simply grateful

Women's Conference Bethel Baptist Many of our friends were praying for this women's conference and specifically for Heather as she taught about King Josiah.  The theme of the conference was "Revival" and Heather talked about how during the renovation of the temple they found the Scriptures.  King Josiah, as a result of finding the Scriptures, commanded all the altars built to other gods be torn down and they only worship the one true God.  She talked about how if we want to experience a true revival it will be because the people of God come back to the Word of God with a heart of obedience.  Please continue to pray that this lesson will resonate in the hearts of these women and they will pursue Christ through His written Word.   Here are a few pictures: There were about 45 women there and they slept on the mats for two nights to be part of the conference.   Five Churches were represented, but one of them had only one memb...

SO, since I am posting this a month later than I intended, we can count this as a Throwback Thursday edition too. Each morning, during the school year, we get to walk out our back door, walk across our great yard, greet the dogs, and go to our little one-room schoolhouse.  We are so grateful for this space to have our school.  We are also so grateful for an organization with the IMB who supports us so fully by providing the curriculum and materials we need in order to educate our kids.  My heart gets so moved when I step into that room to prepare for the new year because I think of all the MANY, many people back home across the ocean who graciously give to the Cooperative Program and Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.  Our little family could not serve where we serve without being able to homeschool.  It is a very important part of us being here.  It is also a tremendous joy in the heart of this mama! The following are pictures of the first and last days...

Big News in Lundazi For the last 17 months I have said that somebody needed to get a soft serve ice-cream machine here in Lundazi for a business.  Finally, somebody heeded my advice and got one.  Of course, I feel obligated to support them frequently to show how good my advice was!  With my success in bringing ice-cream to Lundazi, I think I will start trying to pitch the idea of Chick-fila!

We once lived in a parsonage on the church property and struggled to get to church on time.  Now our commute each Sunday is a little longer and a lot more adventurous.  There are five Baptist churches within an hour and a half of our house so we do a rotation to visit all of them.  (There are three more that we work with but they are about 5 hours drive and require crossing several rivers so we can only get to them during the dry season).  Anyhow, we thought you might want to tag along on our Sunday drive. We were excited to see that not only have they paved the roads in Lundazi, they have even painted lines on some of them!  The roads around town were pretty bad when we moved here 16 months ago, but they have really made some improvements!  (Roads with lines, according to Makayla, are "fancy roads.") But, Lundazi is where the pavement ends!  All the churches we go to (except the one in Lundazi) are far off of the paved road!  This is t...

Eight dollars.  That’s roughly what it cost in diesel to take me on a 41 kilometer round-trip to Vuu, a remote village, to lead a Bible study today.  It wasn’t just any Bible study, it was my first Bible study I have led since moving to Lundazi 15 months ago and it was done in Chitumbuka.   I thought that after I finished it that I would feel a sense of elation, of accomplishment.  Fifteen months of Chitumbuka culminated in this moment where I shared the story of Jesus calming the storm.  I thought I would feel a sense of relief and a bit of release from the intense program of language acquisition.  But much to my surprise, I really didn’t feel any of those.   As I drove back home I felt something I didn’t anticipate, a sense of gratitude and of urgency.  First, I was grateful to God for the opportunity He has given us to live in a different country and share the truths of His Word with people who are so eager to hear it.  I’m comple...

We were led by a man on a bike, down a footpath that was more than adequate for his bike but insufficient for the breadth of our vehicle.  His feet went round and round, one foot resting on a pedal and the other balancing on a metal peg where a pedal used to be.  I was actually surprised that one pedal remained, the terrain we were negotiating today was a daily occurrence for this pastor who was leading us out to this newest preaching point.  He had cycled an hour and a half through the bush to the point where we met him on a soccer field near a school only to find out they had changed their meeting place.  We were told it was less than a kilometer from the field so we decided we would just follow him on his bike.  In Africa, I prefer a used car to a new one so I don’t cringe every time a bush or thorns scrape the side of the vehicle, our journey today was no exception.  This footpath was not a road, that point reemphasized by the reception we r...

Here is a link to an article covering the 5K race the church I grew up at put on for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering on Christmas Eve.  Its a great article, check it out by clicking HERE