Merry Christmas from Zambia, 2011

5:45am came early this morning as the kids woke us up for our Christmas. We are doing our celebrating today as tomorrow, December 25th, will be very busy with church activities.

Hope you all have a wonderful day celebrating the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ!

Time for Lottie!

Please don't forget to give to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering this year. It is a crucial part of our support as Southern Baptist Missionaries. Sweeping changes have been made in the past few years as a result of many financial aspects, including a low participation in giving to

Lottie Moon. Please take time to pray about how much you can give to support

Southern Baptist Missions - then do it!

A Few More Pictures from Kaluwala

It looks like the Lord has opened the door here in this community. Jeff will start storying Creation to Christ with the adults and I will start storying the Bible with the children. We will probably take the opportunity to camp out for 4 days or so in January, too.

Kaluwala - Making the most of a new opportunity

The kids made a see-saw out of an unfinished fence railing.

Here Jeff is talking to the head man of the area -

asking permission to come and teach in his area.

It is a huge blessing that the head man is the father of the new believer, Khoms (in white shirt).

Wherever we go, we attract a crowd, especially a bunch of children. I took the opportunity to tell a Bible Story to these children. Only one knew the name of God's Son that day.

A New Opportunity in Kaluwala

On Saturday, we drove an hour and a half to visit a new believer, Khoms, in Kaluwala. He is a teacher at Kaluwala Community School. In Zambia, community schools are not funded by the government so they have to provide everything for themselves - even the teachers are not paid. Below is the school. Wherever we go, we seem to attract a crowd.

Below are some kids peeking through the window of the school.

Below - Khoms is proudly showing us the school room.

At the End...

Above is Pastor Vincent of Mukuma Baptist Church and Jeff. Pastor Vincent started this church all by himself and even has preaching points as far as a 5 hour walk away. He is a great man of God and is doing a fantastic job in Mukuma.

After church, it is customary to line up and shake everyone's hand. Here we have come out of the church and are waiting for everyone to file by and shake hands.

During Worship at Mukuma Baptist Church

The choir is behind Zoe. They love to dance and sing. They even have some dance steps coordinated with the songs.

Who is this below?

Teaching at Mukuma

I got to teach the kids the story of Moses and Daren Davis taught the adults.

Arrival at Mukuma

Here we are standing in front of the Baptist Church in Mukuma. Below, the worship has started with lots of music and dancing.

Starting off across the Zambezi River

Friday, we started out across the river to fellowship with the believers in Mukuma. We first have to get on the pontoon ferry to cross the river then we had to drive about 2 hours to reach the church. As you can see, it was sprinkling pretty well in the morning.

11/11/11 - Happy 7th Birthday, Zoe!

For her special birthday lunch, Zoe chose chicken nuggets, french fries and lemon icebox pie. Jeff made the chicken nuggets and fries while I made the pie. We are so grateful for the blessing that Zoe is to us each day!

Lottie Moon Christmas Offering - 2011

Calling all Southern Baptist!

Please give sacrificially to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering this year.

Sweeping changes have been made in the IMB in the last 3 years because of lack of funds. Some of those changes needed to made, other changes have sadly had to limit the sending of new missionaries to the field. When Jeff was pastoring, he would exhort our church family to give more to Lottie Moon than you spend on Christmas gifts. I know that many people were very surprised by this but really, which is more important - a life changed for Christ or a toy?

Satan Strikes Again!

Living in Africa, no missionary can discount the spiritual world that swirls around us. When I lived in Texas, I didn't really give much thought to the Spirit World but living here in Zambia, we are confronted with it almost everyday - young children with woven charms around their waists, passing by the witch doctor's (traditional healer) house on our way to Sunday Worship, children and adults with white marks on their foreheads

and even amulets worn around the neck.

We are even experiencing it on a more personal level on Wednesday afternoons. The last time that we had Good News Club, several children staged a revolt right outside the gate - chanting and yelling during the Bible Story Time. Today, I noticed that our numbers were quite a bit lower than they have ever been. My helper/translator told me that some of the boys have been spreading rumors that we are taking the pictures back to America where we will sell the children. This is so heartbreaking to me because we have taken their pictures so people in America can see them and PRAY for them. This is really not too surprising to me as I have started into the stories of Jesus and Satan does not want

Jesus to be proclaimed to these children.

Please pray for God's power to be evident through the Bible stories that we tell.

Pray that His Spirit will draw the kids back to Good News Club.

Pray that the spirit of fear will be cast out of them.

Pray that they will know that they are loved by God and also by our family.

Pray for Justin - as he is one of the main boys who has been spreading these rumors.

Please just PRAY.......

Us!

This was taken just a few weeks ago.

Kids at Play (And Asleep)

Jeff is holding one of our favorite neighbors, Junior.

I guess he was quite tired and just fell asleep in Jeff's arms.

Below are the kids at play during Good News Club in our front yard.

Nicholas and Alyssa

These two were our wonderful volunteers this past week. Please pray for Nicholas and Alyssa as they return to Texas tomorrow. Pray that they will be able to process all they learned this last week and how the Lord will work in their lives through their time in Lukulu.

Good News Club!

The first two pictures of Alyssa and I teaching the kids. I reviewed a couple of previous stories and Alyssa told the story of Jesus and Nicodemus.

Game Time is always quite interesting. Here we are trying to get the kids settled into a circle so they can play Duck, Duck, Goose. It always takes quite a while to teach even the simplest games. It is all so new to them.

Me and Lavina

More Duck, Duck, Goose...

Everyday Life

We have had a volunteer team with us this past week and Alyssa has taken lots of great pictures. Since we have been here a while now, I don't think to take pictures of everything so I am so grateful that Alyssa took pictures of everything! We had walked to the market one day and the kids saw some of their friends. We all walked back home together.

Below, we are at the market - just looking around.

Below is one of the stores that we go to alot. They surprisingly have a good selection of items.

Hadassah - leading the way in the market.

Zoe and Levi with all the animals.

Bible Study at Lisheshe

Above is Jeff teaching and below are some of the children listening to Alyssa in Sunday School.

Saturday at Kashushu

Teaching the children (and a few adults) at Kashushu. You can barely see my arm in the very left of the picture.

Walking back from Saturday Bible Study at Kashushu.

We Love Buna, Texas!

Just a shout out to all our friends in Buna, Texas!

We love you, miss you and think of you so often!

More Mukuma PIctures

Here is another picture of my Sunday School class this morning.

We had a great time in Mukuma but we ALL got so dirty. This was a picture of Levi after Zoe pushed him in a mud hole. Evidently, he wasn't too worried about it all. I was even dirtier than I can remember being. The kids did fantastic! After I got used to camping out, I also enjoyed our time there with the believers. What a blessing they are to us!

The kids did get very tired and fell asleep just about any time they sat down.

Here is Hadassah waiting for supper...