kids watching Mwata Kazembe pass by on his litter

Mutomboko was a success this year. For those of you who aren't familiar with the annual tribal ceremony, here are some recaps from some of my very first blog posts: 

Mutomboko 
Mutomboko part 2
Mutomboko part 3

This year the six oldest kids went to the main arena to see the ceremony. They didn't make it to the very end since it ran late and they needed to come home for dinner, but they enjoyed what they saw and it was a good experience for them. It's so interesting to watch them grow up. The same kids who cried the first year and were frightened by the musket fire are now old enough to enjoy the festival fully.

We had a total of 25 people with us for dinner Friday and Saturday nights. I stuck with our traditional menu of Chili and Cornbread for Friday and then of course Saturday we had the Pit-Roasted Pork served with Spanish Rice and Coleslaw. For dessert was Addictive Youngstown Chips (or as I like to call them: Everything But the Kitchen Sink Cookies) and Texas Brownies. It was all excellent! (or so I've been told. Heh)

Our sun ovens came in handy this year. We cooked the 8 pounds of beans in the sun ovens before finishing the Chili on the stove. The next day we slow-cooked the barbecue sauce all day in the sun ovens which meant I didn't have to worry about stirring it at all, and the flavors developed beautifully. For Saturday lunch we 'boiled' 30 eggs for lunch sandwiches. It only took 2 hours and they were cooked perfectly. No gas or electricity required at all. Wonderful!

We did our pig just as we have for the past several years. This was our seventh year in a row! I have nearly gotten over the anxiety that something might go wrong and that it won't get done properly or on time.
For a step by step post you can read it here. This was the largest pig ever! Forty-seven kilos! That's over 100 pounds of pig. Of course by the time it was roasted, and the fat had cooked off, and it was then deboned, there were only 12 kilos (26 pounds) remaining. That was one fat mama pig.

A funny thing to note is that I cannot stand pork. True story. I also don't care much for BBQ sauce. And yet year after year I prepare massive pots of BBQ pork. I have to wait for others to tell me if it's OK because I honestly think it tastes awful. Yet year after year I'm told it's some of the best barbecue sauce and/or pork people have ever tasted. Strange but true! 

For breakfast on Sunday morning I served Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Rolls which are a wonderful way to end a weekend with friends. They all leave devoted to you and swearing eternal love--which is just as it should be. 

Moriah--yep, she's got swag!

Zambia's Day

Happy Independence Day, Zambia

47 years ago Zambia won their independence from England. 

You can learn more about Zambia and its history here

Exactly One Year Ago: A Walk on the Wild Side

God is Near To Those With Broken Hearts

Sunday, last week, was a difficult day as we buried Nicholas and came to grips with his death. I wanted nothing more than to curl up and sleep for days….but life goes on. I taught my regular Bible class that afternoon and felt God’s blessing on my spirit.

Monday morning we held our church service since we had missed out on that the previous morning. The pastor on the video we watched was speaking about ‘establishing your heart’. He spoke about meditating on Gods’ Word, and one of the verses he read was Psalm 112:7-8: (She) is not afraid of bad news; (her) heart is firm, trusting in the Lord. (Her) heart is steady, (she) will not be afraid...."

It was exactly what I needed to hear. My heart was refreshed. I had peace. Even though I was still sad, I was comforted. I had no idea this was only a temporary reprieve.

Tuesday morning I woke up with the Bible verse running through my mind: “We do not grieve as those without hope” from 1Thessalonians 4:13. I thought this had to do with Nicholas’ death. Little did I know.....

All through my morning workout and my regular routine of starting work for the day, the verse just wouldn’t leave my mind: We do not grieve as those without hope.

Around 10 AM that morning I received a call from the American Embassy. This is not unusual. As area wardens we help with issues regarding Americans in Zambia.

This phone call, however, would change my life forever.

I knew my world was about to be forever different when the voice on the phone said, “Do you know a Brant C.?” As I answered that, yes, he was my brother, my heart fell to the tips of my toes and I held on to these words: She is not afraid of bad news....her heart is firm....we do not grieve as those without hope.

Even so, I was not prepared for the next words spoken by the embassy staff member. He told me that my brother had been hiking near Victoria Falls in Livingstone, Zambia and when some baboons got aggressive, something went wrong and he fell to his death in the gorge!

