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.
