Refections on living in a tent...

Although it has been 3 weeks since we left Zambia, I wanted to write a bit so that I can process on paper and let you in on a few things I learned while going through an intense season of missionary training.  

We moved up to Zambia from South Africa in July and house-sat for some friends in Livingstone for a month before moving out to Overland Mission’s Base.  We had a chance to explore a little bit and absolutely fell in love with the wild beauty of Zambia.  Often on our 35 minute drive from town (where we were house-sitting) to Overland’s base, we would often see baboons or elephants by the side of the road.  Our record was seeing 74 elephants in one sighting!  You also are right alongside the Zambezi River for a bit of the drive and in several places you can see the mist from the mighty Victoria Falls from the road.  It was absolutely amazing!

Our Advanced Missions Training class began the last week of August and our class of 15 was filled with extremely high caliber people who also have a heart for the lost.  I think we may have learned equally as much from living in community with these people as we did from our formal lectures.  They are now life long friends!

In the last 3 months we have lived in a tent, we have changed car tires,  we’ve written papers, we’ve written and preached multiple sermons, we’ve read lots of books, we’ve sat through hours of classroom lectures on a variety of topics, we’ve worked on trucks, we’ve gardened, we’ve fixed up multiple injuries in our medical  class scenarios,  we’ve cooked over fires, we slaughtered goats, killed and plucked chickens, we completed survival skills training, and we survived a pretty intense heat wave for a month (hottest day was 131F/55C).  But, best of all - we have ministered in villages and seen God move in really amazing ways.

It has certainly been the most challenging and rewarding months of our lives.

The Challenges: Living in a tent was definitely not my favorite part.  In high school, I went on 5 summer missions trips and spent a total of about 40 weeks living in a tent.  I felt like I had already "put in my time in the tent" for missions.  J  It really isn’t my thing.  However, it could’ve been worse.  We did have electricity in our tent and it was tall enough that adults could stand up in it.  About half-way through, our Johannesburg church blessed us with an “overflow tent” for the kids to move into as their bedroom.  It made things so much easier!  Having electricity there also meant we could use a fan which really did help during the heat wave we had in October and November. 

This year, the rains were unusually late, and the heat really made things challenging for quite some time.  For about a month and a half, we fluctuated between 105-125F/40-52C and the hottest day of my entire life, it was 131F/55C.  Wow, that was a challenging one.  And, no, there was NO air conditioning anywhere.  Our tents felt like ovens and sometimes even when the fan was blowing on you, it felt like someone was blowing a hot hair dryer in our faces.  We went to class like normal and ate meals like normal, but we got out of our Physical Training that day! J  A few nights it was still approximately 95F/35C in our tent at 11pm, but most nights it would finally cool down around 9pm so we could sleep okay. 

During that heat wave was when a large percentage our class fell sick – we had a variety of chest colds, high fevers, diarrhea, and the 15month baby boy got malaria.  With prayer and proper meds, everyone recovered eventually, but that wasn’t such a great two weeks.

The only good thing about the extreme heat was that our laundry always dried on the line in about 10 minutes!  That was very handy.  J

We also had to be always on the alert for the wildlife – there were a couple spitting cobras and a python killed on base and both Dan and I killed scorpions, but God was good to protect everyone from harm.  There was a base cat that was stalking us and was always trying to get into our tent to eat our food.  It was so annoying, but one day it alerted people to a spitting cobra behind our tent on the path, and another day it dropped a dead snake piece “present” on our mat so we decided it was worth keeping around and started feeding it.  God used that silly cat to help protect our family from critters.  J

 The Joys:  We loved the people we were in class with – they were a blessing to us the entire time.  The classes themselves and our teachers were so very high caliber and the info will be incredibly useful to us moving forward in missions.  Also, the ministry we got to do in the villages was intensely rewarding.  You can read about them in previous blogs.

I can honestly say that the JOY of being a part of what God was doing in these rural areas so far outweighed any inconveniences that we endured.  Our group of 15 went into the bush 3 times, a total of 14 days of outreach, and we counted over 230 salvations!  We were also able to do some follow up and discipleship on a few days as well.  God is so good!

