Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Sorry, It has been a while!

Well, I understand that it is quiet at the Children's Home as 43 of the kids are out visiting family (aunts, uncles, grandparents) in their villages and that leaves only 14 kids! Some of them have their own room for the first time! This is really awesome that the kids have an opportunity to visit since I understand that this has been rare.

I also understand that the river came back up and they came close to evacuation again but now the waters have begun to go back down. They will be coming into the dry season so I would think that the flood scare for this year should be in the past. Praise God for answered prayers!!

Yet another interium director should be there now. I know everyone is saying, "could you two just get here --- and NOW?!" Well, we truely are trying.

Whereas the Children's Home might be quiet, our lives are in a scurry! We have had a lot of things going on but not just "things", they have been really great things!

Finally, on April 16th we flew to Md. to be introduced to the founding church, Mt. Zion UMC and meet our new family who are certainly connected to our kids in Namibia. Many of them have been there to visit and many of them sponser a child (or children). We were so blessed. Everyone made us feel so welcome and in the last service where there were probably over 600 people, they gave us a standing ovation! We could just feel the love pouring our of them. The Holy Spirit was definately present and there was a strong connection.
God continues to amaze me. Lisa (the executive director of the board for the Children of Zion Village) picked us up at the airport. Well, we have had a great time over email but, well, we (Lisa and Lorna) have determined that we are sisters. Lisa was telling me about her dad and where he was staying and it is in the same senior community that my mother is living!!! When she went to visit her dad the week after we left, she also went to meet and visit with my mom! Amazing!! My mother now has an adopted daughter to visit her as I go very far away to Africa. Yet another God thing for sure!
Our host family was awesome and we felt like we had known them forever. We had a blast. We also had the opportunity to visit with Ray (the interium director that we were with when we were in Africa in March) and meet his wife (who had already left when we arrived).
It was an incredible weekend to remember!

The weekend of April 30th we had a big garage sale with the neighborhood. We had some friends come and help and we could not have done it without them! One friend stayed over night Thursday so she could be here first thing on Friday to set up. She left her husband with the 5 children! To top that off, we had broken down all of our beds so she had to sleep on the couch! That is a very good friend.
Then we had another friend that took off work on Friday to help. She spent Tues evening, Thurs evening, all day Friday and all day Sat here to help with the sale! WOW!
Then yet another brought her 9 month old and helped all day Friday and Saturday.
Another traveled quite a distance to help on Saturday!
We have been blessed by people each and every day!
Since we liked this garage sale thing so much, we decided to keep going and did another one the next Saturday. It was not so good. We did not advertise very well so our efforts were a bit grim.

We are trying to look on the bright side and minister to the people that come. We have a sign up that says that "Everything must go. Moving to Africa" and it certainly generates conversation. We have our "people of the day". Some good and some not so good.

We just finished our 16 week Perspectives Class Monday night. It was an awesome time and we learned a lot from the speakers and we met some really special people in our class. We will miss the fellowship but will fill up those 5 hours of time pretty quickly.

Yesterday was a GREAT DAY!! We spoke at our church to the Circle of Love.

Then we went on to our COMMISSIONING with the others in our group from The Mission Society.
WOW! We had a great group of people show to support us. It was amazing especially considering the service was at 1:15 on a Tuesday afternoon.
The service was filled with the Holy Spirit and Love. Travis and I were asked to serve communion and that was so special especially because we got to serve the members of our church.
After the service we went out to take a group picture with our friends.
We exchanged new wedding bands (our missionary bands that are very simple) in front of our friends and God as our witnesses. It was very special.
We ended the day with a banquet where we ate with the staff from The Mission Society, the board and the other newly commissioned missionaries.
WOW, What a day.

Our neighborhood benefit is this Saturday, May 15th! We are so blessed by a great group of friends in our neighborhood and it is going to be a great day starting with Tennis Round Robins and ending with a concert under the heavens! All are invited so come out and have a great time.
Details can be found on the link on our web page. Come to our neighborhood, meet our friends and have a great time!