Finetown Recap

Back to the beginning...

We had Ruth and Kristen with us for three weeks in June/July and we did ministry together in Finetown with Pastor Terrance Wessels. All his friends call him "Wessie". We admire him and the work he and his church do in the impoverished community right down the street from where they live. In this photo, Wessie is in the front, Heather (dark blue) and Jenny (brown sweatshirt) are OC missionary teammates, Kristen is front left, Ruth is front right holding Miesha, Tina (in orange) and Helen (black and white stripes) are members of Wessie's church's Compassionate Care team. Micah Witherow (baseball cap) got the day off of school to come and help us do ministry. I am so glad that his parents let him do this. I think there is no better education than working with and helping people in circumstances which are different than yours. We loved working with this group!

Finetown isn't "fine" at all and it is filled with people deperate for a touch of love and the gift of hope. We worked at a project called Zanzele ("do it yourself") for a week. There are around 60 trained health care volunteers who work in pairs to serve those dying of AIDS in their communties. Zanzele also is a home where 28 orphan kids live with their foster mother Mama Linda. She is my new hero!


Zanzele also has a feeding project on the campus and they give free food to several hundred children each day and also assist some elderly people who do not have any money. The priority is to feed orphans and vulnerable children - can you imagine several hundred orphaned and vulnerable children in your small neighborhood? (vulnerable children is a definition given to kids in several types of situations. The most common scenario is they may still have one parent, but that parent is sick with AIDS and can't work/can't care for them.)

Ruth is a nurse in Canada and she and Dan did a first aid training for the people who work with those sick with AIDS.

Several people said it was a really helpful review and many said they learned something new! Ruth also did a workshop on how to process grief since everyone every day are surrounded by death and those who are dying. There were lots of tears, some good processing, and valuable counseling type listening techniques communicated. One thing I have observed about Africans and how they process grief is that they rarely give themselves permission to cry, to grieve and to talk about their pain. I have seen this several times with the parents are dying, the kids watch their parents get sick and waste away to skeletons, but they are not allowed to ask questions about what is going on. They know their parents are dying, but they can't ask "how much time do you have left? who will care for me when you are gone?" Many never get to hear stories about their parent's lives that are crucial to pass from generation to generation. (Can you tell I am passionate about this?!! This is why I am writing the Bible Study curriculum for my friends who are dying of AIDS. A portion of it is called Leaving A Legacy...teaching them how to write their life stories to pass along to their kids. It is now translated into the Sotho language!)

Below are the healthcare workers who attended the class. There were 4 health facilities represented and these leaders will in turn teach others underneath them to maximize the impact of this training!

Several of the ladies had deep pain that they were willing to share with the group. One lady shared the pain of growing up without her father. She tracked him down and wanted to have a relationship with him. She also asked him if he would help fund her education so she could become a nurse. She only knew him for one year before he died of AIDS and he didn't make any attempt to build relationship with her or to assist her in acheiving her dream of becoming a nurse. She was grieving the loss of a father (even though he was absent) and also her dream of becoming a nurse to help people.

Another lady had just buried a husband two months before and was struggling to process her grief with friends who had a difficult time understanding and supporting her. This training will be an amazing tool these gals can use to help people they meet to process grief.

Was going to resign...now feeling much better!

I was just browsing through my blog entries and realized that I really haven't updated you on anything that has been going on since June! And boy, there has been a LOT!

For 3 days this week, we went away on a retreat with our missionary teammates. This couldn't have come at a better time since Dan and I were EXHAUSTED and badly in need of rest. There was a point last week where if I was allowed, I think I seriously would've considered resigning from being a missionary and heading back to the states where life would be easier. Miesha wasn't sleeping well (cutting 4 teeth at once...cute little overachiever!) which means I wasn't getting much sleep, I had a sinus infection for 2+ weeks, we had just put my parents on the plane, we said goodbye to a good friend who just moved back to the states (we miss you Marci!) and we had either been traveling with teams or had people staying with us for 70 of the past 109 days. (yes, i just counted!) To top it off, last week Dan had a kidney stone and was in the hospital for 24 hours. Stressful! That came as the "icing on the cake" for me and seemed to suck the last ounce of energy I had left.

