What's in a name?

Choosing a name for each of my kids was a big choice for me. I really had a hard time deciding. I wanted something unique and yet meaningful. But I also wanted names that I liked and that sounded good with a last name like George. Here in Mozambique names are remembrances. They give their children names that will remind them of a significant person or event in their lives. Last week our guard Bonamar and his wife, asked me to name their new daughter. She was born on Feb. 2(she shares a bday with Jurnee), but they waited to name her until I arrived, because they wanted me to name her. They told me they are grateful for all we have done for them and want to always be reminded of us when they use her name. It is quite a humbling thing. I have only provided some clothes and maybe a coat or a blanket here or there. We do employ him, but to name his child seems like a little more than the "thank you", I would expect. I took a couple days and prayed about what I would name the little girl. I wanted it to be a name they would be familiar with and be able to pronounce, but have a significant meaning. He and his family are Muslim. So I wanted to give her name that reminds me to pray for her. I finally chose the name Ana. It means grace or full of the favor of God. I pray that she will learn of the Savior who loved her enough to come to earth, live a perfect life, and die in her place. I pray that she will be full of the favor of God and God will be gracious and draw her and her family to Him.

This is a picture of Bonamar and his wife, Amelia, while she was pregnant. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of baby Ana yet.

Back to life, back to reality...

Today is one week since we crossed the border and officially arrived back in Mozambique. The trip went really well and we want to thank each of you that was praying for that journey. I think over all it was our best trip yet. It has taken us a week to get moved back into our house and get settled. We still have a few undone tasks, but for the most part we are functioning as normal and it feels like we getting back into the groove of things here in Moz. We are officially back to life and enjoying the warm weather after the freezing cold winter of Michigan. The kids are back to bare feet and daily baths as they are always covered in mud or dirt. We have already had a number of visitors everyday and have been out visiting others. We have had people everyday at door wanting to buy eye glasses(we brought about 800 or 900 pairs back with us out of 4,000 that friends of ours have gathered for us). We are also back to the reality of life here, broken water heater, broken projector, and still no car. It is normal here to have something broken at all times, but our car situation is beyond the normal for even here. It has been a year since it has been working and it looks like another 3 months before the part comes in and we can see if this time it is fixed...Please pray that it will be fixed for real this time and will run well or that we can figure out what to do if it still isn't running well. We also found out a day after we arrived here that our second highest supporting church has decided to stop supporting us. We left thinking we were at almost 100% of our needed support and this will bring us down to 89%. Please pray that we will be able to make up that difference somehow.
Thank you again for all your continued prayers and support. We are so grateful. I will hopefully be keeping this blog updated much more frequently than I did over our home assignment. Tim is sending out an email newsletter in the next few days, so watch for that. It will give more updates on the Bible School. And once again, if anyone is not on our email update list and wants to be, please let us know!

We had two nights in Washington DC before we headed to Africa. We took one day and did a whirlwind of activities. We visited the Ford theater and happened to be there on the one day they had the box open where Lincoln was shot. The kids studied the life of Lincoln in our homeschool last year and were so excited to see where he was assassinated. 

We also visited the Museum of Natural History, which was pretty incredible.



Another Lincoln attraction.

The kids also attended their first birthday party back here in Moz. It was a dress up party.

 



All settled into our house again.

And three months later....

Yes, 3 months later. I can't believe it. In 3 more months we will be back in Lichinga again. Our time has been so filled it is hard to know where to begin. It has been a good home assignment for us. It has been a little bittersweet as we think about how short our time home is this time and as we watch the kids thrive in this new environment and get to do so many things they miss out on while in Mozambique. They do get so many amazing experiences living in Africa and I really feel our simple way of living there to be a huge blessing. So in many ways, we have the best of both worlds, living the majority of our time with lots of family quiet time and a much slower pace of life and then getting to come home every 2 or 3 years and doing all sorts of fun, busy activities. But when you watch how much your kids are enjoying being involved in these activities and really making some great friends, it is hard as a parent to take that away from them. And yet when we watch how easily our kids can make friends and how quickly they adjust to new things, we realize all the benefits there are to this crazy lifestyle as well. It has also been a great home assignment for Tim and I to have some spiritual refreshment. We have loved being back at Blythefield and getting fed from the Word. I have been attending a ladies Bible study that has been so refreshing and challenging. Tim has been attending staff meetings at Blythefield and meeting with his guys small group. We have finished all of our speaking engagements and are now ready for some relaxed family time this Christmas and New Year. The kids are still enjoying school, but the novelty of it I think has worn off. They no longer jump out of bed in the morning to get up for school and actually enjoy the weekends instead of complaining about them. Traeger finished soccer. Kallen's dance class just ended and Karis is finishing up horse lessons. We have bought our plane tickets to go back to Mozambique on the 24th of February. Please be in prayer about all the packing, travelling, and transitions coming up for us.

