Arrival in Zambia March 6, 2009

Tim and I have started the second part of our African adventure. We are currently in Kabwe, Zambia staying with our missionary friends, Dan and Tina Moyer. We’ll be here for 2 weeks before heading over to Malawi. It’s so cool that Dan’s parents, Carl and Joanne, live right next door. Carl is the pastor of the church and their house is host to a steady stream of people. We are staying in the guest house at the back of their compound. It has got its own bathroom – with hot water! – and is very quiet. We are able to sleep so well here – no incessant dog barking or all-night churches blaring. We have all our meals with the family either at Carl and Joanne’s or Dan and Tina’s. There is no scrounging for decent food here! It’s good, healthy and diverse. And Tim could use some plumping up. He caught some kind of parasite before we left Uganda and is a string bean! Tina has been giving him grapefruit seed extract and Dan said to take it easy for a little while, so he is definitely on the mend.

Poor Tim

We are really enjoying ourselves. We’ve already had our first volleyball tournament and I am gearing up for board game marathons. The ministry has an internet café so we’ve been able to catch up on our correspondence a little here as well. There are a few projects in Kabwe we want to accomplish such as helping to sort through a huge container, organize some rooms in the Moyers’ house and install a sliding glass door at the café. I’ve also tried to help out by making a few meals and desserts, which everyone seems to like. It’s just nice to be part of a family, to be encouraged, re-group after Kampala, and have some social time with the many missionary families in Kabwe.

Joanne and Carl

Carl and Joanne have been missionaries in Africa for over 42 years (Joanne was born and raised here, and Carl was born and raised in Boyertown, Pennsylvania, just 45 minutes from where Tim grew up) and really have done some good work over the years. Joanne is a nurse and Carl is a jack of all trades. They are very hospitable, experienced and accepting. The locals call them BaBu and BiBi (grandfather and grandmother in Swahili). Carl makes a mean stack of pancakes (Tim ate 9 this morning) and Joanne is always smiling and busy feeding someone.

Dan, their son, was raised in Tanzania and met Tina in Bible college. (Incidentally, when Dan’s parents came back to the States on furlough every four years, they spent most of their time in Pennsylvania, and Tim and Dan just realized during a conversation yesterday that they probably played against each other in high school soccer since Dan attended Upper Bucks Christian School which competed against Tim’s school in sports.) They have been married 20 years and have 3 kids. They have an amazing testimony about the struggles of life “in the bush”, a stillbirth and infertility. Those hardships have made them such great sounding boards and counselors for us. Plus they are really cute together and their kids, Natalie, Nadine and Seth are really sweet.

Dan and Tina

I met Dan and Tina about eleven years ago when they gave a presentation at our single’s group at Antioch Bible Church in Kirkland. I remember thinking Tina was just a kick and that if she lived nearby we would be friends; too bad she lived in Africa. I ended up going on a short term mission trip to Zambia to work with the Moyers. There were 6 women and 6 men on our team and we had such a great time! (Aside from my near-drowning experience, but that’s another story). Tina and I have been friends ever since, hooking up whenever they came home to Seattle on furlough.

When we felt the Lord nudging us to get our minds off of ourselves go out and help other people, my first thought was to contact the Moyers. Dan sent an email right back saying to absolutely come. They were going to be in the States almost the exact same time as we were planning to be in Uganda, so we agreed we would come to work with them during the second half of our trip.

So we flew to Lusaka, Zambia from Entebbe, Uganda on February 28th and the whole clan picked us up. We’ll be flying out of Lusaka in June, so we come back through on our way home. Kennedy, a longtime friend and associate of Dan’s will drive us to Malawi mid-March and Dan will come over and drive us back to Zambia at the end of May. So, what’s our gameplan as far as work goes?

The government in Malawi gave Grace Ministries International, Dan’s organization, about 20 acres on which to build a school. The land is in an area called Senga Bay, about an hour and a half from Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. Grace did a survey and found out that 70% of the children in that area don’t go to school and apparently the place is smack in the middle of a Muslim neighborhood. The government has authorized Grace to teach using a Christian perspective. Our job will be to oversee the construction of phase one of the school project – 2 classrooms, a latrine and teachers quarters.

About a mile away from the land for the school, Grace owns a small resort called Chisomo Cottages on the shore of Lake Malawi. The story about how Grace acquired the resort is amazing: There is a team of Grace Missionaries living and working on a lake in Tanzania. They are really making huge strides in the community and it occurred to Dan that Grace ought to see about getting another piece of property to duplicate that successful project. He called Kennedy, who lives in Malawi. He told him that getting some lakefront property was laid on his heart and Kennedy said, “I already know the place; I just heard of a guy selling a plot on the north shore of Lake Malawi.” Dan said for Kennedy to go check it out and send some pictures. Kennedy was so excited about the resort once we saw it that he drove the 12 (!) hours to Zambia to show Dan the pictures in person. The owner was asking a very reasonable price of $55,000 and Dan emailed a few of his key donors about the possibility. But at the same time, in faith and without the money, he told Kennedy to go ahead and make an offer. Right away a donor responded saying that just that very day he made a profit on his Microsoft stock of —-guess how much—-$55,000! He said he would not even miss the money, since he didn’t know he even had it. So the land was purchased by Grace Ministries and they found out that the day after it closed, the owner received an offer of $70,000. I guess God wanted Grace to have it!!

Since then, Grace has built a security wall around the perimeter of the property as well as a conference room overlooking the lake. We will be staying in the main house – it’s has 3 bedrooms, hot water and huge living room. Tim and I will work on sprucing up Chisomo Cottages as we stay there, with the goal of welcoming guests as soon as possible. Another objective is to meet and build relationships with the people living around the resort. That’s right up my alley! We’ll invite some people over for dinner, go to the local church and visit families nearby to determine which kids would attend the school when it opens.

We’ll only have 2 and ½ months, but we’ll do what we can! Unfortunately the funding for the building project fell through due the financial crisis in the US, so we need to be very careful to budget wisely. We didn’t ask for contributions for our trip, feeling the Lord needed us to sacrifice financially as well as physically. But we are grateful to those of you who gave anyway! We spent most of the money on the projects in Uganda, as you may have read in one of Tim’s previous blogs. We are donating the balance to Grace Ministries for the Malawi school project, but it’s far short of the $50,000 budget for phase one.

I feel funny about asking for money, but I need to get over it. It is a blessing to give, so we are only offering a chance to donate to a reputable organization that is accountable and actually getting a ton of amazing work done. There are a lot of mediocre – not to mention corrupt – charities out there, using donor’s money in less than honorable ways. We can vouch firsthand for the work Dan and Tina are doing!

We, along with Grace, are trusting the Lord to provide for this project. If you are compelled to give, with a tax deduction for charity, you can visit www.gracem.org and designate the funds to the Malawi school project. The money will go directly for the start up costs for the Christian school in a predominantly Muslim community. Eventually we hope the resort will generate enough income to run the school, so it can be a self-sustaining enterprise.

It sure seems like God has had His mighty hand on this project, so we figure we might as well get on board for the ride and see what He does!

We’ll send pictures as soon as we get there……

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