Last Sunday in church our pastor's wife Lisa prayed for me. She prayed for refreshment and renewal and for God to "refill my gas tank" so that I could keep going.

The last couple days were good in that regard. We did some swimming, some bike riding, some napping, and feel that our batteries are recharged. PRAISE GOD!

I think that I'll try to update you on our adventures in the past couple months in bits and pieces...starting from the earliest and moving forward from there. God did some amazing things in and through the teams we led and I am excited to share them with you all. (hopefully many of you will have already heard some of the stories because of our email updates, but I'll try to add more pics!)

Thanks for bearing with my lack of postings! I hope to get into a groove here soon. lol

it's been a long time

This is another posting to say "sheesh, I haven't written anything in forever!" and to again promise that I at least hope to post some really great stories and pictures soon. My parents have now been here 3 weeks and we have enjoyed their visit. My mom watched Miesha for me several times in the afternoons so I could "get stuff done" but instead of blogging I have prioritized SLEEPING and also trying to finish some 80 thank you notes from baby shower gifts given to Miesha in March. SO late...how embarrassing!

Miesha is trying to cut 4 teeth at once and she is SO close - we can see all of them because her gums are so thin. She has been a little more "relational" (can't be without her mother for more than 10 seconds) and also is a little more fussy. For a week there she was up 4-5x a night again. I am tired!!

As much as we've enjoyed my folks here, it will also be nice to be just us again for a while. We have either had people living with us or we have been on the road traveling to do ministry/mission trips for 8 of the last 12 weeks. Miesha told me recently she wants to stay home for longer than a couple days this time.

I totally understand! More coming soon. (I hope!)

I am back!!

I know that I haven't posted anything in ages...sorry! We have been in Botswana and Zambia the last two weeks and we had so many adventures. Someday I WILL get enough time to write about a few of them. I have all these future blog post ideas floating around in my head. After 16 hours of driving (in one day!!) we got home from our trip late Friday night,recovered a bit on Saturday, went to church and cleaned the house and had a friend over for dinner on Sunday, Monday I did 10 loads of laundry, today we worked to clean up our yard and had some friends over for dinner, and my parents will land in about 9 hours and will be visiting us for 3.5 weeks.

I am excited for Miesha to get more time with them. She has cut two teeth and started crawling!! Such a cutie. She is going through a phase where she constantly wants to be held and climb up her parent's legs to try standing up. I hope my mom will hold Miesha and give me a little extra computer time.

I promise I'll post pictures soon.

Heading to bed. I only got 5 hours of sleep last night because I went to bed late and Miesha was up early. I hope this season of tiredness is temporary, but my friend Heather lovingly told me tonight that my days of sleeping in are pretty much over for the next decade. Sigh...

Resurrection Plant

I have a before and after picture of a plant that was given to me. A couple weeks ago with Kristen and Ruth we went on a nature hike guided by our new friend Oldrich. He is an expert in nature and conservation and has been creating a nature trail (takes anywhere between 4-7 hours to hike it) to bring in money and tourism for an impoverished community. Great guy and a really neat idea...



At the top of the hill, Oldrich broke off a couple pieces of a plant that looked like it had been burned. He gave me a piece and here it is:





This is the plant after it has been in water for 2 days. Pretty cool!





The locals call it the Resurrection Plant because it obviously looks dead and then comes back to life with water!



I haven't written in awhile because we have been out of town with Team #2 to Swaziland and then after we got home, all 3 of us have been really sick with head colds. Blech.



I am feeling a little bit like this plant before it got water. I am tired, prickly, feeling a bit dry and in need of some refreshment! Please pray for our family. We are in need of healing for our sickness and must be well before we travel up to Zambia early next week with Team #3.



I want to be like this plant and bust out with leaves and healthiness so that I can be a blessing to this next team and to the Zambians we will be ministering to.



So much to do...but if you are lucky, I may get one more blog posted before we go! However, when I get a few more minutes to myself, I have some amazing pics of Swaziland to post for you all to see.



Baby girl just woke up - gotta go!