Powerful God

I wrote this about 2 weeks ago, but just haven't posted it yet.

We serve such a powerful God! Mallory arrived yesterday, and we kept hearing from the girl she sponsors that she would be going to town for holiday break. We decided to go and find the auntie, who she stays with, to see if she could hang around the village for a few extra days to spend time with Mallory. 

When we arrived at her house the auntie was bathing. When she came to join us she could hardly walk because her leg was hurting so badly. We asked her about it and she said for the past year the pain has come and gone, some months more intensely than others. She has gone to the hospital and they gave her some pills to take, but the pain hadn't left. She said she now thinks the pain has something to do with the witches because of the way it hasn't left for months. At this point I knew we had to pray over her. 

We asked if it would be ok if we would pray over her. We explained that God is so much more powerful than any witch and that if we called upon Him, He could heal her. She agreed and we spent time laying hands on her and praying. When we finished we asked if she had felt the pain move or leave her body. She said she had felt the pain move up her leg. This made me feel like it was something demonic, so I asked if we could pray again. She agreed. We prayed healing over her body, and the Lord healed her leg! It was amazing! Henry, who was translating for us asked her if she could stand up and make sure it really was feeling better. She did, and it seemed as though the pain had left! The Lord is SO powerful! We prayed and sealed the healing over her body and encouraged her that if satan ever tried to bring the pain back, to pray and ask God to take it away. 

Hopefully we can go back and find her this week. The Lord tells us in Luke 10 to go out and pray for the sick so that they can experience who He is. That is what we want. We want people to be able to experience the Lord. We don't want to go and dump a bunch of churchy knowledge on them and tell them to believe, we want them to truly experience His goodness and might! 

Praise the Lord with us as this lady experienced the healing power of Jesus! 

Fruit

I found a fruit in Zambia that I really like. It is hard to beat fresh mangos here but there are many Zambian fruits found in the bush that we have been able to try. This particular fruit is in season now and is pronounced "mauwi" in some local languages. It is the size of an orange, yellow/green in color, and has a hard shell. To eat it you crack it open and there are many seeds inside covered with tasty fruit. The taste is almost like a cooked tart apple.

Last week, I found out that my body is not used to this fruit. It was my first time trying to eat a whole one. I was 3/4 of the way through it when my stomach started feeling weird. So I left the rest and departed to a home church meeting. My wife and I decided this time to take the motorcycle rather than doing the 45 minute walk that we normally take... which ended up being a good choice because I might have not made it back. Let's just say that I was supposed to be leading the group that day and I ended up leaving the group and vomiting several times. Thankfully, when practicing simple church the leader isn't all that important and the meeting went on just fine. I may need to try smaller amounts of fruit next time... but it may take a couple of weeks before I want to see, smell, or taste that fruit again :)

Battle

You know that weird feeling when the only way you can explain someone knowing something is through witchcraft? If you are living in America, many would answer that question "no". But the spiritual realm is so real and if you are a Bible believer, you know that the demons and the angels are battling (...but Jesus wins! FYI). We have had some odd or abnormal (maybe supernatural???) things happen. And we know of two witch doctors that live in the area. A couple of weeks ago, Allison and I were praying in bed when she said "Benjamin, start praying against the devil!" She had just seen demon eyes in the window after our team had been feeling spiritual warfare. Some of the things that happen in Africa I would have never believed being in the U.S. But now there is very little that I totally discount. The good news: we have a God over angel armies, power in Jesus name, and armor in Ephesians 6. Don't go to battle naked!

Saturday Tutoring

Saturdays are one of my favorite days of the week. One of Love's Door's focuses is education. There are approximately 55-60 kids sponsored to go to school through Love's Door. A requirement as part of the sponsorship program for the kids living out here in the village is that they come to tutoring on Saturday mornings. This includes 1 hour of small group tutoring and 1 hour of discipleship time. It has become quite a program! 

Here's what the schedule looks like: 

9:00-10:00 The first tutoring group comes through. We have around 20 kids during this time slot broken up into 6 different tutoring groups. 

10:00-11:00 Approximately all 45 sponsored kids from the village attend discipleship time. This hour is open to any village kid, whether sponsored or not. The kids under 12 stay together and it is sort of like Sunday school. We study a Bible story together, sing some songs, play games, and sometimes do crafts. The girls and boys over 12 break into gender specific groups and talk about purity, what it means to be a godly man or woman, and play games together. 

11:00-12:00 The second tutoring group comes through. We have around 25 kids during this time slot with 6 different tutoring groups. 

Sometimes it makes for a crazy morning, but I love tutoring. The students I work with are in a range of grades from 3-7. We spend time working on math, reading, and writing. It has been amazing to see my students grow and improve. When I started with these students last year, some of them could not yet read. I've had 4 new students join me throughout the year as they've received a sponsor, so it has been interesting to watch them try to catch up to some of my other students. I still have a few who struggle to read, but we are working on it. We've also been trying to master skip counting by different numbers to help with multiplication facts. 

As you feel led, pray for this program. Pray that the Love's Door tutors would be able to make a difference and impact these kids on Saturday mornings both academically and spiritually. Pray that these students would be able to continue their education even up through college. I know only a handful of villagers who have even been through high school. Pray that these kids would be educated and rise up as leaders in their communities. I see so much potential in many of these kids. 

