Packing up the Dreams God's Planted

The above is a line from the Micheal W. Smith hit "Friends". Probably dates me a bit but it seems fitting.
I have had a huge break from writing my blogs and it seems time to get back to it.
So much of our life right know consists of packing up our life here in Bismarck. This has been and continues to be a challenge for us as we are both "keepers" by nature and I am a collector.
Saw a note on facebook today that suggested everyone will have a box of cords and cables by age 35 that they are unsure of the origin of but are saving because the might need them someday. I guess we are past someday and we are also well past 35 and all those cables really do have to go now. So we had the great American Garage Sale and now we pack stuff in boxes and haul to a local independent thrift store which does some good work in our area. Those boxes contain dreams from days past. However with each box we get closer to our dream for our future.

We are taking a class right now called "Perspectives of the Modern Christian Movement". If you want to be motivated toward world missions or just learn more about rational and calling for/to missions this would be a great course for you to take. It's available online and it will challenge you. We have looked at verses that show God's plan to bless and redeem the whole world from Genesis and on through the old testament, we have looked at God's desire to be glorified by people from every tongue, tribe and nation, and the variety of worship styles and ways that different cultures will use to glorify God and how that is part of his desire. For me the content of this class has helped cement my understanding of missions and my calling,
So soon, it gets sooner every day we will be packing up those future dreams and taking them with us to Blantyre Malawi.
Our schedule the next couple of months is pretty hectic. We are finalizing preparation of our home for sale, a market analysis is in progress, and it will go on the market next week.
Wed. June 6th is Ted's official retirement date.
We have a weekend trip to Ted's home town, Langdon, or the Langdon area next weekend. Then midway through the next week we leave to go visiting and head to Toronto to take a class called IMPACT which is designed to teach us how to enter a new culture well. We will visit some again on the way back and have a couple weeks at home before we fly to Charlotte, NC for our final required SIM training. That is done August 1 but we plan to spend extra time at the headquarters of SIM to get some computer training on how to use their software.
At that point we should be ready to embark to Malawi. Our actual departure date will depend on the processing or our Temporary Employment Permits. Those being acquired will be the green light to travel.
If you have time to pray for our diligence and perseverance and for the processing of our paper work by the Malawi Government we greatly covet that.

World View

What is a world view and why does it matter?
World view from my understanding is the lens through which you look at the world. Might be overly simplified but it works for my purposes.
I first encountered the idea of world view over 30 years ago at a weekend conf. for Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship. A young woman I didn't know other then by reputation gave a short workshop on world view called "Breaking Your Candy Bar in the right places" It was really about making sure you really looked at life through a Christian world view. She used a Hershey's bar for the illustration.
One long half would be your Christianity the other long half all the things your life is made up of.
At that time for most of us it was school, work, recreation that were the big ones. Now it would be family, vocation, recreation, and stewardship in a broad sense.  We can break our candy bar down the middle and have our Christianity be one part of who we are but our day to day life be separate from that, or break it into short chunks where or Christianity influences all of our day to day life.

Currently I am reading the book "When Helping Hurts"written by Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett. It is about poverty alleviation and why it sometimes hurts more then it helps. It has a lot to do with fixing broken people and their broken view of the world and enabling them to become the people God made them to be.

When we go to Malawi we will be going to a very materially poor country. I want to make sure any thing I do to help people is really helpful. It has become apparent that no matter what I offer to someone it is important to transparently communicate the role of God and Christ in all provision and all aspects of life and to teach them that they are fearfully and wonderfully made by an all powerful and loving God.

On a completely different note it seems my knee replacement is completely successful. I am able to use the new knee more each day and my range of motion continues to improve.

The Bee's Knees!

I am really not a bee, but I have major issues with my knees.
Tomorrow I will have a total knee replacement surgery on my left knee.

This is what it will look like.
I have prayed.
I have asked many others to pray.
I have visited with both the orthopedist and the Orthopedic PA and I believe that this is the best decision.
After years of favoring my left knee, my right knee is beginning to show problems as well.  It seems that in view of our plans to transition to Malawi Africa it is best to be sure I am leaving for the field in the best possible physical condition. So this is the plan.
In the midst of other preparations this has been a big decision and distraction. Considering my person will change forever tomorrow I feel calm today.
There are many things that Ted and I need to do but we are hoping this is not the one thing that determines our departure time.
I am going to be reading and listening to lessons and working on sedentary tasks for a few weeks but I am feeling good about most things.
Hopefully in a few weeks I will back at my house!

Packing up the Dreams

   Over the years we have been in Bismarck I have taught Sunday School, Directed Vacation Bible School, been a youth leader, lead assorted bible studies, lead a 4-H club, and probably more. For each of these activities I have some quantity of odds and ends to support that activity
   I have also become a collector of various items. There was the beanie baby craze I bought into pretty heavily, did a lot of sewing and crafting over the years and have acquired a lot of random items for those pursuits. Of late most notably I have collected vast quantities of yarn and knitting needles. I have always liked house plants and with time and resources have collected many houseplant. Also I like to cook so I have collected many cook books and more then a few kitchen gadgets.
   Over the past 20 years I have gained and lost quite a lot of weight as well. I have clothes, esp. favorite items in various sizes stashed around the house.
   Oh yes and then there is the most odd item of all. I have a large collection of Trivial Pursuit games. In recent years there have been a lot of specialty collectors versions that I have not acquired, however before I made a conscious decision that this was getting out of hand and I wanted to serve in Africa more then I wanted to have the largest known collection of Trivial Pursuit games in the world I was closing in on a complete set, Master games, specialty question decks, era's in time, I even have a set of special metal with gold trim pies and pieces and a trivial pursuit carrying case.
   Now it is time to pack up, consolidate, gift, sell, etc most of my earthly belongings. Seems like every item has a memory attached to it. Also nearly every item requires a decision. For me it is easy to attach a lot greater value to many of these items then they deserve and to blow this process into the realm of a moral decision of what the absolute best and perfect placement of every object is.
   George Carlin has a monologue about stuff. I have to get past attachment to my stuff, because that's all it really is piles of stuff, no more no less. It doesn't have special intrinsic value because it is my particular stuff and I collected it. It's just stuff and those to skeins of chunky avocado green acrylic yarn are ugly no matter who they belong to.