Also, God did some work in my heart too showing me that I rely too much on my senses.  I got annoyed when we were served bland oatmeal for breakfast 5x a week and my attitude fluctuated too much based on whether the food we were being served was good or not.  During our bush cooking class one day (cooking random stuff over an outdoor fire), our group decided that we weren’t going to say anything negative to each other from 4-7pm.  During that 3 hour time period, we had to go cut firewood, start a fire, boil water and make a lentil soup with polony (like a chicken version of Spam) eat it for dinner, and best of all - that day it was 124F/52C.  There were more than a few things that we could’ve complained about, but we sang, laughed, and ended up having a wonderful time together.  We managed to make some pretty yucky stuff taste decent that week.

 If I was too hot or didn’t get enough sleep, then I struggled so much to stay positive and be encouraging of others.  Not saying I am completely sorted out now, but the Lord and I have made some great progress.

Also, before we left God encouraged me about this big change for our family through several different things.  As our Johannesburg life group was praying for us as we were leaving, someone said that Psalm 23 was going to be very important to us.  During one of the Sunday messages given by a guest pastor from the states, he gave us amazing new insights from Psalm 23 that I am holding onto tightly.  God is so good – He will care for us and lead us and prepare the way for any new ground he wants us to go into!!  Also, a picture that was painted by someone in our Johannesburg church encouraged me a great deal.  It was of a tree planted by a stream of water – quite simple really.  As I was looking at it, God spoke to my heart that I am like that tree and he is going to take my roots down deep and that not only me, but my whole family is going to thrive in a new environment.  Then, God confirmed it to my heart again.  During preaching class we had an exercise where we were given a random verse, had 30 seconds to read it and then had to preach on it for a minimum of a minute.  (fun idea, huh!)  I was given the verse:  Jeremiah 17:7-8.

 “But blessed are those who trust in the LORD,
   whose confidence is in him.
 They will be like a tree planted by the water
   that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
   its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
   and never fails to bear fruit.”

It summed up exactly what that picture had been speaking to my heart and it felt like the Lord had given me a hug.  Thriving during a season of drought and “not fearing when heat comes” = pretty perfect, right?!

Through your partnership in prayers and financial support of our family, you can celebrate with us in all God has done for us, in us, and through us!

We love you – thank you for being on this journey with us.

Ministry in Mukuni

This week’s ministry trip took 15 Americans and 4 translators about 2 hours from base into the village of Cidabwe in the Mukeni chiefdom.  It was an amazing 4 days of ministry and we counted 123 first time salvation decisions!  To God be the glory!!

Cidabwe is a small village and the people who live in or near there mostly survive through gardening.  Overland has a branch of their ministry called the SAM Project which is specifically for assisting these farmers and ministering to them through their co-op.  These few farmers are a part of a Bible study every other week, but the area hasn’t really had much of an evangelistic focus aside from this.  You can read more about the SAM Project here: http://www.overlandmissions.com/sam-project/article/sam_project/

We were blessed with a group of women who came to our campsite to sit for several hours with us and talk about God.  They asked us so many questions and were hungry to know more of the Lord.  That evening, we had an evangelistic message and about 60 people gathered around the fire under a million stars to hear the best story ever told.  Tim shared of God’s great love for us and his redemptive plan to bring us back into relationship with Him again.  As I sat on the ground listening to this message, I cried right alongside the Zambians as we marveled at how good our God is.  That night about 45 people gave their lives to the Lord.

The next day we drove our huge truck into the bush another hour or so and started walking the footpaths to find more people to share Christ with. To our surprise, we found many people who had already visited our campfire and had accepted Christ earlier in the week.  They had walked a LONG way to spend time with us.  It was incredibly humbling.  We had a really fun time helping them water their gardens and they took a few hours of their day to hear more about growth in Christ.

Our final day we invited everyone to come to our campsite for a day of messages.  They listened to my friends and I take turns preaching from 10am-5:30pm.  My message was on Friendship With God and it was incredibly well received. 

We served them lunch and I had a delightful time of chatting while cooking together.  

