Post holiday boring bits and pieces (Clearly more holidays were needed!!)

So I left you after conference.  My memory of things that happened between now and then is now rusty! But here goes . . .  Schools were meant to be on holiday, however Bethesda continued as we had outreaches coming to see the school.

The kids with Sandra

Me on a home visit

Sandra making the most of the 'fancy' equipment we have here

About time I had a photo of someone cooking Nshima!!

Nandi is a gorgeous wee girl with Cerebal Palsy, she was the one we home visited.

Eric, having written his name for the first time, albeit backwards.  Still, when I came he could only do an E. Shows how pushing a kid can sometimes be beneficial.

One of the outreaches involved ‘the shoe ministry’ and the commencement of distribution of the hundreds upon hundreds of shoes.  It was definitely eye opening.  When goods are donated, it seems like it can often create jealousy for those who don’t get whatever it is.  It’s a delicate operation to give them to who you want to have them, without getting a whole pile of additional people turning up also.  And how do you balance giving items without creating dependency? Or people just comi

ng to you because of the free stuff?  Seems like the whole thing can be one massive headache!

I had the opportunity to lead the Bethesda discipleship group.  I decided that we should mix things up a little.  Typically the discipleship group looks somewhat similar to a church service.  So I decided to take a piece of scripture – 1 Corinthians 13 v 4.  Pretty much all I did was ask them questions, and tried to get some discussion about what they thought was patience, kindness etc.

This week I also finally got to attend the Makalulu branch that had started.  It was cool to be able to meet the people there.  Suprisingly the group consisted of mainly males, the opposite of the Nakoli group! (The Nakoli group and Makalulu group combined the following week for the final one for the term.)

The Makalulu group and Nakoli group combined

Lukando and Peter.  Lukando is a bright wee kid, he attends a normal school, his Dad brings him to the Makalulu group.

The following week, it was pretty quiet:

The Highs

• We had our neighbour and also some missionaries over for dinner/lunch.

Missionaries at lunch with Jono

• Jono got to give/preach the bible study at church on Sunday

Jono doing his thing

• We had Tuesday off. Welcome break. I love holidays

The Lows

• Most staff members were on their two week holiday.  For some reason our temporary team leader decided that Bethesda support groups needed to keep going so we attended those. 
• We went to Lusaka to drop some kids at Beitcure Hospital for their club foot operations.  I got to briefly see the paper machae chairs and standing frames they make (that part was not low).  While we were there we realised that our immigration stamps was due that day, so we rushed back to Kabwe to try and get it on time.  

• While we were in Lusaka we went to the Zambian health council to see how my registration was coming.  They told me I hadn’t submitted my certificate of good standing, which I told them I had emailed through to them as I had been advised I could.  So off they go to check their emails to find it there!  Sigh so now it MAYBE in the process.  They hadn’t replied to any of my emails, and I sent several, they hadn’t answered their phone and I called several times, Jono got in touch once with them, and they were going to ring back, which they didn’t.  Pay all this money (more then what I pay for my NZ registration) for them to sit on their arses doing nothing.  To top it all off they sent me a letter saying I had to respond with my certificate of good standing in 7 days otherwise they’d terminate my application, which I received a month later, the day after we’d been to Lusaka and I’d talked to them in person! Sigh.  It seems nothing gets done here unless you go in and do it in person.  And I still haven’t heard from them since then, I’ve been too busy to chase them up too.

The Other

•  Jono had been working on getting ahead on TTC stuff, preparing lessons for the next term.
• I had to lead discipleship again!  Part two as I didn’t finish the previous week (I was hoping to cover 1 Corinthians 13 v4-8), still didn’t finish it though! Not sure I enjoy that role very much.   
•  



One of the many big things that drive on the roads here

• 

  A sight I never thought I'd see, so therefore there had to be photographic evidence!

 Prayer thanks

• We had a fabulous week off, visited South Luwanga (to come in a blog at some stage), awesome sights
• We've had safe travels
• We're feeling a bit more refreshed which is great.

Prayer requests

• For continued safety while we travel
• For my physio registration
• That we'll connect well with locals and fellow missionaries
• That we'll place God number one then our marriage

Bethesda prayer requests

• For healing and progress for our patients and kids
• For the land application
• For increased financial support
• For the team to expand and grow for the future
• For Bernard and the application for the electronics course
• Continued prayer for the accident victims

OM prayer requests

• Thanks for the finances to start building the dormitories, pray for further finances to finish them
• For  whomever the new leader of OM Zambia is (we've been away, but we assume they've appointed someone)