Watch for our Christmas newsletter in the mail sometime the end of December. If you are not on our mailing list and would like to be, please contact us through email or facebook.

Home Assignment...

Well we are home. Actually have been for about a month now. Time is already going by in a blur. It is amazing really how quickly you fall right back into the busy pace of the American lifestyle. I always think it will be a shock and seem so strange, after our very slow African pace of life. But always, it takes about a week and we are right back into it, like we have never been gone. The kids are in school, which they are loving. Kallen told me yesterday that "this school is even better than homeschool." Doesn't make me feel so good, but I think she may change her mind after a month or two of it:) They are involved in the kids program at church. Traeger is in soccer. Karis will be doing some horse riding. We have been attending sporting events of our nieces and nephews, accountability groups, Bible studies, volunteering in the kids classrooms, speaking at 7 churches, and visiting our many supporters, besides fitting in time with grandmas and grandpas and other relatives...the list could go on...In Moz, we are thrilled when we have an evening planned with an activity. Here we are thrilled when we have an evening alone with nothing planned. It is so fun to be involved in all these things that we aren't able to be involved in while in Mozambique. We find, though, that it is very hard to fit in the things that are really important, while trying to fit in all the things we have been missing. It is so easy to neglect your personal devotional time, our personal family time, and time together as a couple. Balance is always the key, but how to do this, is the challenge. Please pray that God will give us wisdom and discernment and the ability to keep our priorities straight. Our six months home we will be concentrating also on raising awareness for the Bible School we hope to open in Lichinga. We have a goal to raise $100,000 to help with the initial cost of buying the land, putting up a classroom block, bathroom block, fence, and guardhouse. Please pray we can communicate this need well, and that we would trust God to help us reach this goal.

 

For those of you who are interested our speaking/church schedule for the next few months is:

9/28: Faith Fellowship in Irons MI. We will be speaking in the morning service.

10/5: Northland Baptist Church, Grand Rapids MI. We will be speaking in the morning service

10/19: Rothbury Community Church, Rothbury MI. We will just be attending the morning service

10/22: Rothbury Community Church. We will be presenting during the missions conference in the evening.

10/24-26: Chinese Bible Church, Detroit MI. Tim will be the main speaker for their missions conference.

11/9: Calvary Church, Muskegon MI. We will be attending the morning service.

11/16: First Baptist Church, St. Johns, MI. We will be presenting in the evening service.

11/30: Blythefield Hills Baptist Church, Rockford, MI. Tim is preaching at both morning services.

 

All other Sundays, we will be attending Blythefield. Tim is also co-teaching an evening Sunday school class at Blythefield. He will be teaching the evenings of Sept. 14, Oct. 19, Nov.2, 23.

 

 

 

 

 

Some of my favorite things...

Although at times, life can be challenging here, there are many things that bring me so much joy. This past weekend I have been reflecting on them and just thought I would share a few of my favorite things here in Mozambique.



 

 

This is Luciana, my language helper. She is teaching me Swahili. She is unlike most of the Mozambicans here as she is from Tanzania and quite well educated. She is such a happy person and is always smiling and laughing. She pushes me like crazy and even writes out homework for me to do. I have really enjoyed getting to know her and spending time with her. She has brought me such insight and knowledge into the culture. I admire her determination, enthusiasm, and ability to work so hard and care for her family.

 

 

 My very good friend, Bronwyn, owns this property in Meponda on Lake Niassa or Lake Malawi. Bronwyn is one of my favorite things here. We met when I arrived here in Lichinga and although we have been quite good friends since the beginning, these past couple of years, our friendship has really grown. It is so nice to have someone who I can share with and trust she will speak truth to me and not judge me. I am so thankful for this friendship and the joy she brings to my life.

My other favorite thing is Meponda. This is a small village on the lake and it is so untouched and beautiful. There are very few people or fisherman on this lake. It is pure wilderness and one of the most beautiful places I have been.

 

 

I am so thankful for my husband and children and they are definitely my favorite people in Mozambique. However this one in particular brings me so much joy and WORK. Here is a picture of her with her head and face completely covered in Vaseline. I washed her hair about 5 times with dish soap and it still had the nice "slick" look to it.

How long is long enough?





