christmas tree

as promised here is a picture of our christmas tree.

i like christmas trees but not like some people. this year i just wanted a simple christmas tree. so i was inspired one day and i found some homemade green paper and used our fireplace screen to make our little tree. we hung the few ornaments on it and we even got a free stocking at a shop the other day! the little trees on the left side are made of wire and beads. dan got them for my birthday from the market.

-m

Thanksgiving and the rainy season

It's weird how normal a day Thanksgiving was here. No parade, no pilgrims, not even a day off work. so we tried our best to make it feel like home. We got a turkey on Tuesday, which is a pretty normal thing to do, except that we had to keep her in the backyard because she was still alive (!). Our big splurge was a can of cranberry sauce imported from Canada (I won't even say how much it cost). We were even able to cook sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top (but we should note that the sweet potatoes were white and the marshmallows were multicolored!). I was truly amazed at the spread we had, considering we were in Africa. My dad will be thrilled to find

out that after dinner our friend Julie read the story of the first thanksgiving, which is something my dad would definitely do. And I can't complain...it made me feel at home, and it was a nice history lesson for our Shona friends who joined us. Back to the turkey for a minute--on Thanksgivng morning I called our gardener over to help me slaughter our bird. It was a bit more gruesome than I expected, but I tried to make it as quick as possible. It was my first time killing anything bigger than a sunfish, and I feel a little more grown up having done it.

On a different note, the rainy season here has come, which is a big change from our first few months here. "Rainy season" doesn't mean it rains every day, like it does in some parts of the world. It just means there is a much better chance of rain than during the dry season. So far it has rained three times, but each rain lasted for a few days. Somestimes it rains gently nonstop, and sometimes we get intense 30-minutes storms. In any case, we are grateful, because things are turning from brown to green, and the farmers we teach now have the opportunity to put it into practice. And we just love storms!! To be fair, rain has its downfalls...like hidden potholes, crazier traffic, and muddy floors. I like to sing the line from Andrew Peterson's song, referring to our complaints about rain: "Do you thank the Lord for coming up with such a great idea?" I hope so.

-Dan

my birthday!

first let me just say that i had a very lovely day here in zim. my birthday is a big deal to me and i have almost always been surrounded by really good friends to celebrate. this year my only really good friend here so far is dan. but he, of course, is an amazing gift from God, who loves me very well and did an excellent job of celebrating me. i had many suprise birthday presents, a small party, a few cards that came on time, many facebook wishes, and "happy birthday" sung in suprising new ways.

someone asked me how birthdays are celebrated here. to be honest i still don't know fully but i do know this- everytime i have heard "happy birthday" sung it has at least 3 verses, and two of mine had 5! i will give you a little taste.

"happy birthday to you"...

"how old are you now"...

"we wish you many more"...

"God bless you today"...

and my favorite "who is your boyfriend"... only altered for me to say "who is your husband"...

a little over the top.

today, dan took me to a safari park, that is actually a conservation park with an excellent black rhino breeding program. so we saw many great africa animals and got to touch and feed both black rhinos and elephants!!!! it was so fun. here are a few pictures.

-m

work permits

we got them! officially stamped in our passports this morning! :)

friendship

i have been recently challenged to think about friendship in new ways. i have spent the last two months realizing that i am a bit lonely because i do not have friendships here in zim like i have had in the past. and if you know me well you know that friendships are very important to me- so when i say i was challenged i mean CHALLENGED! my lovely friend kylee told me that she thinks i might have to let my ways of making friends and even thinking about friendships die in order to make friends and have friends in zim. i thought about this for a day and a half and then found myself in church listening to a man tell us that we may have to be willing to give up a gifting that God has given us for His glory. we may have to be ready to lay down what we know is “easy” to depend on Him and bring Him the glory for what we actually do. all i could think about was my way of friendship. i have seen it as a gift from God for awhile so it fit this man’s point very well.

i don’t really know what it means to let my ways die. and i don’t know what these new ways will look like. but i do know that i want God to be glorified in my life. i know that i want to love Him more than i love my friends and more than i love myself.