My brother had been backpacking around the world--traveling through South America, India and Nepal before flying to South Africa and heading north through Zimbabwe and into Zambia. His next stop would have been to come and see me and spend a month with us.

Now, instead of traveling down to Lusaka to meet up with both my brother (who I’ve hardly seen in the last ten years) and my husband coming home from the U.S, I was now traveling to take charge of my brother’s body and sort out all the details that come with a tragic accident like this.

Because the embassy could not get ahold of either of my parents, it fell to me to call them both and break the news that their 34 year old son had died. I don’t know that anything else I do in my life will compare in difficulty.

As I write this, five days after being notified, I still haven’t come to grips with it all. 

I will say that I have seen God’s hand moving so completely. We do not grieve as those without hope. This does not mean we do not grieve, because believe you me, I am grieving!! But, I have hope. I know that God has a plan. I know that He loves me. I know that He is caring for each of my family members and will never ever leave us alone. 

I’ll write more about this in the next few days. I would have shared with you the adventure of my brother spending a month with me. Now I’ll share with you the adventure that was his life. Look for that soon. My brother was an amazing human being and I can’t wait for you all to meet him.

Please keep my entire family in your prayers. We are scattered around the world and it will take us time to gather together for a memorial service. Please pray especially for my mom and dad, my three sisters and youngest brother, and Brant’s girlfriend.

I am linking this post up with both UnknownMami and FreshMommy. I hope they both forgive me. I've made friends on both blogs and want to make sure everyone hears the news. Thank you.

Challenges of Parenting Orphans

I'm always excited when something by the Vitafamiliae blog pops up in my reader. Lora Lynn is such an inspirational person and I've been following her story of adopting a toddler from Uganda with bated breath. 

A few days ago she posted an article called Adoption and Anger and I cheered. I am so grateful that she addressed this issue. 

Basically, she writes about how adopted children deal with trust issues and as they are going through the process, the entire thing can be very frustrating for parents (and caregivers). 

Here is an excerpt: 

There’s a side to adoption that no one really warned us about.  We were prepared for attachment issues, for trust issues, food hoarding, lashing out.  But no one really told us that there’d be parental anger.

Because of her life situation, Mira is a fighter.  Her survival instincts are finely honed.  While she attached to us right away, getting her to trust us has been more difficult. .....

.......I liken the feelings of frustration we have to the first few months with a newborn.  The baby is well-fed, always being held, and is kept warm and safe.  Yet they scream bloody murder when you change their diaper, even though you’re doing them a favor.  Or they just scream because they can.  They’re not entirely sure you’re coming back with food.  As a parent, you’re exhausted and frustrated.

But you love your babies and you stick with it and eventually they learn to believe you’ll show up with food or you’ll get them out of their crib.  They learn not to fight the diaper changes and the nap times.

Mira is still like a newborn. And sometimes it frustrates us and makes us angry.  We know it’s just an issue of time, but it doesn’t make it any less anger-inducing in the heat of the moment.

You can read the full article here.In the comments, Lora Lynn makes it clear that she and her husband experienced the emotions of anger and frustration but did not give in to those feelings.

I completely understand where she is coming from and it is wonderful to have someone document this difficult transition period with a new baby in such an articulate way. 

I've seen this happen over and over with the new babies and toddlers we take in. They have to go through such a process of building trust and realizing that we love them and won't hurt or abandon them. During that time, especially if the child is sick, it can be very draining emotionally. You can feel like giving up and not doing anything when 'obviously the child doesn't even appreciate it anyway'. At these times, I'm grateful we have a large enough staff that everyone gets the chance for a break and can take time to step back from the situation if they get too tired or frustrated.

I'm still learning as I go. God didn't reveal the whole picture to me when he asked us to do this job, and in some ways I'm glad. I depend on Him for so much. And, you know, he is so good about bringing people or information my way that helps me to know how to better serve the children He's given us. 

For example, Denny is doing so much better since he came to live with us just over a month ago, and the way I know he's doing better physically, is because he is now starting to behave like a normal 20 month old child. That means he now feels comfortable enough with us to demand more food or throw temper tantrums. So, he gets to move on to the next level of recovery which includes more love and added discipline. It's not easy but it is so necessary. 