Hong Kong Harbor

I am so pent up with frustration right now that I thought maybe if I blogged about it and looked at it from a different point of view, it would be more funny than frustrating. (also I apologize for the random pictures of Hong Kong inserted, but I cannot get them to move for the life of me)


Hong Kong Harbor

We took our car into a mechanic here in Lichinga back in January. We were about to leave and pick up my parents from Malawi and our car suddenly began leaking radiator fluid like crazy. We couldn't drive it that way, so we found a recommended mechanic here who we thought could do the job. Normally we do all our car work in Malawi, but we couldn't drive it there with that much fluid leaking. We borrowed a van from some colleagues here and left to pick them up. We thought we would allow the mechanic to work the whole 2 weeks while we were gone and get the radiator fixed. When we arrived back after the 2 weeks, the car wasn't done. Our colleagues allowed us to use their van for a few more weeks while my parents were here, so we gave him a couple more weeks to work on it. He found a few more things wrong with the car and was working on those, and after the few weeks, it still wasn't done. Well, I won't go on, but this is the story of the past 4 months as well. We still don't have our car back. He has told us tomorrow about 100 times, literally. Yesterday, he finally told Tim he could pick up the car. We went and picked it up and drove around a bit and found that the clutch wasn't working properly. We brought it back in and now once again we are at his mercy. To give the guy credit, he really does know his stuff, he is a very good mechanic, just not exactly timely. Things are so different here when it comes to service. In the States, the customer is always right, there is respect for the client as they are paying for the services. Here, it is the client's privilege to be serviced and there is no discounts for long waits, no food returns if there are bugs in it, no meals for free when they make a mistake and bring you the wrong thing(in fact you pay 2x, for the meal you didn't want and the one you do want). It is like we owe them something for providing this service even though the costs or fees may be outrageous. We pay for whatever service it is and if we are unhappy or unsatisfied it is our problem. I guess maybe a lot of this has to do with a lack of competition. The 4 or 5 restaurants in town aren't really in danger of losing cliental and the 2 or 3 mechanics in town aren't really in danger of losing cliental either. You really are at the mercy of the service providers here. We have tried complaining about our car and threatening to take it somewhere else. Well, that doesn't really work, because the car doesn't even run because there are so many parts out of it and where else are we really going to take it, to his brother down the street? I mean really, we can do nothing about it. We just wait and wait and try to just bug him so much, he wants us out of his life. In the meantime, on the bright side, Tim is getting tons of exercise walking or biking everywhere. We have amazing friends who are giving us rides and bringing us groceries. I was so thankful for our trip to Hong Kong. I felt so cooped up without a car and going crazy never leaving the house. We are sure there is a great lesson to be learned here and a plan in it all, but now as we are going into our 5th month without a car, it just feels like, hasn't it been long enough???

George family creativity (and this is as good as it gets)...

I must say that the George family and me in particular is not known for it's creativity. I really struggle when it comes to creativity, but Mozambique does call for a little creativity and so I am slowly learning. After visiting a friend's house, where they had those horses on a stick. I have no idea what they are called, but they have a horse head and then a pole that the kids can pretend they are riding the horse...Well anyway, my kids LOVED them and wanted one so bad. Of course, I have no idea where one might get one of those around here, without stealing from the said friends. And since we are teaching the kids that stealing is a sin, we decided to make our own. And before you think that I am the creative one, the girls actually came up with the idea themselves, I only helped decorate them.  They have been a highlight of the past couple of weeks, but now they don't look quite so good. Jurnee has managed to pull off the ears and mane and smash the boxes, so they didn't last as long as we had hoped. At least we can always make another...

 

Now as far as creativity goes, we are thinking Jurnee got most of those genes. She sure is creative in the messes she makes and is never running out of ideas for new ones. She did eat a bunch of markers the other day, literally ate all the tops of the markers and swallowed them. Luckily we only have non toxic markers around here.

She sure was creative when she got into mommy's lotion and toothpaste. Even though you can't quite see it all, the bathroom was all painted beautifully with a mixture of lotion and toothpaste, including herself.

 

She also decided to try out her painting skills with a bottle of nail polish on the bathroom door behind her(she is hiding the majority of it) and the night stand and the floor.

I thought when we first started the recorder with Traeger and Karis, we made a huge mistake. I think I was about to claw my eyes out, when the squeaking finally ended. What Traeger and Karis might lack in musical talent, they make up for in hard work. They practiced 6 days a week on the recorder in order to preform their recital. We were so proud of them.

 

This was Karis' first time ever getting up in front of a bunch of people and performing. She had a couple other opportunities and was too scared to do it. She told me afterward that she almost started crying and her heart was beating really fast, but she was very glad she did it.