-m

Made in Zimbabwe

I’m a little obsessed with where things are made. I realize it might be a rude, but I can’t help picking up the bottle of salad dressing in the middle of dinner to see, among other things, what’s in it and where it was made. I don’t know why…that kind of stuff just fascinates me. So, in homage to my curious curiosity, and for those who view the world similarly, here is a tour through our flat of things made or grown here in Zimbabwe. While Zim used to manufacture all sorts of things (especially during the sanctions of the 60s and 70s), industry here has nearly ground to a halt and we now just assume everything is imported from South Africa. There are however, products that remained under production all this time, as well as those whose production have been revived. So here it is:

-orange drink concentrate (this stuff is ridiculously popular here)
-hot sauce named “cheeky chili”
-Loose leaf tea and coffee
-Honey (“huchi” in Shona)
-Baking powder, white flour and “brown” flour, all made by a company named “Gloria”
-Various spices, packed under the name “New Seasons”
-Cocoa powder
-Sugar, brown sugar, powdered sugar and salt
-Muesli
-Bread
-Yogurt and milk
-Coke in bottles (cans are becoming prolific now, too, except nobody seems to be collecting them)
-Mr. Freeze, a sort of freeze pop that somebody is always selling after church, at bus stops, etc.
-Lots of produce is grown here, but it’s hard to tell what is imported. I’d guess that our tomatoes, onions, bananas, lettuce, apples, and eggs are grown here, as well as most meat (at the moment, we have some beef mince, sausage, chicken pieces and a beef steak in the freezer—but again I really don’t know where it is from, I just know that ranching is alive in Zim)
-Bleach, vinegar and ammonia
-Our mattress, which is “foam-rubber”—pretty decent I’d say
-And other furniture: nearly everything we have bought for our home (couch, chairs, tables, bookshelf, nightstand) is made on the side of the road close to our flat, from welded rebar and woven grass. It’s incredible to watch it being made.

So what sorts of things are imported, you might ask? Currently we have corn flakes, peanut butter, baking soda, soup mix, rooibos tea, vanilla extract, crackers, fruit juice, instant pudding, cat food, cooking oil, mayo, olives, pasta and butter-type spread from South Africa, and butter from Zambia. Some of these things are also made here in Zim (like oil), but different shops stock different things, as you might imagine.

Our fridge and kettle are from SA, but I think our stove was made here.

So there you have it, a snapshot of production in Zimbabwe, at least of whatever happens to come our way. I certainly enjoyed my little scavenger hunt.
-D

A tribute to Zvakanaka

Zvakanaka is our kitten we got our first week here in Zim. He was 6 weeks old when we got him and trained him to use his litter box, not to bite me, and to sleep on our laps. We really enjoyed having him around to cuddle with, and laugh at, and pet something soft.

Unfortunately, he snuck out of our garden one night and was killed by a dog. We are very sad. So Zvaka- know that you were loved and are now missed.

Zvaka was the first real animal that I lived with and then disappeared and we actually found dead. I was surprised at how upset I was at the whole event. I cried much more than I expected. As I thought about it more I realized that Zvaka was the one who kept me company when I felt lonely here. One of the most difficult things I have experienced is not feeling like I have friends around me. So for these first few weeks, as we are making friends, I have found myself lonely and longing for companionship- and many days Zvaka provided a bit of that. I have wrestled with being sad over such a normal part of life with pets- but I decided that I was made to feel and sadness is part of life with the Fall. So my prayer for awhile is that I will continue to choose love over safety in future relationships and that my heart will be sad and weep over what Jesus weeps over. I was reminded yesterday of the many great and real tragedies around me- much bigger than the loss of a kitten. So while I can be sad and grieve a bit over my kitten- I must rise again today and live out of the life that Christ has given me and the command that he has given me to be light, salt, and to love my neighbors. Maybe they will bond with me over the sadness of my loss- and maybe it will open doors to conversation that never would have happened.

