Feet on the Ground

God’s favor has been upon us the moment we stepped out of our front door in Meridian, Idaho.  Upon arriving at the Boise airport, I laugh at the memory of Josiah leaking through his diaper onto my shirt before even entering the security check.  We, of course, forgot to change his diaper before leaving the house… and so our travel journey with 4 kids begins!  Our luggage fees through Alaska Airlines were waived after the lady overrode their standard policy – thank you Jesus and to those that were praying and standing in the gap for us.  The kids enjoyed their first plane ride and even got to experience a little turbulence.  They giggled at the roller coaster sensation in their tummies; although, Christian kept asking when we were going to ‘crash.’  What he meant to say was ‘land’.  Gotta love the innocent language of kids.  When we got to Seattle and were carrying our 13 bags to the shuttle to head to our hotel, a guy happen to walk by with a cart, hallelujah!  What a blessing because Josh was making multiple trips up and down the stairs with our luggage while I stayed with the kids since there was no elevator.  After going for a swim at our hotel, we ordered pizza for dinner.  Two hours later, yes two hours, we finally got to enjoy our dinner around 9:30pm MST.  Apparently they went to the wrong hotel.  Gracie fell asleep waiting for it, but God blessed us again with a 50% discount off our pizza for the long wait.  The next day we flew out to Amsterdam, a 9-hour flight.  We were blessed with the fact that all of our luggage was going to be checked through to Pemba so no more lugging it all around, praise God!  The kids all traveled well with no flight nausea and very little jet lag.  LAM Airlines is notorious for losing luggage (or having luggage broken into) so prior to our departure I just prayed that God’s angels would link their arms around our entire luggage.  Even after an overnight stay in Johannesburg (without luggage in our possession), our entire luggage arrived safely in Pemba.  That is miraculous and we give all the praise and glory to God!!  Many students arrived at the same time, and the IRIS staff was there to welcome all of us.  We were introduced to our “house parents” from the UK and then took a ride to the Village of Joy where we are living for the summer.  Our wonderful housemates, originally from Germany but live in South Africa, have two children ages 2 and 3 ½.  We have really enjoyed getting to know them and may even come back speaking a little Portuguese AND German.  Our “house” is similar to the size of our house in Idaho, but there are currently 12 people total living in this one space.  Our bedroom, which our entire family shares, consists of a bunk bed, crib and full-sized bed.  After a few nights of adjustment in our new home and praying peace over the kids individually, they began sleeping through the night and the 3AM prayer cries of the Imam – one of the Muslim leaders directly outside of our village.  Josiah even lays down “awake” in his travel bed all by himself.  Thank you God!  We had a pet gecko and back porch banana spider welcome us into our new home.  Stay tuned for pictures!  Fortunately, we haven’t found much else besides 1 dead cockroach and some mysterious bugs that keep biting Josiah and Gracie – possibly bed bugs for which we have sprayed their mattress.  Christian has experienced some bumps and bruises and got a good gash above his right eye, but it has healed up nicely and did not require any stitches, thank you Lord!  Recently Josiah and Gracie have been fighting fevers but no other symptoms have followed.  We believe Josiah might be getting his molars in but it’s difficult to tell.

Josh made a joke about gaining 20 lbs in weight prior to leaving Idaho so that he could lose 40 lbs while in Africa.  However, God may spoil that idea because we are eating better than expected.  Along with our wonderful house parents and housemates, we’ve been able to come up with some creative meals to make good use out of the rice that IRIS provides us.  We went to town and were able to purchase things like peanut butter, jam, eggs (all of which IRIS provides for free weekly now), milk (hallelujah!), veggies, oatmeal, pasta, bananas, etc.  Cost of items is quite expensive compared to Idaho so we limit our purchases to very little, but we also know the Lord is asking us to truly live a simplified life while in Africa.  He is showing us how little we CAN live off of and how so much of what we are used to is based on the world’s standards.  We are provided 2 rolls for breakfast, rice and beans for lunch and then rice and a topping for dinner (i.e. beans, cabbage, matapa aka “green slime” aka spinach, fish, cabbage or chicken).  We do experience consistent crunching with our meals due to the sand and rocks that end up in it, but we are just blessed to have food on the table, and on multiple occasions Christian has given me the arm/fist pump and said, “Yes, we’re having rice and beans today!!”  Definitely God working on his sweet little heart.  Christian is the one who was most rooted in his routine back in Idaho, but he has adjusted very well and God is molding his little heart of clay into something special.  The other day our housemates’ 3 ½ year old daughter ate the entire fish head.  Bless her heart!  Nonetheless, at the end of the day our tummies are full and we feel very blessed.