Pray for us as we work not only with the physical bodies of rescued children but their hearts and minds as well.

God Has a Funny Sense of Humor

So, it was last Thursday or Friday when I had a visit from the electric company and they informed me that they would be doing work on the only  line running into our area of the province and therefore, power would be shut off every day from 8a.m to 6 p.m for about 20 days.

I resisted the urge to panic, made a plan, changed my schedule around in preparation, and wrote a blog post about it.

Monday dawned bright and early and since I hadn't yet switched to working nights, I got up early to get as much work done on the computer as I could before the power was cut. 

Eight o'clock came and yet the power remained on. Figuring this is nothing new in a region that operates on 'Africa-time' I kept right on working. When the power finally got shut off, I was going to be ready.

The morning hours ticked away; the afternoon passed without a hitch, and so did the evening.

Here we are four days later and not only have we had electricity every day, we have not even lost it at the 'usual' evening hours for what America calls brown-outs, Zambians call load-shedding, and we call foul.

So, either God has a wicked sense of humor (I know! not possible! at least the wicked part), or He wanted to test me to see how I'd do with a little pressure. 

Or, it could just be Murphy striking again. If we hadn't been warned about the power outage and made all those preparations, the power would probably have gone off. With us being all ready and armed with a plan, it just wasn't fun for Murphy anymore.

In reality, it probably is just a case of TIA* again. Most likely they ran out of gas money, or someone had to attend a funeral, or they misplaced the paperwork.

Either way, I'm a happy, happy girl. And, I'm keeping those plans I made ready and waiting.

*This Is Africa

Exactly One Year Ago: Hair

Something's Bugging Me

I promise, I'm not really complaining. 

I'm more just stating a fact.

These past couple weeks I've been completely bugged.

I'm being completely literal.

The other day I went into the clinic and found it covered with termites. We cleaned it all up and yet the next morning....

They were all back. We figured out they were coming from below the floor and a little cement fixed up the problem.

Then, a couple days later I saw the laundry lady leaving for her lunch break and asked her what was in her hand. I was not prepared for her answer or what she showed me!

 

This was going in her cooking pot. I screamed, "Why, oh why?!?" I know they're high in protein and fat. I'd just rather eat peanut butter.

Just before Tom left on his trip, we found a little critter hanging out on out on our front porch. Literally, hanging.

Tom and I spent several minutes taking pictures with our respective cameras; trying to get the best shots. I was quite impressed with myself and how far I've come in my quest for courage.

And yet, yesterday, as I worked on the computer, I felt something tickling my neck. I thought it might be my shirt's tag or perhaps my hair stuck in my necklace. I reached up to fix whatever it might be, when to my horror, I discovered it was a huge stink bug. 

I confess that I shouted a few things I shouldn't have and jumped around my room a bit. I guess I haven't gotten far enough on that courage thing.

Everything Changes

This time last week I was writing to you about Joshua and how we would love to take him under our wings and care for him but we are waiting on enough funding to be able to care for him properly. 

We have received some good responses and are just waiting until we have raised enough monthly support so we can commit to hiring another caregiver. In the meantime, we saw Joshua today and he is doing well. We've given his family another tin of milk formula and will continue to do so until we get the go-ahead from God and our finances.

This past Thursday another little boy was brought to our door. We have to take each case as it comes so we agreed to see the family. We were introduced to Denny, a little 18 month old boy.

His mother passed away recently from some sort of illness--this is usually a vague thing since most people don't know much about what sicknesses they have.

I took one look at Denny and could see that while he was obviously loved (his clothes were clean, he was washed, and he was munching on a doughnut), he was also seriously malnourished. His cheeks were puffy but not with healthy toddler chub, he has Kwashiorkor--a form of malnourishment. His hair is orange and sparse. His legs were skinny and his feet swollen.  He is unable to walk--probably because of spending so much time being carried on a relative's back. He has been looked after these last few months by his mother's cousin who has nine children of her own.

We knew right away that we would have to take Denny in. He was in a very vulnerable state and could easily contract more illnesses since his body's immune system was not getting the nutrition it needed.