-m

Happy 1st Birthday Noku

We realize that we haven’t given you much of an update about Zim yet. So here are just a few things:

We are settling in nicely and most days we really like living here- we love our home and garden.

We know how to take the public transport to just about anywhere

We are now getting used to driving on the left side of the road and dodging pot holes and slowing down for the hard to spot speed bumps.

We have found that you can buy just about anything in town (except for a water filter and chocolate chips), you just have to be willing to walk a bit.

We love practicing our Shona and have found that some people in the city are eager to help us and some just want to speak in English.

We are very excited about the ways that Foundations for Farming is growing and especially about their vision for the Peri-Urban (or high density) area.

Two of the Peri-Urban trainers are Joseph and Vivian Chitopo. They are close to our age and have become very good friends. So far we have spent much more time with Joseph-as he has helped us with our many trips to immigration and because Vivian is still in training at FfF. Last week we got to share just a bit of relaxed “family” time with them, as we celebrated their son’s first birthday! I made a cake and was quite impressed with how it turned out. Below are a few photos.

-m

our flat

here are a few photos of our new flat!

Faithfulness to be inconvenienced when others are in need…

...Once my friend Grete wrote this in her blog when she was talking about her community. For years I have pondered this statement trying to put it into practice. Zim offers many opportunities to practice this. The other day we left Harare very early to dive the 250km to Mutare (near the border of Mozambique) for the opening of a herbal clinic. We spent the whole day there and then drove back getting back into Harare after dark and ready to go home. We thought we were going to drop off our other passengers in town where we picked them but we soon found out that they could not catch public transport to their house and if didn’t take them home they would end up walking about 3k in the dark. Normally it is not a big deal for Africans to walk 3k but in the dark it is not a good idea. So we took them across town. I was a little frustrated b/c I was tired and wanted to get home- but someone was in need. And these words came flooding into my mind. And I remembered that really I wasn’t being - inconvenienced I was just riding in the car. I hope to keep practicing it.

In other news my allergies have found a new way to manifest themselves- puffy sore eye lids! It isn’t overwhelming but it is annoying.

Zimbabwe

we are finally in zimbabwe! for a week we have lived life with our friend julie, who is letting us live with her. she is lovely and we are really enjoying our time here. keep praying for our work permits!

-m

sometimes i think i'm great...

so you know how there are things about yourself that you think are really good qualities? i realized one of mine today- that i plan ahead and love to pack. because of these two things dan and i are almost totally packed (exception of our carry on things that we will use in the morning) with 14 hours until we leave. strange. i even took a nap! :) i do have to credit our parents who were generous enough to pay for an extra bag and extra weight so that we could pack one bag to 70lbs and another extra bag we weren't planning on. i feel like God was keeping me from being prideful by only taking 4 bags and a guitar. so now it is 5 bags and a guitar- still not bad. and the best part is we are taking the stuff we were willing to leave behind but i was a little sad over leaving- like my favorite toothpaste. and my carry on is not so heavy that i will regret all of the things that are in it. so here we go...let's start this adventure.

rejoicing and weeping

i had a moment in church this morning when i was fighting tears, attempting to claim the truths of God in song and pondering this idea of mourning.
tim keller said in a sermon that you cannot truly enjoy something unless you share it with someone else. i think the same principle applies to mourning. in romans 12:15 paul encourages us to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.
i think we were made to do this. as i thought about mourning and weeping i realized that it is so difficult to keep to yourself. we weren't made to mourn alone. so i'm not. i will refuse to take the easy way and the way that the non-christian culture around me want me to react. i will not put on a tough face and tell myself to keep it together. the tears don't always come but the mourning is there.
i will weep and mourn and ask others to join me. and i hope that i will do the same for those around me when the time comes.