I missed my family terribly, but everyone did great and we are very happily reunited.  The kids were already asleep when I arrived back on base, but in the middle of the night, Miesha was asking for me in her sleep.  I cuddled with her for a few minutes and she woke up just long enough to say, “Our family is together again.”

(I tried to upload pictures, but blogger keeps turning them all sideways...if you want to see ministry pics, check out my facebook page "Hartleys in Zambia")

Upcoming Ministry Trip

Hello,

Just a quick note to ask you all to pray for us this coming week.  Our Advanced Missions Training is heading into the bush for village ministry again this coming week (Sun-Fri).  We decided that this trip, I will go and Dan will stay back with the kids.  I have never been gone from the kids this long (ever!) and Dan hasn’t single-parented this long before, so it could be interesting!

The ministry is in the Makuni sector and will be the first time they have had evangelism in this area in a long time.  Overland has a strong presence in the farming community there and does weekly Bible studies with the farmers in their co-op.  They have asked for a focus on Women’s ministry and that is my favorite thing, I can’t wait!!   I am also co-leading the cooking, so it will definitely be a fun week.

The main reason Dan is staying with the kids is because the following week he is heading to South Africa for 5 days.  We finally have our 2^nd container and Dan is heading down to handle the finalization of that process and hopefully get Titus’s South African visa sorted.  More on that next week…both of those things have caused a great deal of frustration and it will be good to have those two things sorted finally!

Thank you for your prayers for us, we are doing very well.  As I type to you, I am enjoying some loud traditional African worship music since there is a church having a conference in the camping area of Overland’s base.  Last night it lasted until 3am and then they woke up everyone (including us) with a funny wake up call at 6am.  J  l am going to look for my earplugs soon.  Hopefully tonight will be more restful…

We posted a few pictures of us working in Nsongwe on our Facebook pages – feel free to check those out. 

I’ve attached a silly picture of the kids in our makeshift bath here.  There are showers available, but sometimes the kids just like to play and soak, so we got a big plastic bowl for them!  I am pretty sure it is supposed to be used for hand washing laundry, but it’ll definitely work. J

Excited for what God will do this week!

It has been a ROUGH week...

No ambulance.  No hospital.  No helicopter.  Miles from the nearest road.  Hours, perhaps days away from help.  No rescuers are coming.  What would you do?

It has been a really rough week for our family.  Dan fell while rock climbing and fractured his femur.  Also, Janell has suffered from abrasions on her elbow, a sprained ankle, a fractured left femur, a compound fracture on her right tibia, a broken pelvis and some broken ribs from a hang gliding accident and from taking a fall on base.  

In actuality, we have been going through Wilderness Medicine training this week we have all been taking turns pretending to be victims of random accidents!!  The rest of our class has to figure out how to patch us up and keep us alive until we can be transferred to a clinic or medical facility.  We are being taught by a Doctor and professionally trained wilderness medics from SOLO who’ve said what we’ll be taught in these two weeks is exactly what they teach in college medicine courses worth 8 credits! 

Last night during our “hands on” practice scenario, I (Janell) was the  victim of a hang gliding accident and I had to act like I had a broken left femur and a compound fracture on my right tibia.  They used professional acting paint and mortician’s clay to make it look like a bone was actually poking out of my lower leg.  It looked so gross!  I ended up immobilized by two huge makeshift leg casts.

Caitlin was made up to look like a stick had impaled her arm. 

It has been challenging, but more because of the extensive material we are studying than injuries.  We are perfectly healthy, our brains are just full.  We have been studying between 9-10 hrs a day and in a couple days we will begin teaching what we have just learned down the street in Nsongwe village.  I know that this information is going to be incredibly helpful as we continue to spend time with people who live in more remote areas. 

Please pray for stamina for us and our kids.  For the first time in their lives, they are being cared for by a babysitter for 9-10 hours a day.  (Their sitter Concelia is the cute gal holding the fish in the blog below!)  This will only last the two weeks of the medical course, but it has been a challenging adjustment for all of us!  It is also getting warmer here and it is hard to absorb the massive amounts of information while in our outdoor classroom when it is over 100 degrees F.