Unbelievable

Two crazy, unbelievable, and frustrating situations in one day. The first was from a lady who works on our property. She has been sick on and off for many months now. The clinic and hospital have told her that she has low blood but I am not really sure what that means. So I was checking in on her one day and I wanted to discreetly encourage her to get tested for HIV because it is very taboo. It turns out that she was already tested and that a doctor from town has been telling her that it is because she hasn't been sleeping with men. I got a translator because I was thinking that something was lost in translation. But it was true! She hasn't slept with anyone for over a year and the doctor has been telling her that she needs to have sex to get different blood in her body and she is now starting to wonder if he is right because she has been sick so much. Those things make me want to visit the clinic and punch someone right after tearing up their doctor license!

Scenario number two was also someone who works for the organization. He has a wife who is 15 years old and is pregnant. He told me about her not feeling well and the family wanting him to go to a witch doctor. I had been meaning to talk with him about the spiritual implications of entrusting health and children to demonic influences. But things came up and I never did. Thankfully, God made it work out because the next day he was knocking at my door asking for a K200 loan for the witch doctor. I couldn't miss this opportunity if I tried! Apparently, the witch doctor wanted K750 ($75... almost a month of wages!) to determine the problem and give them charms. I was able to speak truth into his life along with another Zambian staff member who is so wise on these issues. And he went home and took a stand to rely on Jesus.

Unfortunately, the family went around him and came up with the money themselves. The diagnosed problem is that the baby is being stolen from the womb at night and then returned and the headman of the village is putting curses on the baby because he wants it to die. Sounds wild but I don't write anything off in Africa. The headman has now kicked this man out of his house and he is living in a nearby rundown mud and grass house that will not make it through the rainy season. Wonderful opportunity to help and speak truth... but Jesus can come back and take over anytime!

Flying Termites

The rain has begun to fall harder and more frequently. This means that all of a sudden one night we had a mass of flying termites. We remember them from last rainy season. The body is maybe four times then size of an average termite and they have four clear wings similar in look to a dragonfly. They must only hatch after it rains and they disappear after a day.

It was around 7:30 pm in our house. It had been dark for an hour when we heard hundreds of these flying termites trying to get in through our screens and blinds. Houses are not completely bug proof like a winterized house would be so hundreds of flying termites did get in the house.

So here we are after dinner hoping for a relaxing evening. We shut off all of the lights in the house save a small camping solar light. We filled both sides of the kitchen sink with water and placed the light in between so that some of the flying termites would drown in the water. We quickly took ice cold showers and jumped into bed in the safety of our mosquito net at 8 pm. An early bedtime isn't so bad. We are just hoping that the many people that fry and eat these flying termites won't offer us any in the next few days!

Cicada

We were meeting with a home church group when all of a sudden a loud noise started right behind me. It made me jump and turn and I noticed that it was coming from a pot. It turns out that some people eat cicadas in Zambia! This one was being kept alive in a pot to fry in the evening. The things we learn after being here for a year.

Hand Washing

Hand washing clothes is a necessary evil. It is even worse when we procrastinate because we end up with a mountain of laundry. So we try to hand wash 2 or 3 times a week in order to stay on top of the build up.

Benjamin enjoys washing in a public place when there are young girls around. The girls almost always want to jump in to help and teach the proper Zambian way of washing (which neither of us have mastered although Allison is getting pretty good).

Recently, Benjamin decided to take the pile of laundry outside and he was joined by 3 energetic girls ranging from 10-12 years old. Allison joined the washing and the clothes became clean fairly quickly.

While we were washing, we talked about families and children. Benjamin asked the girls what they would name their children someday. Two of the girls responded with auntie Allison and the third one said uncle Benjamin. It was cute to hear the respectful auntie and uncle placed before our names even in this context but much more heart warming to see how they look up to us. We don't always feel like our work is making a radical difference but it is encouraging to sometimes see people desiring to follow our lead.

What does home church look like?

A while back someone asked us what our home church groups look like. Honestly, we try to practice church in its most simplest form. There are 3 segments with different parts that we usually roughly follow to practice worship, learning about God through His stories, and committing to live in obedience.

Here's an outline:

A- Ask

1. Ask- what are you thankful for? This is where we spend time worshipping God. Sometimes it's just talking about what we are thankful for, sometimes it's popcorn prayers, and sometimes it's Zambian worship songs. This part of our home church groups has become fairly spontaneous.

2. Ask- is there anything you need prayer for or a sin you need to confess? We spend time sharing and then praying for one another.

3. Ask- what did you learn last week and how did you follow through on your commitments? Church is supposed to be something that changes our lives, not just something we listen to. Each week we make commitments as well as commit to share the story with 3 people. We discuss how that went here.

B- Bible Story 

1. Share the story. We don't often just read from the Bible here. We pick a story, draw it out in 4 pictures, and then share it with our group. Honestly, it has become a wonderful way of digging into scripture for me during my own time and really learning stories better. It also helps most people remember the story better later.

2. Discuss- what does this story teach us about God and ourselves?

C- Commit

1. Like I mentioned earlier, we want church to be life transformational and not just head knowledge. After we've heard the story and discussed it we ask, what is one thing that you can do this week after hearing the story? The tricky thing about this part is that it has to be measurable. Someone can't just say, "I'm going to love more". They could say, "there's this one person who is difficult for me to love, so I'm going to go out of my way 2-3 times this week to encourage them". Each person makes a commitment and oftentimes we record these so we can check back in next week.