-m

a faith that trusts that God will provide

that was the title of the sermon we heard on sunday. it was a sermon dan and i both really enjoyed. he used gen 22:1-19, the story of abraham sacrificing isaac. i've loved this story for a long time but on sunday something new was pointed out to me: "Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you.' " verse five. abraham had the faith to trust God to provide that he told his servants that he and isaac would go to worship and both would return! i like that kind of faith. i like the kind of faith that dan and i (and many of our friends) are putting into practice. God always provides and we notice all the more when we are actually trusting Him to do so. i am so honored to have examples of people around me who are trusting God to do big things. i am honored that they challenge me to trust God to do big things.
the second thing that stuck out to me where abraham's words, "here i am". years ago i knew i was supposed to be in missions when i heard the passage in isaiah of him saying, "here i am Lord, send me". when i read these words again my heart jumped knowing i am being sent because i am willing to go.
so this sermon sticks in my head and heart as we prepare these next two weeks before getting on a plane for zim. we prepare and will get on that plane saying, "here i am" and with faith that is trusting for God to provide all that is good.
-m

we all call it vacation

last week i spent a little time thinking about vacation. dan and i have been semi-planning a vacation for the first week of august since may. i wanted something relaxing without much to do and lots of time to rest. that is what we did while camping for 3 days. i know that some would not call this relaxing but it totally was for us.

it was in huge contrast to our friend jackie's vacation the week before. jackie had never been to new york city and since we were near and wanting to see her, she and another friend erin, came to see all we could in 2 days! so we went nonstop doing everything we could think of.

the best part is that we all could call it vacation. we all loved it! and it was exactly what we each wanted for our time away from work.

-m

i am deeply loved

yesterday and today i have been overwhelmed by love from three and four year olds. it has been so lovely to be instantly loved and have a playmate for a few hours. yesterday was my most favorite when we visited some of dan's family. i first met emily at christmas (i was overwhelmed by all the italian family so i sat on the couch and emily snuggled up with me), and i hoped she would love me again when we saw her and she did! my favorite line was, "hey mom, me and mary and this guy (dan) are playing nice!" her mom then reminded her that dan is her relative! :) i love it! i love small people in my life- they are the ones that i am dreading saying goodbye to.

-mary

storms to rainbows

colorado of course has some breath-taking landscape but the thing that we got most excited about were the storms. fortunately for us this summer was a wet one and we watched storm after storm roll in. we saw amazing lightening, heard thunder that shook us, hail on 4 occasions and the most beautiful and bright rainbows i have ever seen. the picture below doesn't do it justice but you can try to imagine.

Faith to be Stong

this is my theme song for goodbyes- thank you andrew peterson.

Give us faith to be strong
Father, we are so weak
Our bodies are fragile and weary
As we stagger and stumble to walk where you lead
Give us faith to be strong

Give us faith to be strong
Give us strength to be faithful
This life is not long, but it's hard
Give us grace to go on
Make us willing and able
Lord, give us faith to be strong

Give us peace when we're torn
Mend us up when we break
This flesh can be wounded and shaking
When there's much too much trouble for one heart to take
Give us peace when we're torn

Give us faith to be strong
Give us strength to be faithful
This life is not long, but it's hard
Give us grace to go on
Make us willing and able
Lord, give us faith to be strong

Give us hearts to find hope
Father, we cannot see
How the sorrow we feel can bring freedom
And as hard as we try, Lord, it's hard to believe
So, give us hearts to find hope

Give us faith to be strong
Give us strength to be faithful
This life is not long, but it's hard
Give us grace to go on
Make us willing and able
Lord, give us faith to be strong
Give us peace when we're torn
Give us faith, faith to be strong

4th of july

it has been a long time since i have celebrated the 4th of july in the us. for some reason i found myself getting really excited as i read about the festivities that were planned in the small towns around MTI. dan and i caught the end of a long parade in monument and then walked around the vendors of a small street fair. one of the people we were with commented that small town america is where you find the american spirit you think about on days like this. and it was true. i really enjoyed walking around seeing people in all sorts of red, white, and blue.
later in the evening we went to the other town to watch the big fireworks show! again it was fun to be surrounded by the people who call this place home. and the fireworks were great! :) we got to stand right under them, shivering and enjoying every minute. so thanks small towns around me! it was a wonderful last 4th of july for awhile.