We really do love this and are so grateful for the chance to learn this info.   This coming week, we’ll learn how to deal with snake bites, tropical diseases and much more. Thank you for your prayers for us!

Gone Fishing...

“You have come to give us a gift.  I am ready to receive it.  I will receive it, not with one hand, but with my two hands open!” 

Early Sunday morning, Dan and 20 other missionaries headed out in one of Overland’s big trucks for the 7+ hour drive into the Nyawa chiefdom.  The age range of participants was 1 yr old up to a couple in their late 60s.  The Nyawa chiefdom has been the primary ministry focus of a family in Overland for 3+ years and there are over 400 leaders being mentored.  Obviously there is a wonderful ministry presence, but it is a huge territory and there are still many who have never heard.

This particular area was targeted this time because of a catfish festival where loads of people come for miles to fish.  Dan and the team had to walk for several hours to reach the place where the people were.  (different fishing holes were “open” or legal to fish at each day)  The men generally used spears to try to stab the fish and the ladies used cone shaped baskets to try to trap the fish.  Many of our team jumped into the river to help them.  The people were thrilled we were there and our attempts to help were laughed at all day.  This was “life on life” ministry as we earned credibility by helping.

The kids and I caravanned with 15 other people out to the bush to join the group on Tuesday.  That night, some teammates showed the Jesus film near our campsite and about 80 people came to see.  The next morning, we walked about 10 minutes down the road where there were people cleaning fish and smoking them over the fire.  They were delighted to sit with us for hours to ask questions about what they saw on the Jesus Film.  The group I was sharing with said they don’t have access to a Bible and often when they go to church, there is no pastor to teach them.  They were so happy we were there and we had a wonderful time of encouraging them.

Later that afternoon, Dan watched the kids and freed me to join a team to walk to villages to share the love of Christ.  After walking over an hour in the hot African sun, we reached a small village of about 15 adults and a bunch of kids.  A young Overland missionary named Derek had rode his bicycle to this village a year ago and gave one of the men a Bible.  They were absolutely delighted to see us and said that Derek, and now our little group were the only visitors they can remember coming to visit.

The oldest man there stood up and declared loudly, “You have come to give us a gift.  I am ready to receive it.  I will receive it, not with one hand, but with my two hands open!”  Derek said, “If you have ever wondered if God has forgotten you, we are proof today of how much God loves you.  He has brought us from far far away to share with you the message of His great love for you.”  For the next 2 hours, we four missionaries took turns sharing about the fall of man, our great need for a Savior, the death of Christ, the Holy Spirit our helper, how to listen for God’s voice, and how to share what we have learned with others.  They were listening intently and soaking in every word.  When we asked if anyone wanted to receive Jesus as their Savior, every adult and a few of the kids prayed the salvation prayer.

To be honest, taking the kids into the bush wasn’t all that comfortable.  However, with a little sacrifice on our family’s part, we got to play a small part in an entire small village receiving salvation.  It was amazing and TOTALLY worth it.

Titus is Two!

It is hard to believe our precious little Titus Glen is now 2 years old!  He was born in Portland, Oregon, USA and spent the first two months of his life being adored by friends and family in the states before transitioning back to live in Johannesburg, Africa.   When we left, he looked like this:


Titus 3 months

These days, he looks like this: 

today, on his birthday

He has gorgeous baby blue eyes, light colored hair, and the sweetest smile ever.  He has three freckles over his right eye that form a perfect triangle.



Titus is an absolute delight.  Don’t get me wrong, he isn’t perfect, and his sister knows just how to push his buttons, but most of the time he is a happy boy and brings a lot of joy into so many lives.  He is super affectionate, especially within our family, and often climbs into our laps just to snuggle for a bit or to give kisses.  

He has the best contagious laugh.  He really is “all boy” and loves to get dirty and kill bugs. 

He is super smart and is a really great communicator for his age.   As a family, we play a lot of games in the car because of all the driving we do and his favorite one is called “shape searchers”.  Both kids love shouting out the shapes they see and we get the best looks from our friends who hear him shouting, “look mommy, an octagon!” 