2. Then we want people to be going out and sharing what they're learning. Every person commits to sharing the story or the truth from the story with 3 people. We all name them so that it's concrete and we can check in again next week.

3. We practice telling the story. If the story is drawn in 4 pictures, we assign 1 person to each picture and practice telling it so that we feel ready to go out and tell it to others.

Yup, church can be that simple and transformational. I've loved doing church this way and it feels like it has so much meaning. You should try it sometime. Meet up with someone and just walk through these steps. It's simple, easy to follow, and I can guarantee you both will walk away having learned something.

Our Immigration Journey

On June 20, Allison and I walked into the immigration office once again. We applied for our work permits back in November shortly after arriving. Every month we returned to immigration to check on our visas. We walked up the steps, through the immigration doors and down to a hallway where we turned right. Down that hallway we past several doors until we turned left down another hallway and to the service office all without seeing a single soul. It was tricky finding the correct office on our first trip but by the time June 20 rolled around our feet had been programmed to walk the worn hallways without thinking.

Each time that we showed up we entered a room with five desks squeezed in to cover the length of two of the walls. Papers littered the desks. Two doors off opposing sides of the room led into side offices. An airport style bench spanned one wall for those who waited. And two or three checked out immigration officers usually greeted us with silence.

In March, we walked in and saw three immigration officers. Only one of them was busy helping a person even though a small queue of 5-7 people had started. A man in his late twenties or early thirties who was slouched in his chair finally grunted, took out his music earbuds, and motioned for us to come over. He told us to check the blue binder to see if our permits had come. We flipped through this book that was filled with the hand written names of the people who received their permits each month. How anything is kept from being lost is unbeknownst to us.

After looking, we reported back to the officer and waited for another thirty day stamp that would bring us back in April. He fiddled on the computer for a few minutes and then printed a document. He handed the paper to us and said, "I have bad news. You're permit has been rejected." We were shocked this had never happened in our organization's history. We asked for an explanation and the one we got was Zambianization. I started asking many questions about what it was and what to do next. The man didn't have a good explanation and was clearly annoyed by having to help us. After yelling back and forth to a lady in one of the side offices, he finally told us to step in as he slouched back in his chair and put the ear buds back in unconcerned about the rest of the queue.

The lady in the side office explained that we were rejected for doing work that Zambians could do. We explained that we do not get paid and actually our presence employs many people. She told us that we would need to go to the capital city, Lusaka, and make our appeal there within a day or two.

So off we went on a bus to Lusaka not sure of what the future would hold. After the bus that we were supposed to be on filled up (despite us being early and having preassigned seats from being the first to buy tickets the day before), we were delayed an hour or so and then boarded a different bus for our eight hour trip. We arrived in Lusaka after immigration had closed so we spent the night and made our appearance in the morning.

This office was much bigger than the one in Livingstone. Desks filled most of the building and piles of paper filled most of the desks. It was absolute chaos. We talked with an immigration officer who heard our plea for about five minutes before taking our organization's appeal letter and one reference form and giving our other four letters back to us as being unnecessary. She stamped our papers for seven days and told us to wait a week and that we could call to find out our fate. Less than fifteen minutes after we had arrived, we walked out to catch our bus for the long ride home.

That week we felt peace but still an abruptness that would decide how long we would call this place home. After many prayers, we finally received the word that our appeal had been accepted and our permits were granted!

Back we went to the Livingstone immigration each week to see if they had arrived. Finally, in April a kind lady gave us a thirty day stamp so that we wouldn't have to come so often.

So on June 20 we trudged back through the hallways not expecting much. We walked in and to our disappointment our much maligned officer beckoned us over. He pointed at the blue binder and told us to look. We scanned through it and returned it to its place as Allison reported it was not yet there. The man indignantly asked Allison, "did you look?!" We both wanted to punch him right there but we gave him a polite "yes". He huffed a little and told us to go check with accounts as he started to mess around with his phone. We asked him for directions since this was the only office we knew of and he begrudgingly told us it was down the hallway.

So off we went down the hallway and we found a door that said "Accounts". We opened it and found two very delightful women. They took our papers and searched through piles of papers and found our work permits that filled our hearts with joy! From our best guess, the permits had been sitting there since April but, nevertheless, we finally had them after 7 1/2 months of waiting. We thought once about waving the permits at our antagonist in the other office but instead we decided to say goodbye to that office for at least two years and take a selfie!

We thank God for always having a plan and teaching us reliance and a little patience on the way.

Pushing back

Sunday seemed like a crazy day realizing how much this world needs Jesus. In the afternoon, we had a football game where our team that joined the town league back in April played against another team from the village. It was a much anticipated game because of having two local teams (who share the same home field) go at it with players who all know each other.

The game ended with us losing 2-0 and tempers flaring... not so much from the players but the coaches. There were so many drunk villagers wandering around the grounds making all kinds of noise and grown adults acting like rebel adolescents. When the game was finished men were all out pushing and fighting each other including our own coaches. At one point, I saw one of our house mothers doing her best to break up a women's brawl. It was disheartening.

