No more holiday :( (FOR NOW!!!!!) :) :)

Internet and busyness continue to be problems.  I guess that's the way here?!
As if having a holiday wasn't busy enough.  The weekend right after Mum and Dad left we headed to Mkushi for an outreach.  We were invited to go there by Pastor Makanda when we were in Insano.

Points of interest from Mkushi

• Hotel Zambian styles.  The Mukushi church had very generously put us up at a hotel (really sweet of them).  However!!! It had no hot water, and minimal running cold water, luckily the toilet worked!!  We asked for some hot water so we could have a bucket wash.  I think the others went ‘ah la natural’. Ew?
•  I found priorities here somewhat strange!  We went to two separate house that are nice by Zambian standards.  They both had massive flat screen tvs.  I used the toilet in both houses, neither toilet had a toilet seat, toilet paper, or a sink with running water!?!
• One of the funniest things I’ve seen here, was this solar type panel on the roof of a tiny straw roofed mud house.  I wanted to take a photo, but people you don’t know can be funny about taking pictures here.  Why on earth would you need a solar panel, on your hut that probably doesn't have electricity?
• Why we were there: We went out door to door in the community to try to minister to people, encourage them and try to get them along to church.  The actual time doing that seemed a bit on the short side. 
•  The hospitality was great and we were well fed again
• Jono once again had the opportunity to lead the bible study!  He's turning into quite the preacher!

The outreach team

Church on Sunday morning in Mkushi

Some rocky business near Mkushi

Typical scene here, fire on the side of the road

'Serenity' Sunset on the return journey

So I've lost some weeks, as I am SO far behind and haven't written up much on word!  Ut oh!

I'm unsure exactly when things happened.  However here's some possible points of interest from the next few weeks!

• We moved from frustrating shoes, to frustrating books.  We went to help set up the bookshop which is new (about to open).  We get there and are asked to help place books in piles on the already full shelves.  The books on the shelves have NO order.  So trying to match the books coming out of the boxes to the ones on the shelves was like this ridiculous memory game.  Being the 'absolutely amazing and logical' person I am I suggested alphabeticalising it to make things easier, which was shot down.  How on earth is this process logical?? How many piles of each book is there?? What happens when you want to find a book? You walk round thinking I think I've seen this now where was it again?  Talk about banging ones head against the wall!
• We washed hundreds of chairs for conference.  I think that may have been about the only useful thing we did leading up to conference! For some reason we seemed to miss the handout of jobs, maybe we got back from holiday and everyone had already been assigned everything or something.

Some random pictures - to try to keep you interested!
Looks like someone had a whoopsie!

So we like our sunset pictures

Conference (points of note, perhaps?)

• It was good but in what appears to be typical Zambian style, it was packed leaving little time for rest!  I don't get why you need two key note speakers in one evening, and how come at christian conferences they don't seem to leave time for your own personal time with God.  
• Jono got to sing as part of the worship team. Unfortunately for me (as I love my sleep) his slot was mainly first thing in the morning, 6.45 AKA RIDICULOUS O'CLOCK.
• Jono's highlights were the talk we went to on knowing God more. It talked about a cycle - Spend time with God, Know him more, love him more, obey him more, he reveals more of himself to you, which means you know him more, and more of his will (Knowing God's will was the title of the talk).  
• For me, probably the most challenging thing came from one sentence someone said.  "You can tell how much of a servant heart you have when you get treated like a servant".  I realised my 'servant' heart was not really that servant, as I seriously dislike being treated like a servant.
• We both enjoyed the workshop on living in submission.  It was fascinating to see the clash of cultures.
• We had a Bethesda stall in the missions tent which we manned from time to time.  We had quite a number of people come through. It was good to talk to people about Bethesda and we've hopefully made some good contacts.

Jono doing his thing

More of his thing

Conference venue

The duet he did :) In front of hundreds of people . . . with very little practice

Every blog I wonder why I don't take more photos!  I really need to get in the habit of it!

Prayer thanks

• For safety while we've been travelling
• This week has been a dramatic week, Peter and Brendah's son ran away from home, it took about 4 days to find him. However thanks be to God he is at home now safe and unharmed.
• Some of the Bethesda school kids seem to be making reasonable progress.  
• For the privilege of working with such awesome kids (even when they are naughty)

Prayer requests

• For safety as we travel
• For an enjoyable time in South Luwanga (we leave for a break tomorrow), with lots of awesome animal sightings :)
• For my physio registration. I haven't heard anything and I've been too busy to follow up on it.
• That we'll enjoy our time here and connect with locals and fellow missionaries well.  I've continued to feel a bit flat/homesick, but it seems to be getting a little better.
• That we'll put God first then our marriage, it's been a bit challenging given the busyness of late.

Bethesda prayer requests

• Continued prayer for those involved with the accident that happened on the way home from wheelchair camp.
• For healing for our patients and progress with the kids who come to school.
• That the children will regularly attend class
• For the land application
• For increased financial support
• For the team to increase so we can expand which is our future vision.
• One of our long term Bethesda Members, Bernard who suffered a spinal injury when he fell off the back of  truck on the way to a funeral, is very interested in electronics.  As a young man in his twenties who is driven and motivated to work towards his dream, Behtesda are supporting him in applying for a place on an electronics course at a vocational training centre in Ndola for young adults with disabilities.  The estimated cost is around $200 - $300 USD for the year including transport.  He may be able to get a bursary for some of this but we will not know this until he applies.  Please pray for funding for this course which will have such a positive impact on the direction of this young man’s life. 

OM prayer requests

• Thanks that we've received some finances for the dormitories.  So building work has started.  However more finances are needed to complete the job.
• For the right decision for a replacement leader for OM Zambia.