He has a way of endearing himself to people and we often hear others say that he is their favorite little boy too. 

at a wedding in January

He loves to help his Daddy with projects and always wants to be a part of whatever is going on.

He is a tremendous blessing to our family and to so many others.  Zambia is going to be a great place for him to grow up! 

with one of the Overland trucks on base and Curious George

 We love you Titus.  We are excited to see what God has planned for you! 

Miss Miesha

In two days, the kids and I will celebrate our 1 month anniversary of living in Zambia.  We chose to move up to Zambia before our training class starts in order to settle the kids, apply for our visas, and to bring our packed shipping containers over the border.  A few of those things are happening!  We have high expectations for what we will learn and experience in the Advanced Missions Training which begins Aug 29^th.  There will be 5 singles and 10 married couples in class with us and there should be several other kids for our little ones to befriend.

Titus turns 2 years old next week, so I’ll write about him on his birthday. 

This week I am going to blog about my favorite little girl. 

Miesha Noelle  was born at 12:12 in the afternoon of 12/12/2007.  Her Daddy’s favorite number is 12, so we knew right away that she would be special.  

When our friends and family in the states last saw Miesha, she wasn't quite 2 years old and looked like this:

Miesha 21 months

She is now 3½ and loving life!  She is tall for her age, has gorgeous chocolate brown eyes and really long hair. 

She loves to play pretend and often a “kitty, puppy, dinosaur, or princess” joins the rest of the family for dinner.  She loves princess stuff and loves dressing up – every once and awhile she gets her little brother to put on a crown too.  Her favorite princess movie to watch is Cinderella, she likes dressing up like Snow White, and we call her Rapunzel.  J

Ever since she attended her best friend Emme’s birthday tea party last April, she has been obsessed with birthdays.  She loves to sing ‘happy birthday’ and make birthday cakes (real and pretend!) and declares daily to whoever will listen, “hey everybody, it is my birthday”.  She is super silly and loves to laugh.

She chipped her front tooth pretty badly a couple months ago and whenever she looks in the mirror at it, she always says, “My tooth is broken, I need a new one.”

For the last two years Dan and I have been observing her challenges with speaking and have been trying to help her. We have a ways to go still, but we have been delighted to see her speech really taking off recently.  It took me almost a year of singing with her to teach her the words to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and then after she sang it for a new acquaintance a couple months back, the lady said, “well at least the tune was mostly right”.  That was hard for this Momma’s heart to hear.  L  The Lord and I have had several chats about Miesha because I was concerned about how her speech would be impacted by the massive transition our family is making.  Last Sunday, both Dan and I were amazed to hear Miesha singing along to the worship song.  We were unaware she even knew it!  Since we have been living in Zambia, Miesha has learned a new song to sing practically every week.  While I am not a big fan of Barney, Miesha loves singing his “I love you, You love me…” song and always gives hugs and kisses to whoever is nearby, so that is fun!  She also loves singing Pop Goes the Weasel, The Lord is My Shepherd, and various worship songs.  She is enjoying her new friends Danielle and Sunda.  Sunda is 5 years old and I think hanging out with someone older with more advanced speech has been good.  Miesha can say “Sue, sue, sue” but still is calling her new friend Tuna.  (We will keep practicing!)

Miesha and Sunda

This morning, like usual she crawled into bed to spoon with me for a few minutes before begging for her morning cup of chocolate milk.  As we walked to the kitchen together, she said, “Look Mommy, a beautiful day!”  She often says just the right thing in her own special way.

She is a problem solver, likes doing things that give her an adrenalin rush, and loves sugar and chocolate almost as much as her mother.

Miesha has traveled with us to USA, Germany, Swaziland, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia and has participated in most of our family's ministry events with us since she was born.  As many of you know, having kids is often a great icebreaker between cultures and I have had many opportunities to share about Christ with other ladies since becoming Miesha’s mom.

Miesha and the building team at Temba Orphanage project

We are beyond blessed to be the parents of this special little gal and are excited to see how living in Africa will shape who she becomes and the purposes God has for her life.