I walked home from the game with kids from the children's home. A little girl named Maggie held my hand the whole way. She is 7 years old and is in 1st grade. As we were talking, I asked her about school and about her teacher. I asked if she liked him and she said no. I was kind of surprised but when I asked why she said that she doesn't like him because he beats. Now beating can carry a wide range of definitions from ear pulling to beating with sticks but regardless, a sweet 1st grader should never have to be fearful of her teacher. I think of the kids in the community where I grew up and elementary ages are ones where children absolutely love going to school and can't wait to have the teacher's attention and affection.

It's things like this that that seem discouraging and make our task seem impossible. But then again, that is why we are here and these are the places that Jesus would go. Just to push back against the devil a little bit and claim another square inch for Jesus' kingdom... that is what it's all about.

My Littles

I spend about 2 hours every morning walking from hut to hut in Singanga village trying to find my little ones that are learning to read. I absolutely love this part of the day. There's something different about meeting my students where they're at rather than counting on them to come find me every day.

After greeting parents, grandparents, aunties, uncles and whoever else might be around I find a place to sit outside with my kiddos to do a reading lesson. Sometimes it's extremely distracting to be sitting outside when grandmas might try and do the reading for the child or a mom starts yelling over us to her neighbor walking down the road. But there is something I find so beautiful about sitting with them at their home. I learn about their families this way. I see the dynamics of how parents interact, which neighbor kids are always hanging around, which kids are always home alone, and which granny wants to learn to read more than her grandchild.

Even though I can't always communicate well with my students they still understand praise. I love seeing their faces light up when they are able to read a sentence or small paragraph. Watching my students make progress is one of the most rewarding things. Especially after we just got their term 1 reports back and the majority are extremely disappointing. I know that teaching them to read will not disappoint. And whether or not it shows up on their term report, I've been watching them grow and develop into little readers and it's exciting!

Our Michigan church is partnering with us to build a reading room. We have been collecting books stateside and they will be shipped over here sometime later this year. My students are catching a glimpse of what it means to get lost in a book. They love it! And I can't wait until the reading room is up and running. I can't wait to spend hours sitting and reading books.

If you think of it, pray for these small ones. Pray that they would learn to read and that this would empower them. My prayer is that they would not only be growing as readers, but that they would be growing deeper in their relationship with Christ.

I Need a Wife

Last week I was walking home from tutoring my kids in the village, minding my own business, just thinking about how things went when all of a sudden someone was talking to me.

I had met this man the day prior and found out he was the headman of one of the local villages. He was very chatty, not to mention, very drunk. Needless to say, the next morning around 10AM he was still drunk.

Here's how the conversation went...

Headman... "Good morning madam. How are you?"

Me... "I'm fine, how are you?"

Headman... "I'm fine. But I'm thinking you could help me."

--> This is when my mind started racing thinking what in the world is he going to ask.

Headman... "I'm thinking you could bring me one of your white friends from America to be my wife."

Me... "No sir, I can't do that."

Headman... "Why? Because I'm black?"

Me... "No sir, not because you're black, but because I'm not about to marry off any of my friends to someone who is always drunk."

Headman... "Oh madam, I can change."

Me... "No sir. I can't do that. I need to go now, but have a good day."

---End of conversation.

Sometimes I walk away from things that happen thinking to myself..."did that really just happen?" And sometimes it just amazes me.
I thought I'd share it here to give you a laugh.

Dreaming

It's okay to dream big, right? Man, I dream about being able to teach some of these kids all day everyday...

My heart hurts when I think about academics here. We just got term 1 results back for a lot of our sponsored kids and man...most of them are struggling. The sad thing? It doesn't seem to affect teachers. In some ways I don't blame them because they don't know any other way...but when a kid gets 40% in a subject and the teacher writes that they're doing fairly well, my heart hurts.

Then I look in some of their notebooks to see the exams that they took and they're having to label parts of a computer or a beaker. Seriously? Some of these kids have probably never even seen a computer and they definitely don't use a beaker in science class, they just take notes and listen to the teacher talk.

I dream about what it would be like to pull them out of the local school and teach them everyday. I dream about what it would be like to get kindergarten and first grade curriculum and start with the basics. I dream about what it would be like to teach in English all day everyday and immerse these kids. I dream about what it would be like to give these kids a good education where they can do hands on things, learn in ways other than taking notes, and have fun doing it.

Pray with me about this. What do we do? How do we best support these kids academically? Our sponsored kids are required to come to tutoring every Saturday morning, but that's only 1 hour/week. Sometimes I wonder...how do we make a difference in 1 hour/week. Then I see it; a kid is starting to read, a kid who can solve a multiplication problem on their own, a kid who is now able to write a complete sentence. If only we could spend more time with these kids. If only, if only, if only....the thoughts go on and on.

Help us dream and brainstorm how we can do this better. Help us push and challenge our kids to grow academically every single day. Pray for these kids. Pray for these teachers.

Village Girls

When you read this can you please just stop and pray for our village girls?

Life seems so hard for them, so unfair in some cases.

Just the other day I was standing and talking with one girl; she is probably about 16 years old. I'm thinking she is now pregnant, although she didn't come out and tell me that it's true. She is only in 7th grade, and she's pregnant. Now, from what I've have heard this girl does sleep around a lot, but it just makes me wonder, who has she been learning from? Do her parents love her? Do they try and teach her what is right? Do they discipline her in a way that won't make her rebellious?

As I was talking to her I asked her if she wants to get married someday. She said yes. I asked her if she wants to have kids someday. She said, "Yes, but not now, because if a girl doesn't get an education she doesn't have a good life."

