our friend ryan

yesterday we said goodbye to our first official visitor from the states - ryan. he and dan met 2 years ago, the first time dan went to mti and have been great friends since. he now works for nmsi in the media division, specifically in the video communications department. he came to zim on a month long visit to east & southern africa to visit a few of the missionaries and ministries that nmsi has in this part of the world. we had the lovely privilege to host him for two weeks so that he could get footage of the work the three families do here in zim and spend some personal time with us. it worked out perfectly for us because we got to join him on some of his visits also getting to know the work that we have heard about but not seen first hand. we were so excited to spend time with the Edwards' family and learn about the work of Ebenezer Agricultural Training Center in the southern part of zim. they have a great blog. ryan also has a great blog if you want to check out his thoughts about zim. and while we didn't do many grand things we did enjoy lots of fellowship and normal life together. my most triumphant moment was when we successfully took two buses to meet dan in kuwadzana one afternoon. i have only taken the bus there once and it was the first month we lived here and with shona friends showing us the way. i was quite proud of myself that i could do it without constantly having to ask for help. we also had the bonus of being in the most packed bus i have ever been in- a record or 26 where one would think only 17 could ride safely. we did manage to take him on a visit to a cave that near by and actually remember to take photos.

finally a baby bump! (you have to look hard)

the cave has an amazing blue pool at the bottom!

doesn't ryan look official?

-m

introducing...

Mambokadzi! our new cat. her name means queen which she holds very well. she is still very shy because until last week she lived on her own outside but now she lives in our little flat with us! she is about 5 months old so she is very different from our last kitten who was totally dependent on us. she is quite happy to spend her day hiding under the bed or behind the curtain. she has warmed up enough to let us pick her up and she will stay on our laps if we are petting her. i think she has figured out that we are the hands that now feed her. there are two funny things about her that we both really enjoy: 1) when dan picks her up she spreads her front paws and "hugs" him 2) she is mostly black with a few orange specks but the tip of her tail is orange stripped!

a pile of shoes

there is a pile of small shoes at our front door that belong to the 7 to 10 children (some are running in and out) sitting in our living room playing uno. it is awesome! and i wish i had our camera but i can't find it right now!

-m

"God is Good at Any Time"

for my birthday our language teacher gave me a copy of her husband's book/31 day devotional. i was already in a planned reading in novemeber so i waited until jan 1 to start reading. it worked out to be perfect timing.

friday morning, dan, who always gets up much earlier than i do these days, came into our room at 7, sat down on the side of the bed and gently woke me up. i was fearing that it was time to finally get up since we had a packed day of leaving our house at 7:45 to go to immigration to check on paperwork for our friends, picking up other friends who needed a ride the the airport, language class, a trip to the grocery store and then possibly back to immigration because the one guy who could help us may not have been there at 8 am when they open. (i plan but with contingency plans now- i'm SLOWLY starting to get life here.) but that is not what he said. he said this:

the battery in our truck was stolen last night.

now waking up is hard when you are pregnant. and this is not what i wanted to wake up to. but the grace of God was hovering over me at the moment so instead of getting mad i rolled over, sat up, and grabbed my devotion book. day 13 is titled: "God is Good at Any Time!". the author talked about how we like to say that God is good all the time but he would rather change it to at any time to help move us to a specific focus- like right now! he also included this quote:

"His goodness shines through in times when we are uncomfortable, when all of life seems to have gone crazy" Gracia Burnham

and this prayer:

"O my God, however perplexed I may be, let me never think ill of You. If I cannot understand thee, let me never cease to believe in You. It must be so, it cannot be otherwise, You are good to those whom You have made good; and where You have renewed the heart You will not leave it to its enemies" Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

and God was good at that time. not just to me in the moment but for the whole day. we didn't get much of what we had planned accomplished but our friend shelton, who is also a mechanic, came over and helped us, we made it to language class only 20 minutes late, and we now know how to file a police report. and of course we praised God that it was only our battery that was gone and not anything else. possibly the easiest fix besides stolen gas.

-m

joy givers

when we were in language acquisition training we were told that while we were learning Shona we would be "joy givers"- as in we would make attempts and it would give joy to the people we were talking with. if we say it right or wrong we can have opportunity to spread joy.

yesterday in class i provided a large amount of laughter in my first huge language blunder. we had to translate the following sentence: chokudya chaibva, asi tafura haisati yagadzirwa. it means: the food is ready, but the table has not yet been prepared. i however translated it as: the food was stolen, but we died before it was prepared. opps!

laughs all around!

-m

i'm glad i'm not an elephant

i really like elephants. they are amazing creatures. but for now i am glad i am not one. the biggest reason at the moment is that the gestation time of elephant is 22 months! that is outrageous! i feel like the next 7 months is going to be long enough! yes that's right- we're expecting!

now for some of you who knew me in high school and college you may be a little surprised. i always sore that i would never have children. there was just too much risk involved. in 2003, while i was on an internship in malawi, a lady staying with us challenged me on this. she told me that i was named mary for a reason and i would be a blessed mother. besides scaring me a bit, i realized that i was holding this part of my life in my own hands and not surrendering it God. so i timidly told God that i wanted Him to have this part of my life too. which was scary because God does things that seem crazy to me and cost people a lot.

then i moved to ft myers and lived in the nmsi community. for a while there were almost no children around so it was pretty easy to not think about having any. and then eleanor came. she is the newest baby i have ever held. and since her dad worked across from me in the office i spent much time holding her. then the boden's moved in. and when kylee heard that i wasn't so sure about having children of my own, she made it her goal to get me to want to have children by loving her children. well seth and lydia are just too easy to love. they have changed my life. so now there were three children in my life that i would do just about anything for- like jump at the chance to babysit. weird.

and then dan came along. dan is a people magnet. i thought i was a social person until i met dan. as one of his friends says, "he makes friends out of thin air" and it is true. besides being a people magnet, he is definitely a child magnet. he was friends with all of the children in community when he was there. he planned camping trips and hang out times. if there is a small child around sooner or later they will be climbing on dan like a jungle gym and he will be loving it. so when we got married and talked about having children i was much more at ease than ever before. my husband is going to be a great dad.

so we'll keep praying and trusting God that since He has given us this gift, He will equip us for the job.

-m

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