He gently leads...

Isaiah 40:11 “…He gently leads those who have young.”

“Here you go – thank your husband for me,” said the quiet, slender, young man.  I looked at the wad of cash in my hand and not only did I not have any idea how much he just gave me, I also had no idea why!  Later I learned Dan had acquired a much needed motorcycle part for him in Johannesburg, but as I looked at that money, I felt like God had given me a hug.  Dan has managed the finances in our family the last couple years and the idea of either asking for a ride or driving two carseat-less children (who both have figured out how to wiggle out of their seat belts while driving!) to a bank to stand in line and exchange money into a currency I barely understood, not knowing whether or not I was getting a good rate…it made me tired just thinking about it.  The fact that I had cash in hand to buy a few snacks for the kids was such a huge help.  (You can use debit cards, but the system was down the day I initially tried! Power failures have occurred 5-8x a week so far in town.)

this is where we are housesitting for the month of September

The kids and I arrived in Zambia about a week and a half before Dan.  This wasn’t intentional – we were hoping that our containers would arrive in time for Dan to leave a few days before us to drive up to Zambia to meet our flight.  (As I type this we have received one container, but the second one still has not come.  It is now exactly 12 weeks late from the date we asked it to be delivered.)  The kids did decent on the flight, but the 1.5 hours in line for customs with poopy diapers and trying to carry 3 bags and keep two kids close to me almost put all three of us over the edge!  There could’ve been some questions to answer (Titus’s passport isn’t in order even though we applied for renewal in South Africa seven months ago!), but the customs official felt so sorry for me as I finally reached his desk, that he just stamped the passports, apologized for me waiting in line so long, and welcomed me to the country.  No fees!   Again, a gift from God.



  can't express adequately what a blessing it is to process with a sister who is going through a similar season of change!

 I could go on and on, but I just feel that the Lord has gently led us and surrounded us immediately with support and love from new friends in a season where everything is new to us.

I miss quite a few things from South Africa – friends first of all, our church (Sunday school for the kids especially!), and paved tar roads.  J  However, I have to say, I am totally in love with Zambia.  You always go through a honeymoon period when entering something new and I am not living in a tent yet J but I don’t think I’ll ever grow tired of the gorgeous sunsets, elephants by the side of the road as you drive to and from the base, the majestic Zambezi River and Victoria Falls.  Most of all, I love hearing story after story of what God is doing in and through this ministry and the people serving here.  It is so exciting to me!


Can you see the mist in the distance?  That is the Zambezi river going over the Victoria Falls!



Elephants crossing the road in front of us as we drove from base back to where we are housesitting in town.

As I sat through my sister Julie’s Advanced Mission Training class’s graduation ceremony last week, I was dreaming about all God is going to do in the future through these students.  As we chatted later, one student said he is planning to come back and assist with the rural pastor’s training program, another is a skilled mason, another wants to help lead short term teams, another teaching, and others evangelism, discipleship, medical, midwifery, administration and more.  I am thrilled at the possibilities for future ministry and excited for our family’s role in this program in the future.

All things NEW

Revelation 21:5  "Behold, I have made all things new..."

We have prayfully entered into a massive season of change.  Pretty much the only thing that will remain the same is that we will still be living on the African continent. 

We have a NEW country = Zambia
a NEW city = Livingstone
a NEW mission organization = Overland Missions
a NEW job = Dan will be training missionaries to take the Gospel to the least reach and neglected people groups of the world through a 3 month course.
NEW teammates and friends
NEW church
NEW currency

...you get the idea.

We are tremendously excited for what the Lord has ahead for us, but there is a sense of loss as we transition from our life in South Africa to embrace the unknowns ahead of us.

Please pray for our family!  Janell, Miesha and Titus have airline tickets to fly up to Livingstone on the 18th of July.  We hope Dan will be able to join us around that same time.  (He will be driving our trailer up)

We have had our fair share of drama trying to aquire shipping containers to move our things.  Please pray with us for a quick resolution to this problem!

Our orientation class with Overland begins the first of September, so we'll have a little bit of time to acclimate to our new surroundings.