In many cases I agree with what she has said. It does seem that girls here who aren't in school and trying to get an education do end up pregnant and then all hopes and aspirations seem to vanish. Or, in some cases, a girl will be in school, but she will still end up pregnant causing her to drop-out and that's the end of her schooling.

Pray for these young people. It's not just the girls. It's the boys too. Pray that the Lord would intervene in their lives and would reveal what a good marriage is supposed to look like. It seems that there are so many single parents in the village. Even the handful of couples have almost all had previous relationships and kids with other spouses. Pray that they would see what a marriage of a couple following whole-heartedly after Jesus is supposed to look like and they would desire it for themselves. Pray for a revival to happen here; that young men and women would begin to seek this for themselves. Pray that we would be able to model this; to model what a Christ-centered marriage is supposed to look like.

Back to the 16 year old girl, pray that if she is pregnant that she wouldn't have an abortion. Abortions are legal here in Zambia. Pray that God would use this time in her life to draw her closer to Himself and that she wouldn't dwell in shame and regret.

Song & Dance

Sorry for not posting in a long time. We were in Michigan for a few weeks celebrating my sister’s wedding and Benjamin’s brother’s engagement, and we did not post while we were there. Now we’ve been back for a week and a half and honestly, I haven’t felt inspired to write. Blogging is harder than you would think. It can feel hard to describe emotions or something culturally that may seem so irrelevant to many westerners, but I’ll give it a go.

I titled this post song and dance because I wanted to describe a bit about worshipping with Zambians. It is very different than worship in West Michigan. We had church this morning and a large part of the service is worship through song. The praise team is made up of the housemothers from the children’s home and some of the kids from the children’s home. Sometimes there are a few others from the villages that join as well. The only instrument is a drum.

We sing some songs in English, and some songs in local languages. It took us a while to catch on to some of these Zambian worship songs, but we try! A lot of the praise songs involve motions or dancing. Zambians are almost always clapping or swaying while they sing. Other times we are all dancing in a large circle around the benches.

It is an amazing thing to watch some of the kids help lead worship. I was watching one of the girls from the children’s home this morning. She is about 9 years old. She was standing up front, swaying back and forth (she’s got the moves), her hands out in front of her, eyes shut, and in watching her it was like I could see a connection between her and Jesus as she sang and danced.

There is something so beautiful about teaching these young children that they can help lead worship and dance before the Lord. It is so freeing! (…minus the fact that I’m white and can’t dance like they can so sometimes it can feel embarrassing) As we live in Zambia longer and longer I want to become more like Zambians when I worship. I want to feel free to dance before the Lord.

Emotions

Sometimes it amazes me the range of emotions I can feel in one day. It seems so much greater than most anything I ever felt before on a typical Saturday, and today happened to be one of those days where I can’t believe everything I felt.

The day started off with a knock on our door from a friend. She wanted to sit and talk because there was a problem. My heart broke for her as she shared what happened. We prayed together because Benjamin and I didn’t really have any other advice and we needed to turn it over to the Lord.

Awhile later, I remembered that it was Saturday morning and tutoring was happening in just a few hours, one of my favorite parts of the week. We implemented a new check-in schedule that worked well and allowed us to have extra time with our students. To make things better, my group of 6 students was great today! It felt like we accomplished so much and they were focused the whole time. I left tutoring feeling as if I had more energy than when I started.

As the afternoon rolled around there was an intense windstorm and some thunder that seemed to fit what would come next. I went go to Mama Ruth’s house where Regina and I sat with one of the older girls from the sponsorship program to tell her the news that she was being removed from the program. She recently became pregnant, at 17, and now she isn’t going to school or coming to Saturday tutoring because the other students are making fun of her.

Next came her story. She was living with one of her grandmothers. Her father has a handicap and I believe he hasn’t cared for her in a while. After she got pregnant, her grandmother kicked her out, so she moved in with her other grandmother, Mama Ruth. Her mother lives in town because she left the father a few years ago when he was extremely sick and all she does since her daughter got pregnant is cry and become extremely mad at her. The mother tells her, “What do you think you’re doing getting pregnant? My husband and I can hardly take care of ourselves because we don’t have work. What do you think you’re doing bringing this baby into the picture?” Her father, the one with the handicap, now hates her because of this mistake she’s made.

My heart broke as I listened to her story. Her life isn’t going to be easy. She’s going to have to fight for her and her baby. As we were leaving, I turned to her, looker her in the eye and said, “I want you to know that I love you and I still support you.” I feel like everything in her life right now is filled with shame. I want her to know that someone cares for her, that someone loves her, and that Jesus is still there for her.

As I was sitting there listening to this girl’s story, one of Mama Ruth’s other grandchildren, who was recently sponsored and is in my tutoring group, leaned over to me and whispered, “Auntie Allison, I want to learn to read. Can I come on Monday?” This girl has found such a special place in my heart even though I haven’t known her long. I whispered back, “What time would you come?” After she sat and thought for a few moments, she said, “Maybe 16:00.”

How I wish I could teach every child to read. Sitting here typing this I can think of handfuls of kids that I would love to give one-on-one attention so they can learn how to read. It just feels like there are never enough hours in a day to meet all of the needs that are in front of me.

