Answered Prayers

Greetings in the Name of the Lord

Much time has gone by since I last wrote anything. SInce that time many hard and hurtful events as well as many blessings have occurred in our lives. Don was diagnosed in Feb with Carcinoma of the right tonsil. We had returned to the US for tests and this was the outcome of those tests. Now 6 months later he has had surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. Also he has had to have 7 teeth pulled to prepare for the radiation and he developed bilateral cataracts. All from the chemo. So he has had both of them removed and can once again see. He had a very hard time with the side effects of the chemo and radiation. He lost weight, developed a terrible rash much like a severe sunburn combined with chicken pox. He got a yeast infection in his mouth and many blisters there also. Swallowing became hard and he became limited at times to yogurt and smoothies. But that was some of the bad stuff. The blessings have been incredible... We had our church here provide us with a home for 2 months and it came stocked with every thing we needed. It became our refuge and haven. Then our friend gave us her home while she was in Zambia and when her family came for the beginning of school another brother and sister in the Body of Christ offered us a place with them. Beyond counting the body of Christ has piled the blessings on us. Car to drive, food, money for expenses and especially prayers. Prayers like you couldn't imagine. Notes, calls and visits all gave us such hope and comfort. Also time for me to have alone and in places of creative beauty so I could have time alone with God. It has been such a healing time for us both. At first when all of this happened we wondered about our purpose at Namwianga since we had to leave for a long time. We had to be reminded that trails come from Satan and he isn't in charge but God is. If the apostle Paul was always in God's will for his life and still he had unbelievable hardships, how much more should we trust that even in the midst of these hard scary times we were still in God's will and now it seems as if we will be able to return to our work for God in Zambia. How precious is the love of God and how grateful we are for his gift of work to us. So now we plan on visiting family and recovering from the treatment and then around the first of October returning to Zambia. One of the thougts I received in this time says it best" Prayer is not getting what we ask for, rather it is being changed in ways that are unimaginable" Kathleen Norris. So this time we pray is God's way of changing us in ways we cannot even imagine.
Don and Laura

Bulls, rain, rain and more rain and watered out

Hi

Greetings from Namwianga, Zambia , Africa. This new year started with a young bull in our yard staring at me and ignoring the barking dog. After much envcouragement from me and the dog he left. At least he didn't get into the garden or try to run us over. I am not sure he understood English but the frantic hand motions seemed universally understood.

We have started this year as we ended the last one, with a deluge of rain. As of today we have only had 2 days that it didn't rain. Some days it is all day long. The Zambians say this type of rain is unusual here for this time of the year. There has been flooding a few hours north of us. Our roads are a mess. They weren't very good to begin with and now it is like driving a bombed out path. Potholes are more like pot canyons and require much thought as to how you will proceed. Outreaches to the villages are on hold as the roads are totally impassable and under water. Even the hospital number has been down. The nurses tell me its because they are all busy planting maize or are unable to get here or both. I have been very busy with the hospital.We are busy building a sluice room( dirty utility room/laundry) in each of the existing ward rooms. Also doing some electrical work on lighting and call lights. We still have the nurse's station to finish and we have built shelves in the supply rooms behind the nurse station. I have been meeting with officials locally and will go to Lusaka next week to meet with some other ones. Many of the difficulties here originate from the fact that all hospitals are government staffed. that means they have to send the person you want to your facility. It takes a lot of time and paperwork to get that done. Because our working staff here at the mission is limited in number we get delayed in finishing work on the clinic because they get pulled to help out with emergencies re: water or damage to the homes or buildings from the rain.

We have been catching rain in buckets for 11 days now because the well caved in.... from all the rain. So I feel like a pioneer because we haul our water from a container they brought over to the clinic and then boil it for cooking and drinking and doing dishes. It is astounding how much water you use in a day. This isn't including water for bathing and washing clothes and flushing the toilet. But we are very grateful we have clean water. So when you are praying today or whenever, remeber for the fixin' of our well and for the new Bible class we start tonight.