On our first Friday in Pemba we had no water and that continued for 2 whole days.  This means either no showers or showers by the bucket, no flushing the toilet, no drinking water, etc.  There is a saying at IRIS Harvest that goes like this, “If it’s yellow let it mellow.  If it’s brown flush it down.”  Haha, I think you get the point!  We did have large jugs full of water for such occasions and were able to make due until the water turned back on Sunday afternoon.  We are grateful for the donation of money to buy a water filter because it has come in very handy to build up our drinking supply for when the water source is low or unavailable.  There is no hot water on the base so we have the joy of taking cold showers.  A simple prayer of, “I’m doing this all for you Jesus,” has helped me to rather enjoy the shower now.  The kids did great taking their first cold shower, probably because they were exhausted and hot, but now they take baths in a large tub and we fill it with cold shower water and boiled water so that it’s more bearable for them.  I also experienced the “washing station” where it took me almost 2 hours to hand wash, rinse and hang our laundry.  After the first week IRIS provided laundry ladies for the families to do our laundry twice a week at the cost of 70 mets each load + detergent, which is the equivalent of almost $4/load.  I was planning on doing our second load of laundry myself on the weekend, but Josh and others have talked me into receiving the blessing of having laundry ladies and also blessing them for their service.  If we were to do our own laundry, it would need to be washed, rinsed and hung prior to 8am so that it can be drying while we’re attending class.  All clothes have to be taken down from the line by 5pm because of the mosquitoes.  That means I would need to get up around 5am to complete laundry, shower, eat, get kids ready, etc. prior to leaving for class.  In the end, I’m grateful for the healthy persuasion from Josh to receive the blessing of a laundry lady. J 

We got to love on the IRIS and village children at Children’s Day, and as a family we got the joy of washing their hands prior to eating.  Christian absolutely loved it and would get sad when the children didn’t enter into his line.  He just wanted to bless them so much!  He was also put in charge of blowing bubbles as the children lined up.  Most of these children have never tasted chicken before, or only get it on Children’s Day and Christmas, so the IRIS kitchen staff prepared chicken and rice to shower the love of Jesus over them.  We would see young girls carrying babies on their backs or in slings with bright smiles on their faces because they knew they were about to enjoy a feast.

We’ve been to the Indian Ocean a few times and saw many hermit crabs, sea urchins and jelly fish.  Jade wanted to get baptized this summer on her birthday in the Indian Ocean.  However, we just found out that we are leaving for our bush-bush weekend outreach on Thursday, July 5^th (Jade’s birthday) so we’ll see how the Lord guides her in this decision.

As a family we’ve walked into the village directly outside of our base and had many Mozambican children follow us to the market and back home.  Many just wanted to hold our hands, receive a smile or high-five and simply be noticed.  They loved Gracie and her long, beautiful blonde hair.  At first Gracie was a bit shy and probably intimidated, but after awhile she warmed up and began sharing smiles and high-fives with them.  She’s even speaking a few words in Portuguese!  It amazes me the conditions that some people live in.  Just walking through the village market, our feet were saturated with garbage and stench.  We’ve made good friends with an IRIS boy named Bernardo.  He’s even teaching me a little Portuguese and wrote down my name in his school notebook so he could remember it.  Wherever we go, he spots us out in the crowd.  One night while eating dinner with all the children in the cafeteria (yes, I ate Mozambican style with my hands), I asked him what he had planned for the next day.  He said, “Me spend time with my Jesus.  Me love my Jesus.  Me spend 10 minutes with Him!”  I love the passion that the children here have for Jesus.  It’s humbling to see them seek Jesus and the presence of the Holy Spirit as their “entertainment”.  At the end of these 11 weeks I will definitely have learned how to spend more intimate time with Him.  Josh and I have had some “intense fellowship” at times, but God is cleansing our hearts and bringing us closer together and one with Him.  Please continue to pray for unity over our family and that all attacks from the enemy would be severed.

We have completed our first 2 ½ weeks of school.  We’ve encountered some challenges with going to class together as a couple and family because of the kids and adjusting to the new schedule.  They are going to bed around 7pm and waking around 6am.  There is an 8 hour difference between time here and in Idaho.  12pm MST equals 8pm in Pemba.  It makes for a long morning stretch because the kids eat at 6 or 6:30am, class goes until usually 1:30pm, and then they don’t eat lunch until afterwards.  As of recently, one of us has been staying behind with the kids (or at least with Josiah), but we are going to pray about this and try to continue to go as a family.  We will share more of what God is placing on our hearts in a later post, but for now we just wanted to provide a general update on our transition into Africa.

We are truly grateful for the ways in which God has opened our eyes.  We are learning to lay down the ways of this world and focus on what’s really important – receiving and sharing the love of Jesus with others!  Starting next week we will be participating in a weekly outreach.  Josh will be teaching English to some children in a village and I have my selections narrowed down to either helping with the Children’s Ministry (arts & crafts) or a village outreach (treasure hunts).  This encompasses a lot of evangelizing, healing, words of knowledge, prophesying – whatever the Holy Spirit wants to do that day.  We want God to use our hands and feet as His own to reach those that need more of His love.  The gospel is really quite simple – it’s all about the love of Jesus!  As said in 1 Corinthians 13 - without love there is no gain.  Wherever you are in life, we pray that you will experience His love in a new and deeper way today!  Let Him take you deeper into His heart.  Let Him free you of any walls or limits that you have placed on Him.  There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that is impossible with God.  I’ve heard this truth growing up but never really experienced it until I put my full faith and trust in Him.  Know who you are in Christ and walk in your true identity!