Then tonight, I was on dinner preparation for the team and Benjamin and Bernard, one of the boys from the Children’s Home, came running into the kitchen saying, “She’s having babies! The pig is having babies!” Benjamin was hoping that his pig would have babies before we left to come back to the states for a few weeks. He spent a long time by the pigpen and his pig had 8 babies. There was so much joy and excitement as a bunch of kids were standing around the pigpen guessing how many babies there would be.

After dinner we had abiding with Christ night with the Children’s Home. We were split up into 4 groups and told to choose a Bible story and create a skit. We then presented these skits and they had us laughing and enjoying ourselves. In addition to the skits, Benjamin and a few boys made chocolate chip muffins that we got to enjoy together before the kids went off to bed.

Now I’m sitting here, it’s after 11 PM (way later than I typically go to bed) and one of the baby pigs isn’t doing well. It is the runt and Benjamin is sitting here with it wrapped in a blanket trying to keep it alive feeding it with a dropper.

What a day! What a lot of emotions! Sometimes I just want to lock myself in the house so I don’t have to hear about another child who can’t go to school because they don’t have the money to pay the school fees, or another grandmother who doesn’t have money so she hasn’t been able to feed her family for the past few days. But then I remember these are daughters and sons of the almighty King. He loves them so much and He wants each and every one of them to know Him deeply and intimately. That’s why I’m here. I too, want people to know their Heavenly Father. I want to love them to Him, so if my day is filled with many emotions I can’t even begin to imagine what the Father feels for all of His children.


Pray with me tonight:
-for the friend who has been hurt
-for the kids in my tutoring group
-for the 17 year old who is now pregnant
-for the 10 year old who so badly wants to learn to read
-for the kids in the Children’s Home
-for the grandmother who hasn’t had food in 3 days
-and for us to continue to love deeply as our Father does

Prayers Answered

We just received word this morning that our appeal has been accepted and our two year work permits have been approved! They should be sent to Livingstone for us to pick up in the next week or so. Praise Jesus for answered prayers!

Learning Trust

As I sit here in the shade on this sunny and 80 degree day with a slight breeze rustling through the nearby bushes, I hear the sound of kids playing on their day off from school and my heart desires to be at rest. It loves this place I now call home.

It just feels hard. My heart wants to be still, content, and filled with peace, but it feels like we can't do anything about our visa situation. And yet, the Lord whispers, "do you trust me?"

 And so we wait. We wait to hear what the immigration official will say when we call later this week.

 The boys swinging on the hammock next to me can't stop laughing because the rope keeps breaking as they fall flat on their backs. I am reminded of the joy that is exuding from them as they play together. This is the kind of joy I want to be filled with; an overflowing joy from my Heavenly Father.

 Pray with us as we trust in the plans of our Farther this week.

 Allison

Immigration

This week has been crazy! On Tuesday we found out that our application for two year work permits had been rejected. To appeal the decision we would have to go to Lusaka to the immigration headquarters... or else leave Zambia.

So we purchased bus tickets for Lusaka. On Wednesday, we packed a couple of bags and visited Headman Singanga to have him write a reference letter. He made it difficult but after two visits and around three hours of talking, we received the letters. We then had a party for Jake and Tammy who are heading back to the states after doing a little traveling (the party consisted of cooking a village goat!)

We arrived to the Livingstone bus station at 9:00 for our 9:30 bus departure. The company decided to change busses so instead of 2 and 3 seat rows, this bus was a 2 x 2... meaning 20% of the bus was unable to board. Despite being the first people to buy tickets two days prior and having pre-assigned seating, we were kicked off and moved to another bus. We finally started moving around 10:30 towards Lusaka.

The bus was very uncomfortable. There was no overhead storage and the seats did not recline. We made 6-8 stops along the way picking up and dropping off people before arriving in Lusaka. But after 8 hours, we arrived and took a taxi to Lusaka Backpackers for the night.

This hostel was a bright point on the trip. The cost was only $40 per night and the bed was comfortable and they had very good food to purchase for dinner and breakfast.

At 7:30 on Friday morning, we said our final goodbyes to Jake and Tammy and Jason and Leanna (they are all traveling to Zanzibar before Jake and Tammy continue heading to the States).

We headed to immigration in the rain. The immigration lady seemed to be in a good mood. She took our appeal letter from Love's Door, reference letter from Headman and one of the local school teachers, but she threw out our letter from one of our former Zambian directors and a letter on our own behalf (without even reading them). She told us to call her next week Friday to hear the decision and she gave us 7 more days in the country... which only gives us until the day that we hear the decision.

Now we are back on the bus heading to Livingstone after only a ten minute conversation at immigration! It has been a process but we are excited to be back in our little village house.

There will be a meeting next Thursday where our appeal will be decided upon. Please pray for favor in immigration and for this to all be taken care of before we head to Michigan on March 30 to attend the wedding of Allison's sister.

Updates on Sugar Village

This past week we went to Sugar Village and met with Christopher and Elizabeth. We asked Elizabeth about her legs because a few months ago they had been healed during a worship night we had in Sugar village. After that, the pain slowly started coming back. 

She informed us that the pain was back and that she was going to go to the witchdoctor. Apparently she had been to the clinic and there was nothing they could do for her and she has been prayed over a number of different times so she believes that the sickness must be dealt with by a witchdoctor. She believes someone has put a curse on her and so whatever is in her legs needs to be taken out by the witchdoctor. 