God's Handiwork

This past week God has painter our trees with frost and made our world sparkle with beauty.

    The day after I took photos the sun came out and everything sparkled like diamonds. It makes our world look like a scene from C.S. Lewis "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe" When Lucy first stumbles in to Narnia. This picture is not as bright but it reflects my thoughts.

     It has been a long week for me. My knees have been troubling me and they have just been more troublesome this week. I have been in 3 dr. offices and have cried a bit. As in my previous post my heart and I want to be in Africa and there is still much to do. Sore knees and surgery do not fit into that time frame very well. But I have scheduled knee replacement surgery on Feb. 21. I see God's handiwork in this too.

   It is often hard to get to a referral and hard to get into see specialists. I made a stop at the walk in clinic and was given a referral. When the orthopedics office called the next day I was able to get an appointment the next day and was able to get this all scheduled and cared for in one appointment. Not sure that is heard of in today's world very often. I had however asked a lot of people to pray with me about my knees. 

     So I got my right knee injected and now it is feeling better. My Grace Point Grub meal ministry need to go on while I am not available. I  have been talking to people and it seems to be coming together for the 3 weeks I am not available. Another example of God's Handiwork.

   So we are going forward.

    This is the luggage of a young couple we met at SIMgo mostly ready for their transition to Niger West Africa. It was a mind numbing thought to me to narrow our stuff down to this small quantity and reality is we don't have 3 young children and one more coming in 6 months. 

    I have been cleaning and clearing things but it's a daunting task. I took this photo as a reminder of our goal. I am hoping to see God's handiwork as we clean out and prepare our home as well.

Starting an Adventure

Last week my husband and I attended SIM go.
So what exactly is that? You might ask.
SIM is a mission organization we have chosen to join.
We are in preparation to transition our lives to Blantyre Malawi.

A few things about SIM. SIM was founded in 1893 as Sudan Interior Mission. They have had a few name changes over the years as they have grown and spread in their focus from the Sudan to 6 Continents and over 70 countries. At this point in many parts of the world the letters SIM mean serving in missions. Here in the United States it's just SIM. Check out their website at www.simusa.org We are personally encouraged by their motto "By Prayer"

Malawi is a small African country, similar in size to the state of Pennsylvania. The population is near 18.5 million. 47 % of the population is under age 15. Those numbers illustrate the fact that Malawi was hard hit by HIV/AIDs and Malawi continues to be affected by HIV/AIDS. Malawi has consistently been of the list of the worlds ten poorest counties for the past several years. I have seen listings showing Malawi anywhere from 3rd poorest to 7th poorest. Poverty is a way of life. The Malawian Kwatcha exchanges at about 700 Kwatcha to one American dollar. Despite the poverty Malawi calls herself the warm heart of Africa.

Looking back on my 6 weeks in Malawi summer 2016 there are things that stand out to me. Bales of donated clothing most likely from the US are purchased by nationals and sold in large markets. Vegetables are piled in stacks and sold on the road side. One of the teachers working at Rafiki where I was serving said teachers could find jobs that offered housing but were asked to work for 6 months before they would receive a salary. Not a feasible thing. One of the missionaries there said that one could get by on a thousand Malawian Kwatcha a day if they were frugal. Ladies carrying and selling bananas could make that if they had access to bananas to sell. Ladies wear their hair in beautiful intricate braids and value having their hair braided over many more essential things. I hope those statements bring a picture to mind. But I am attaching a few favorite pics so you can see with your eyes as well.

Malawi statistics taken from Global Road Warrior Malawi Country Profile, 1/21/2018

Ending an Adventure

So in some two hours I will be in a vehicle headed to Lilongwe. I have said good bye to the children here with out regrets. I will miss then greatly but I feel I have completed what I came here to do. We have had some fun time working on crafts and reading and hanging out for devotions and conversation. I have seen their lives and no they are being well cared for and will continue to be so.
I have completed the recording and inventory of the school libraries and left well labeled and repaired books with and excel database that is searchable. These are good things.

I have never been in a place where there is such enjoyable weather for so many days. I have never seen the quantity of beautiful sunsets that I see here on a daily basis anywhere else. I have rarely had so much enjoyment of the humor, foibles and random quirks of personality that I have experienced here.

Last night I shared devotions with the girls in Isaiah cottage. They are all mid teens and have a little adolescent attitude and sass.  However it is mild and not jaded with much worldliness and they have such good hearts. They are at the age where they like boys, probably too much for their own good as they are in a pretty closed environment and more then casual "looking" is not appropriate. If their dark faces showed a blush they would frequently. I am generally drawn most to the younger ones in the village but these girls are special.

I spent much time in class and out with the kids in standard 5. They are as a whole delightful. As a group they are smart and avid readers, individually they are just fun. The girls are quieter then many and seem content to do a craft or read a book and work hard at school. The boys are smiley, mischievous and while they no their boundaries in school and out they push them to the limit and are gracious and sheepish when they are pulled back.

Over all the children here are refreshingly unworldly and enjoy their life. Without access to internet and electronics they play with energy and imagination. They read books to explore new worlds. They are appreciative of small things. This is true across Rafiki villages and is a big reason why I enjoy my time here to much.

It is time to head home and I am dreading the travel but so ready to be in my own home again.