-mary

pictures from CO

pikes peak!

palmer lake reservoir











new friends!

at the top of a mountain with cory and tim

Garden of the Gods

Giving

A fellow missionary-in-training at MTI (preparing to go to France) had a video series on "transformational giving," and last week a few of us watched some or all of it over several evenings. I was frankly skeptical...I've seen a number of resources aimed at getting more donors and most of them seemed too slick and materialstic for me to make any use of. This guy was less slick than average (how's that for a compliment?) and his message was completely unlike any other I've heard before. Here's the main point: most fundraising focuses on the need to raise money, i.e., "it's getting close to the end of the year, and we really need your gift to keep this wonderful ministry alive..." But that kind of giving doesn't really do anything for the donor, and, besides, that doesn't match anything in the Bible.

So what's the alternative, according to this guy? He pointed out that when the rich young ruler asked Jesus what to do with his nearly-perfect life, Jesus didn't tell him how much the disciples could use his support....instead he pointed out a way for him to grow spiritually, through radical charity. So, supposedly, the point is not meeting your needs but encouraging people to live lives more characterized by giving than receiving.

I may be butchering this concept, but it was pretty impressive on the big screen. The idea of never "selling myself" again is tantalizing...not to mention ministry to donors. Ideas?

On a different note, I flew to Tampa on Friday for Shane and Helen's wedding, only to fly back on Saturday. Ouch. But the wedding was beautiful and I'm glad I went. Would have been better with Mary, but at least it was just one night apart.
-Dan

we are good at many things...

but i am not sure if blogging is one of them. for those of you who actually read our blog i must apologize. we have been pretty busy- experiencing many new things. i may have to blog about them separately or this one will be very random and long.
i'll start with MTI. we have spent the last two weeks (and will spend 3 more) just outside of colorado springs. since dan already went through both training programs- he spent his days outside working on the landscaping. i sat in PILAT- Program In Language Acquisition Techniques. we filled our days with thinking about how to go about learning a new language when we arrive in the countries we are going to, practicing the thousands of sounds that are not in the english language (did you know we only have 44 sounds?!), practicing some of the techniques we should use when we arrive by learning various languages (for me it was russian), and various other things that will help us as we learn to communicate in a new way. i really enjoyed this training. i was pretty intimidated by the whole idea before i started and very intimidated by the idea of learning shona in a few months. now i feel very equipped to learn shona. and i am excited about it! :)
i also found a new game that i love to play! mexican train domino's. i have stayed up far too late a few nights playing - but it was always worth the loss of sleep for the fellowship!
dan, of course, won the hearts of many little people, which helped us build relationships with their parents. missions is bittersweet for the missionary and those close to them. it is a constant stream of building relationships and then saying goodbye. it was hard not to cry today just watching people say goodbye and when it came time for me to say goodbye it just got harder. and at the same time it is absolutely beautiful! we are all going out- all over the world- to share Christ. wow!
ok that's all for now. more to come

-mary

home

i've been missing home lately. which is strange because i like to travel and i don't really know where i call home. and even if i could pick a place, all of the people i would want to be there are not there. so i guess i am missing the idea of home. or maybe it is the simple act of being known. i think most people feel at home when they are known by those around them. as of tomorrow we have officially been traveling for 8 weeks. i can't even tell you how many beds we have slept in. but i can tell you that along the way i have felt at home- and that is a blessing.
on monday we got to mti in colorado. it is the place we will be the longest (five whole weeks) until we get to zim. so the first thing we did was unpack our suitcase and put our plants in the sun. this morning was the first full day of pilat, the language learning part of our training. we sang the hymn, How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord for devos and the second and third verse caught me:

"Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed, For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid; I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand, upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.
When through the deep waters I call thee to go, the rivers of sorrow shall not overflow; the flame shall not hurt thee; I only design and sanctify to thee thy deepest distress."

the Lord is my home. He is the only one who truly knows me and i am trusting in His righteous and omnipotent hand to guide me to a "home" at the right time.