Thankfully, because of his age, he was able to slide right into the 'Toddler' group. Our  three 1 & 2 year old children are looked after by one nanny so she was able to take on the care of one more. Denny is just two weeks old than Peter.--It's almost like having twins.

 

Our task right now is to get Denny healthy. We've made him some special, extra nutritious milk and are giving him that before solid food. His appetite is not that great so we'll offer him the milk and then as his health improves so should his appetite.

Remember, if you would like to partner with us to help more children in Zambia it's as easy as 1, 2, 3.

#1 Click on this link or the donate button at the top of the blog page. 

#2 Choose to give a one time gift or monthly support--let us know in the memo section or an email what you'd like to do.

#3 Know you've made a difference in a child's life.

 

Sundays in My City--Village Church

Tom's student is really happy--they just get serious around cameras.

 Last Sunday Tom was invited to preach at the church of one of his Bible students. He has gone there three times before but I had never accompanied him so this time the church members insisted that I come as well.

The church was tiny and yet they managed to fit 150 people in there. The ladies that are walking up the aisle are actually dancing in as they sing Praise songs. 

The church was so full that children were gathered around the pulpit as well. They stared at me the entire service. 

There was a whole lotta shakin' goin' on!

After the women sang, the youth group stood up to sing. They filled the tiny floor space to capacity. Song time is accompanied by lively dancing. My seat was right next to the floor area and was quite low sitting which meant that I had an interesting vantage point for all the hip-shaking and grooving. I was never so thankful for my camera which allowed me to 'escape' to higher ground. I stood in the corner to take pictures.

The drummer was really feeling the music

Since it was Sunday morning and church day, most people had bathed so there wasn't the regular pungent smell of unwashed bodies that you might find on a bus or in a crowded shop, but that many people in a small room made for pretty stale air.

Tom has been slowly taking this congregation through the basics of the Bible. This past Sunday he was explaining what sin was. The last time he preached he found out that there is no Bemba word for sin. The only word they have is the same word for mistake. The trouble with this is that if one thinks that sin is the same as a simple mistake it really takes away the seriousness of intentional wrong doing. We have encountered this and so have been working to teach the difference between say, accidentally knocking your friends plate of food of the table or stealing food from their house. Mistakes can be taken care of with an apology but sins carry consequences.

The faces on these children will always make me happy!

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Christmas is for Kids

We started Christmas off for the kids by telling them the Christmas story using flannelgraph pieces. I hadn't really planned out the story real well, but the kids seemed to understand it well enough.

I was especially proud of 4 year old Johnny as he gave the right answers that showed he was really listening. I told them how Christmas Day was a day to remember how Jesus came to love us and we need to love and obey him. And, how we give/get presents in honor of the three wise men and their gifts to Jesus. As they get older we'll get into more details. They'll also be able to do more on the gift giving part to learn how to give as well as receive. 

After story time and a cookie, Tom and Timmy took the kids outside to light some sparklers. In our house, any holiday is a good reason to start fires.

The kids started off slowly and were a little intimidated by the sparks but by the time it got down to Henry, he was rocking out and putting on quite the show.

Jennifer stood off to the side and enjoyed her sparkler. Don't you love the little pigtails? The nannies use pipe cleaners to wrap around the hair.

The next afternoon the kids gathered in the dining room to get their gifts. We had such a nice selection of toys for the children thanks to all of you who participated in the Give Kids Their Own Space campaign. You can read how the idea got started here.

Tom passed out the presents youngest to oldest. Look at the candy canes on Henry's head.

They were a little shy--especially the younger ones, like Moriah,  who don't remember last Christmas.

These are the boxes that we were able to get for the six oldest kids. Chola is beaming with excitement.

Every child got a toy or two, a doll, a coloring book, and a pencil (the older ones also got crayons). The boys got king dolls. 

One of the best moments was when Johnny held up his doll and said, "hello, my baby!"

 I loved how Sandra was clutching both her dolls under her arm while still managing to draw in her book.

Johnny was so excited about his coloring book he wanted to do every page right then.

After playing with their toys for awhile the kids had a cookie party with milk to wrap up their afternoon.

Saturday is family visiting day so they all went down to the playground to visit with their relatives. 

It was a wonderful day and we're so grateful to all of you who helped make it extra special for the kids.