We abandoned our plans of discussing the Lord's Supper and spent a very long time talking about binding and loosing from Matthew 16. We also talked about only serving one master and choosing between Jesus and the witchdoctor. She didn't seem ready to make a decision about just following Jesus because it is so culturally acceptable to dabble in whatever works... and the pain in her legs hadn't left. 

Memory, one of our Zambian coworkers talked about Shadrach, Meshack, and Abendago and how they trusted God even if He didn't rescue them. Her husband, Christopher, joined in and brought up the story of Job and how he always stayed faithful to God. Elizabeth agreed that she would only trust Jesus. Memory pressed her and asked that if we left her with money, would she take that and visit the witchdoctor the following day. She said she would make the decision not go to the witchdoctor. 

We then spent time in passionate, militant prayer over her. We prayed that any curses on her life would be bound in Jesus name and that the pain would be gone. After a while, we stopped and asked her how the pain was. She said the pain had moved from her knees to her hips while we were praying, so we prayed again. This time she said that the pain left her completely! Praise Jesus! We then prayed again to seal everything that happened and to pray against fear and pain creeping back into her life. The Lord is working in mighty ways to transform the lives of the people in that group. Please continue praying that their hearts would be open to a personal relationship with Jesus. 

Update on our Groups

Here is a brief update on how our groups are going: 

-Tobacco Farm: we are officially a church! Praise God! This past week we had a meeting where we discussed what a church is. Everyone agreed that what we are doing is church and we want to recognize it as such. Both of us our super excited about this progress!

-Lizzy & Mama Ruth: this past week we took communion together! We were nervous going into it because Mama Ruth is heavily influenced by the New Apostolic church and we didn't know if she would be okay with taking communion in her home. We spent a lot of time in scripture seeing what the first church did, and we took communion together with nshima, meat, and water. The Lord is working in mighty ways here. This week we hope to talk about recognizing ourselves as a church, which would be a huge step!

-Sugar Village: We discussed baptism again this past week. Beatrice, who is very sick, wants to be baptized. Hopefully this week she will be feeling better and she can be baptized. 

Mama Ruth checking our words with scripture from a Lozi Bible

The Lord's Supper

Last week we met with Angelina and her sister Jenny at Tobacco Farm. This time we focused on the Lord's Supper because we had heard from Angelina that she had stopped taking it due to feeling unworthy from past mistakes and some strongly held denominational views on communion. We started off by sharing the story of the first Lord's supper from 1 Corinthians 11. Then we talked about what it meant. Both Jenny and Angelina had many questions about things like, children taking communion, what types of food could be used, why some people use intinction, and where communion could be taken. It was neat to see the Holy Spirit work as we could see a lightbulb go on in Angelina and her views dramatically change. 

At one point, Jenny responded to a question saying "we are the church! The Bible says that my body is a temple and when we come together to meet we are the church. So we are not limited to taking communion in church building." It was awesome to see her get it! We looked at Acts 2 where the early church constantly ate together and broke bread (celebrated the Lord's Supper) in their own homes. When we had finished discussing, we asked if they would want to join us in taking communion right there in her house with whatever food she had. Jenny and Angelina's faces lit up and we were all very excited. We took the Lord's supper with nshima (typical Zambian dish) and water. It was one of the best communions we have ever experienced. This is the first time we've taken communion in any of our groups and we are really excited to experience more of it. 

Our House!

Here are some pictures of our new house!

The kitchen

The living room

The bedroom

The bathroom

The shower

The hallway leading from the kitchen/living room to the bedroom (the bathroom is on the left)

The backside of the house

The front door

Our view of the Zambezi River from the patio

We're Back!

So we are back in Zambia! After about 40 hours of travel, including flying around in circles for an hour waiting for a storm to move past the Livingstone runway, we made it safely to Zambia. Another hour taxi ride through the beaten up road from rainy season and we made it to a river that had grown over the road. It has rained so much since we left! At this point the taxi had to make us walk with our four suitcases, one carry-on, and a backpack because the taxi couldn't make it through the stream. We removed our shoes and ferried our suitcases across the river with the help of two boys who we had never met before. Dan and Regina picked us up with a vehicle on the other side shortly after and we finished our journey to our home in Singanga village.

We have a new house now! Instead of living above the team kitchen in a loft, we now have our own house. Wahoo! We will post pictures later with a description of the house. But it is so nice to have our own place to call home and be able to use a flush toilet :)

Things have seemed to change rapidly here. It is amazing how you can experience some culture shock after being gone less than two weeks. Things have progressed on the base, new kids faces have appeared, and surprisingly, the world doesn't stop when we go away!

Monday evening we had a wonderful surprise. Angelina, who works at Tobacco Farm, stopped by. We meet with her and some women every week as one of our church planting groups. She knocked off work (clocked out) and then walked 45 minutes in her work clothes to come and visit us because she learned that we were back. We talked until it was almost dark and then we sent her home with our flashlight. It was so good to spend time with her and know that we have friends here!

Flying to Zambia

We are going back to Zambia today! We are ready for some warm weather and the chance to see everyone again. Please pray for us as we transition back into a different culture and team life.

Back in Michigan

This past week, we returned unexpectedly back to Michigan. Allison's grandfather passed away on Friday evening. We decided on Saturday that we would fly back for the funeral. Our plane left Sunday afternoon and we landed in Grand Rapids Monday at 11:00 AM. Visitation was Monday night and the funeral was Tuesday morning.