-mary

i've been pondering...

passions. i have spent time with many friends while traveling the last six weeks. we have talked about the gospel in various ways, especially how to live it out in various settings around the world. obviously, dan and i have spent time sharing about some of the ways we hope to live out our passions and the gospel in zimbabwe. i have noticed that many of these conversations center on some specific way to reach out and share God's love with a specific group of people. for some it is about strengthening the church and the family, for others it is about the homeless, and for another it is about those who are caught in sex trafficking. everyone we talk with is passionate about a group of people and wanting to be Christ to them. all of this leads me to think about if this is what is supposed to happen. are we made to find something God has made us passionate about and do that? is it inevitable that we focus ourselves on a specific group or cause? if we do focus in are we missing out on some other part of the gospel or the church? i'm not sure what to think of all of this. your comments are welcome.

on another note, i told you i would get back to you on how i feel about buying our tickets to zimbabwe. i feel good about it. we have spent months preparing for this. God has constantly provided along the way. i say: let's do this!

we just spent a lot of money

on our tickets for zimbabwe! we bought them! we are officially going on august 28. now we just need that $500 more a month and we will be all set. wow. we are really doing this. it feels...
i'll get back to you.

-mary

memories continued 07

recycled and unrecycled (trash) in china

went to NK with these fine folks

lead an intern team to germany and estonia for the summer

i started dating dan.

i spent christmas with
erin and holly in cambodia

oh my achin' back

today i went to the chiropractor and found out that i have a mild back sprain and very inflamed muscles around it. that means i get to be in pain for about 2 more weeks, ice my back often, and rest a lot. too bad dan and i are trying to meet with our supporters in town and try to find a few more.
lessons learned: ease into farming in zim. it will be better for everyone. and work on strengthening those back muscles.

-mary

a few pictures to go with the last post

taco crawl in LA

us at the wedding

and a short stop on the blue ridge parkway where we met ironman

take two aspirin and call me crazy

A lot has happened since our last post (I really do hope we were cut out for blogging, but is this a bad sign), including anonymous celebrity sightings (I'm sure there were famous people all over beverly hills, I just didn't recognize one), taco-crawling (a four-course meal made up entirely of taco-truck tacos), more Zimbabwe meetings and presentations, my brother's Mexican-American wedding (apparently when you give a toast at a Mexican wedding, you don't drink until both speeches are over and everybody chants something...wish I'd known that...), and a lovely drive from southwestern VA to upstate NY. oh, and on that drive we stopped on the Blue Ridge Parkway and met a guy hiking the Appalachian trail named ironman.

So, after that long intro, here we are in NY, where we spend the first three days working on the farm that gave me my start in farming. I was really looking forward to the work (you know, fresh air, using my muscles, etc.), and I was not disappointed. We mulched brassicas, seeded sweetcorn, transplanted peppers and eggplants, prepped land for tomatoes, and played with the dogs. Now, it didn't surprise me, but you don't really ease into farm work here. So we we're a little sore. But grateful. But sore.

I'm struggling with how to introduce this next paragraph, so here goes: Mary was stretching her back a few days ago, and something horrible happened inside her back muscles, and she couldn't get up for 24 hours. It appears to have just been a run-o-the-mill muscle strain (thank you webMD), but it was definitely a big deal...I mean, she couldn't move...but thankfully she's up and (cautiously) about now, which is cause for celebration. So, I brought my wife to a farm, and she spent a day in bed. Yes, we are moving to Zimbabwe to work with farmers. No, I'm not worried :)

