Busy settling in

Hello friends,

Much rather I walk with bare feet over the dirt roads to the villages and sit down under a tree to chat with whoever joins me and use any opportunity to share the gospel, than sitting here behind a laptop trying to figure out the in's and out's of facebook, blog's, hyves and whatever great media means there are to improve communication…

To tell you a secret, I am about 80% illiterate regarding that internet stuff, but my husband, very pariently, is pushing and teaching me little by little, to start using these means. He knows my preferences ( visiting people and relate to them from face to face) but that is not always realistic and possible so he started this 'blog' thing. I write, he posts. Next step now is to meet friends through facebook (yes a face only… ).

Even though I might get less illiterate in time, I won't have much time to spend on this. The little ones simply don't allow me to sit down and do my own thing. I thought by this time (3 and 2 years) they would be best friends and I would have it easy…  ha, ha, no way! Yet, this moment is unique because both are sleeping and Cees took the big ones shopping (which involves more waiting then actual shopping here, so they each bring their reading books and Cees his language study book).  

The more important reason for the blog is to inform you more often in an informal way about the life and work we do. This way we hope to create more understanding for each other and knowledge of what to pray for. We are very thankful for all the prayer support.  We are here on behalf of the church, so your prayers are an essential part of mission work.

Let me just give you a glimpse of the last two week. If I hadn't jotted down some notes in my diary I wouldn't be able to tell you.  It seems every single day is packed with so many things, so much goes on in my head that I sometimes just lose track of keeping up with the shopping, for example. That in itself is a full day job because you have to go to about 15 different shops, places, markets to find the basic products you need for the week. The little boys are not very fond of it anymore. They get hot, sticky, very dirty (this dry windy hot season covers everything in a thick layer of dust) and tired of waiting everywhere. It's like weight-lifting for me; they each weight more than 30 pounds, lifting them in and out the car seat for so many times.

We spent about a whole week to find a rental house. Picking up the agent or owner, driving to the house, taking a tour and usually I would make a drawing with some specific issues like 'no hot-water boiler' or 'no space for study/office'.  We almost signed a contract for a house when we found an ad in the newspaper for a house. It said 'lovely garden' which I find very important. It is my passion to landscape and garden. Before we even built our house in Zambia I already collected all kinds of plants and trees  from villages and places and did some landscaping. Whoever visited us would enjoy our yard as we did every day. I was sad to leave it behind but glad to pass it on the new family living there now. ( I am sure Nelson the College cook will make sure the garden will be kept nice because it also became his 'pride', he sometimes gave visitors a tour through my garden...)

Now it was a 'lovely garden' indeed; I fell in love with the moment I laid eyes on it! The house is quite simple, not as big as in Zambia but the garden is indeed lovely. I don't have to start from scratch again, I can just keep going…this is really a gift from heaven. In God's loving kindness we found this house and signed the contract. The rent is even less than the house we almost signed for (see album for some pictures; there are so many because we made it for our family).  

We really want to start living there as soon as possible, it's just that we are not allowed yet to get our stuff from Zambia over the border. It can take a while… so we will just start camping there. I know how to live without a fridge and many other things. I bought 6 plates, 6 cups, forks and knives, some chairs and we are still looking for 4 matrasses. The boys are still in their pack & play I took from our trip.

Speaking of buying! If you live on the dirt floor and eat corn all day Malawi is not expensive but whenever you need some basic furniture, kitchenware, matrasses, dairy products etc Malawi is extremely expensive! Then the biggest money bill here is only worth $2, so if you have to pay $200 (everything cash, no credit cards or anything here) your wallet / purse is always too small. Just compare; 1 pack baby wipes $8, box cereal $7, gallon diesel $6.

Malawi is not doing well economically. In many ways Malawi looks at Zambia as it's bigger brother, not just because of the size! Now we make a list of products for Cees to buy in Zambia next week. He plans to go to Zambia (Lusaka) for three days to run all kinds of errands there. Our vehicle needs officially to be imported to Malawi. Cees needs a personal police clearance from Zambia to be able to start the official immigration process into Malawi (we thought we did everything for this procedure but they need this document which can only be obtained from the police in Lusaka).  Last week it took him 3 days to pick up our dog in Zambia and get her into Malawi. Not because filling in the forms etc. takes so much time. We could write a book about how the officials go about the most simple (in our eyes) jobs. Here a stamp is missing, there the forms ran out, next the man on duty disappeared, then a form needs to be signed by a person who stayed home because he didn't have gas in his car to come to work (so Cees bought him gas and got the nessesary signature 20 hours later) etc etc.

Well, the boys woke up so I must quit typing now even though this wasn't nearly half of what kept us busy. Hopefully next time I will be able to write more about the contacts we are making which can be of importance for  our ministry here. Lot's of needs, lot's of opportunities, now to know HOW to go about it is a very important part of our research.

Have a good Sunday!