So we are currently stateside and spending time with family that we were not planning on. We will head back to Zambia on February 2nd. Thank you for the prayers!

Daily Life

Here is what a typical week currently looks like for the Attema's in Singanga village:

Sunday: We have church in the village. Then the members of the team that live in town pack up and head back to Livingstone. In the afternoon, we usually rest, work on projects around the base, or go to a football game in one of the neighboring villages. The football team is made up of young men from the surrounding villages. Benjamin occasionally plays or helps coach. Lately, Benjamin has been working on different projects regarding the pigs and we have done a little bit of gardening.

Monday: This is our day off. We typically stay in the village and it is quiet and peaceful. The team has all gone to town except for 1 other couple. Our mornings are filled with rest and quiet time. We sometimes play games, do some cooking, wash clothes, or work on a project that's happening on the base.

Tuesday: We head to town on Tuesday's. We have team meetings all morning. The meetings start with team church where we worship and share with one another. Then we move into process group where we process different things that are going on individually or as a team so that we can all remain healthy. After process group, we are assigned different team tasks for the week, some of which are done in the early afternoon while we are still in town. We usually grab lunch in town (which means we eat some meat!), and we do all of our shopping for the week before heading back to the village in the evening.

Wednesday - Friday: In the mornings we do language learning, Allison tutors and Benjamin sometimes takes this time for devotions or working on his pig project. In the afternoons, we meet with our church groups. There are always many children around so we spend a fair amount of time playing games and hanging out with the kids. Benjamin also does some work with the four Zambian men who work on the base and we visit people in the villages and purchase different items such as fish and buns.

Saturday: In the morning we do some language learning and then we have required tutoring for all of the sponsored kids. All hands are needed on deck to make this program run smoothly. We both have tutoring groups that we meet with for an hour. After that, we have discipleship time for an hour that is open to all children. We typically work with the 12 and under kids teaching Bible stories and life skills. The afternoons are currently left open to help with any team things, work on projects, play football, build relationships with the kids and adults, or to meet with groups we weren't able to meet with during the week. At night the children from the children's home come over for a worship night. We sometimes have these hosted in different villages rather than doing them on the base.

Mouse Problem

So we have a mouse problem! Some of you know that back in Michigan we had an ongoing battle with mice in our house... well, the battle is not finished.

We have caught ten mice so far and also have had some of our mouse poison eaten. The issue with these mice is that some of them are clothes eaters. We call them squirrel-tailed-mice because they have the body of a mouse but the tail of a squirrel. Three of the ten mice that we have caught have been this type. A number of our clothes have holes in them now, specifically, underwear and shirts. We have a trap, poison, sticky traps, and moth balls. We are waging war!

The holes in our clothes from the mice.

The squirrel-tailed mouse.

A Year in Review

This past year has been amazing! We are now on a journey that we never thought we would be on a year ago. So this is a post where we are just looking back on the last year and giving thanks to God for how he has been faithful.

January
We took in our first child through Safe Families. His name is Jacob and we had him over several weekends from January all the way through April. We also began our journey of looking at organizations to work with overseas, specifically in Haiti.

February
Dan and Regina, from Love's Door, visited us at our home for dinner and we first started thinking about Zambia after that visit. Benjamin's grandmother passed away from cancer so we made a visit to Iowa to celebrate her life.

March
JJ (8 years old) and Jovoni (7 years old) moved into our house through Safe Families. They lived with us for a month and changed our lives.

April
The month of April was mainly consumed with having JJ and Jovoni, especially over spring break. We raced in a small relay triathlon in Holland and we took first place! We also officially decided to commit to serving with Love's Door in Zambia.

May
We flew down to Florida to surprise Allison's sister, Lindsay, for her college graduation.

June
We celebrated our one year anniversary on the 5th. Allison finished her job at Holland Christian. And we went to Israel for two weeks on an amazing trip with Ray VanderLaan.

July
We were able to celebrate the wedding of our good friends, Hayley and DeMyron. Allison taught Vacation Bible School and jumped back into summer tutoring.

August
We raced in the Fremont sprint triathlon. The Allison's parents took us on one last family trip to Mackinac Island (Benjamin's first time up north!). On the 25th, Carsen (9 months), Ethan (9 months), and Jayven (1 year and 10 months) came to live with us for a month through Safe Families. We loved these adorable little boys and had our own little family!

September
This was a busy and bittersweet month for us. We were parents for much of the month with three boys but then we had to say goodbye with lots of tears. Benjamin finished working at Industrial Control, and we packed up all of our belongings and said goodbye to our first house that we were renting. Calvary Church also commissioned us during a Sunday service.

October
We headed to Kansas City for three weeks of church planting training through All Nations. At the end of our time, we stopped in Iowa for three nights to visit family and then we spent a night in Chicago with friends.

November
On November 1, we said our goodbyes and flew off to Zambia. A week later we moved out to the village full time. We had our first holiday in Zambia, Thanksgiving, and started calling this place home!

December
This past month has been a combination of settling into routines, beginning outreach and projects, picking up a little local vocabulary, celebrating during the holidays, and thanking God for where he has brought us in 2016!

Thank you to everyone for your support and love! We are amazed at what all has happened in this year and expectant of what will come. It is always an adventure to let God take us wherever He wants!

Happy New Year's!