our adventures in cali

we have been in some part of california for almost a week now and have participated in quite the range of activities, all centered around visiting friends who lovingly and sacrificially support us in ministry.
we started our time in oakland with jeff and sarah. this is really my first time meeting them (the actual first time was our wedding but that is not a day for meeting new friends). dan went to college and served in intervarsity together with them. and i am forever indebted to them because they were the organizers of a trip to ECHO where dan heard about NMSI and therefore met me. so thanks jeff and sarah! because i do not spend a lot of time looking at maps of CA, i had no idea that oakland is right across the bay from san francisco. so our first full day, while jeff and sarah worked, we toured the city. we had lots of fun learning about and riding cable cars, walking the hills, seeing famous things like lombard street, alcatraz, the golden gate bridge, fisherman's wharf, and sea lions basking in the sun! we also met up with dan's friend jen, who he went to high school with and had not really seen since! we had lots of fun with her and ate at the stinking rose- famous mostly for having garlic in just about everything! the next day we drove to napa valley to tour wine country. it was beautiful to just drive through the hills and see vineyard after vineyard. i thought a bit about the passages in the bible about vines and fruit that comes from them. i like being connected to the land- even if it is just through sight and thought.


we left oakland to fly to LA to visit some of my friends from college, rachel and warren. i love the random times i get to spend with rachel and warren, which because of our locations happen vary rarely. on sunday they planned a cookout with another couple and family that we share friendship with. joy we know from our milligan days. she met her husband, jordan while serving in australia with YWAM and now they have two beautiful children. tim, i know from NMSI and introduced to rachel and warren. he and his wife, becca live out here and now they are all friends. so we had quite a strange reunion/meeting. it was so good to just share about our lives and ministries about people who understand or are interested in it. while we stayed up far too late, my spirit was encouraged by time with friends who have known me for quite awhile. for most of this week we are trying to rest up for the weekend of wedding festivities ahead. we have no idea what to expect from these events but we are excited and honored to participate. one thing we have done here is eat some amazing food. like last night when i had carne astada fries. yum! and tonight we are doing the "taco crawl" where you go around and eat at various taco trucks in town. sweeet!
the best part of this whole time has been realizing how grateful i am that i get to travel through the rest of my life with dan. the way God works is amazing and i am in awe of the partner He brought to me.

-mary

On the runway again...

So, today we're flying to California. We're in a tiny airport, about to get on a microscopic airplane...but then again, this is the boy who grew up with Newark airport for a backyard. I've probably flown on close to a hundred flights...and I still get giddy at the thought of getting on an airplane. I don't know what it is, maybe the crazy acceleration at takeoff, maybe the novelty of a cart full of cocktails rolling down the aisle at 35,000 feet in the air...in any event, I spend about a third of my time on a plane thinking about Bernoulli...
This morning as we were getting ready, I had a flashback of sorts, to the airport in Johannesburg (Joburg, affectionately), which was/will be our last stop before we get to Zimbabwe. I remember a profound/auspicious feeling there, as in "you're about two spend two weeks/months in a strange culture"...it was all the more weird because everybody else just seemed to be going about their normal business. I think there's a lot of life that feels like that. So anyway, I thought about that this morning, and I have a feeling every flight between now and Zimbabwe might be the same.

In case anybody's wondering why we're going to Cali (as they call it), my brother is getting married there. Fortunately, we also have several friends and supporters, whom we're more than happy to visit with (that's right, I used "whom").

-Dan

memories continued 05-06

i missed an important part of 2005- angela and i moved into a new house across the alley from our previous duplex. we had a few roommates come in and leave for the field and then ashleigh moved in with us and shared a room with me. and thus began a very beautiful friendship, ashleigh is now serving in kenya with africahope.


in early 2006, all the girls moved again. this time i moved in with stacey, who five weeks later got married to derek. we loved our five weeks together. i learned a lot and miss her but am glad she and her family are now serving in southeast asia.

in feburary i joined one of our board members on a trip to japan to set up the summer internship we were sending to japan that summer. (did i say before that my job from the time i started at nmsi was to direct the summer intern program?)





in 2006 we sent interns all over the world. here they are at our pre-field orientation.





meanwhile, i worked at the camp missionary and life guard at the church camp that i grew up attending

after thanksgiving, i took a month long research trip which started by a few days in amsterdam talking with a ministry called the shelter

i then went on to berlin to visit the seidls and talked about the next year's summer intern teams...











and on to india to continue to set up internships and visit the frys and stammers

and i finally ended up in kenya to spend my christmas with one of my best friends erin. she is lovely. :)