We work in Him
Don and Laura

Christmas thoughts

Merry Christmas to all

It is the day after Christmas here at Namwianga and much about Chtristmas is new and much the same as at home. We are enjoying the rainy season here and it is warm and muggy. Everything is green and lush and beautiful flowers are blooming in our yard. It is very hard to remember it is December and Christmas at times. A complaint I often voiced at home and one which is still around, is the fact that Christmas had gotten so commercialized and lost its meaning. Also that the stores all started putting up decorations way too early, right after Halloween, and how people had forgotten what the original meaning of Christmas was. Well let me just say, Zambia rights my perspective. The only Christmas decorations we have seen were in the stores in Lusaka, the capital. None in our small town near the mission and no incessant Christmas music played overhead in stores anywhere. The only way I knew it was Christmas was the calendar. We played our Christmas CD's and had dinner yesterday with other missionaries. No frantic shopping in the mall, no late night sessions of gift wrapping. In fact no gift exchange at all. Unless you want to count the money given out to buy formula for two babies whose Mom's are HIV + and so are unable to nurse their newborns. We did buy essentials for our workers, without whom we wouldn't be able to manage to get any other work done. That was so satisfying to see their faces when we gave them large tubs filled with mealie meal, sugar, salt, oil, beans and a tin of cookies. It is definitely much more blessed to give than receive. We did shop along the side of the road from the young kids selling baskets. The traffic was awful. We had to stop five times for goats on the road.But we did receive much. We shared the gifts of friendship, song, laughter, and good food with others. We received a cake from Charity our worker, who had baked it as a Christmas gift to us. We got to go to a lake resort nearby and spend three days with other missionaries marveling at the awesome creation spread out before us. We got to spend some hours in prayer for this mission and our work. We received messages via email from friends back home and thru the wonder of computers, got to skype our families on Christmas day. God has indeed blessed us beyond measure and we look forward to a busy, productive year in 2008. Please pray that His purposes will be fulfilled this year at Namwianga.

In the glory of the Almighty we live

Graduations and hospitals

This week has been eventful. We attended the Grade 9 Graduation for one of our sponsored students. You have heard me talk of Webby before. This was like no other graduation we have ever attended. The students marched out to the choir singing. The procession was really a slightly swaying two step. This is the norm here. Then once the speakers finished, and they were just like American commencement speakers, long. Then the students were called up to receive their certificates. But what happened next was strictly Zambian. As each young man or girl went up, some member of their family or friends went running up to them, singing and dancing to give them hugs and gifts. Sometimes it was many people who went up. No one seemed to think this was unusual. It was loud, happy and the students loved it. Because both living to be a grade 9 student and the chance to atttend school is so rare, much is made of this occcasion . So when our student was called I gave him our gift, even though I found it difficult to act as the Zambians did, such a quiet person that I am. But Webby was happy to have us there and now we wait for his results for the grade 9 exams to be ready. In this country you don't get to go on to 10th grade unless you pass the 9th grade exams. He won't know until January or Feb. They have a holiday from now until in January. So please pray for our student that he will have done well and can continue school. He wants so much to go. He has studied hard.

Then, yesterday we accompanied Rogers Namuswa, one of the church development leaders, to the Kalomo hospital and family shelter. We took some of the donated food from America to the family shelter and he handed it out. We had prayers in the wards and then I spoke to the women gathered . This is the place families can stay while they have family in the hospital. Unlike the U.S. families move in to these shelters and cook meals for themselves and provide care for their family who are a patient. It is a bare concrete building, no furniture of any kind, only a covered picinic like shelter to cook or wash in. They bring their food, their cooking utensils and stay there for weeks sometimes. As we entered the shelter, flies were everywhere, they were sitting on the bare concrete floor, and they brought us a couple of stones to sit on. I was so humbled to be asked to speak to them. How could I give them anything of worth. I spoke to them about their courage and then shared with them the verses about God being able to do more than we ask or imagine. About how the power of the Holy Spirit living in us can overcome all things. Then Don prayed with them and we passed out the food. As I talked with some of them I could see Jesus in their eyes. It is times like this that God reminds me why we are here. To help in their suffering, to offer a cup of cold water, and also to share in the joy of one young man as he obtained recognition for hard work and effort. Thanks to God we are here among His people.

More About Webby

He comes each day after he finishes his day's exams. He is eager to study the Bible and it is a challenge because I never really know how much he comprehends about what we study. Zambians are so polite that they won't disagree with what you say and won't tell you always if they don't understand a word. So yesterday we talked about what redeemption means. Finding examples from this culure is also a challenge. But we go on and God's spirit moves in this boy. He is 18 and just writing his grade 9 exams. In this country you only get to go on to grade ten if you pass grade 9. He won't know until January and then it will be Feburary before he can start class.

He is an orphan who walked with an aunt some 60 kilometers to ask for sponsership so he could go into grade 9. He was given money to attend a school near where he was living in Kabonga area but when he returned to pay the fees, he was told there was no room. So instead of just keeping the money, about 12$, he walked all the way back , alone, in the rain, to return the money. Somehow God worked it so that Webby could be enrolled here at Namwianga basic and we have been honored to help support him since then. Since he is in the basic school(grade school) he has a place to stay, but has to cook his own meals and wash his own clothers. So we have been providing those things for him. He comes each weekend to work around our home in the garden, even doing some laundry, to help pay off his support. Last week his much of his clothing was stolen and so we are helping get him some new things. I have never heard him whine about how rough he has it, or asking why these things have happened to him. He just keeps going. He wants to be a preacher and so we study and pray together. I am honored to be allowed to work where God already has been active.

For the technically challenged

Hi to all

At long last I am able to access our blog again. So bear with me I am going to update some of the happenings/ We have had Harding University students here for a semester abroad. 24 of the most incredible young Christian people you would ever want to meet. Really folks, the future of the church is good judging from the quality of these kids. Bright, caring and unfazed by the inconveniences of living here in Africa. Some were pre-med and some pre nursing and many of them were future missionaries who adjusted to life here with laughter and song and lots of interaction with the zambians. We took them to villages where they preached , led singing, did the communion talk and generally participated in the worship. They learned Tonga and became fluent in many of the songs. They went home to the villages with their tutors and experienced that life. So now that they have returned home we are missing them a lot.

Right now Don is busy learning a new computer system for the business office so that they can be more efficient in their work. He has been involved with the students of Harding and has been part of the management of their daily life. I have been teaching the pre health students as they came to the clinic about health care in Zambia. Now I am trying to thread through the red tape to get the provencial minister of Health here to help us make the assessment for moving up to a hospital status. We are becoming closer to our students we support especially one, Webby. We have started studying with him because he wants to learn the Bible so he can be a preacher. He is eager and despite being in finals week at school, still comes each day to study. I hope to be able to send more pictures now that this blog is working. Here goes.....

We are finally back from the Zambia Medical Mission of 2007. It was great. We saw 15,000 people and had over 140 baptisms. Many new congreagations will be started from the contact made during the bible classes, preaching and counseling sessions. We treated some very ill patients this year and even took several of them to hospitals for more care. Of course we had to also provide the medicine they would need in those hospitals. Often the local hospitals here have very few medicines and supplies. As you know, we currently have a rural health center here at Namewianga. That is like an outpatient clinic in the states. Because our clinic is supported from the U.S. we usuallly have medicine and supplies for care. So we often get patients from outside our area. Many of the patients will come from long distances by foot in order to get this care and medicine.
If you remeber I mentioned I had to take a national nursing test for foreign trained nurses in June. Well, Praise God, I passed. So that was the last thing to finish before we could get our work permits. I appreciate all of your prayers. Now that the medical mission is completed, my task is to start organizing and prioritizing tasks to ready ourselves to become an inpatient hospital. Currently we are a mixture of government supported and mission supported facility. The government pays the salaries of the 4 nurses and one clinical officer and the pharmacy tech and the dentist. The mission pays for the support personel, the lab tech, teach the xray tech and of course, all of the medicine. The mission also pays the utilites. So there is a fine line to walk in trying to establish this clinic to become a hospital. A well run,well outfitted hospital is a desperate need here. We had a child of our lab tech die last week because of this lack of supplies at the hospital they had her in. People tell us they also come here because our staff treat them with dignity and kindness. We strive to be like Jesus. As I look at them each day, line up to be seen, I remeber the Word saying, Jesus had compassion on the crowds. They were like lost sheep without a shepherd. We start each clinic day with a short devotional for the staff and any patients already at the clinic. This helps keep us focused on whose we are and why we do this work. Please pray for the work here, the clinic, the hospital to be, the teachings of Jesus to all we meet. Don and I will return to the schedule of outreaches to the villages each weekend. This coming weekend we have a 3 day meeting of several congregations and we will be working with them. We will resume this thursday night our weekly bible study on spiritual formation. We had suspended it during the medical mission. Don continues to teach in the business office for the College and secondary schools. They have a new computer system for the financials. He has daily meetings to work through many areas of change for them. Harding Univerisity is doing a semeser abroad starting in Sept. Don will be assisting with the logistics and help problem solve. This will be their first time here and 24 students with teachers will arrive on Sept 3. This will be unlike any other semester abroad, since this is truly a 3rd world country. Many concerns that they would never see in Europe are here. So He will be busier. Please pray for all of these areas and our energy and focus.
In Him
Don and Laura