Rainy Season, Cabbage Farming, and a School of Orphans

We are living in a tropical RAINFOREST! The rainy season means...RAIN. It is so lush and green here it's unfathomable to think that this same place will be so dry and dusty that your throat hurts in 7 months. I didn't imagine that we'd have seasons here like we do. It's a different drama than -12 F like a Minnesota winter, but it feels like the same kind of swing-- so different. It really is beautiful.

Our yard ("garden" as it's called by our British and South African friends) is like a big, beautiful park. Bennett has so much fun being dressed up as his character-of-the-day (pirate, cowboy, Indian, teddy roosevelt, whomever) and exploring out the back doors. This setting is such a gift for him in this stage of life-- a big, walled in yard that feels like 10 acres to him, being at school on the playground in the dirt in his bare feet (they all take their shoes and socks off in the afternoon!), going with dad on the weekends to our friends' farm to dig in the dirt some more...it's a little boys' paradise.

Our friends' farm happens to be a 12-14,000 head cabbage farm that we are participating in with them. It is a new love of Jeff's (and Bennett's). Davison works with Jeff at World Vision/RAPIDS and they are working together on developing their property as a second source of income for their family, and to help fund Davison's wife's ministry-- Mercy Ministries. Mercy Ministries is an umbrella for many amazing things that Dorothy has her hands in. I have gotten involved with helping her run her school for orphans and vulnerable children.

Dorothy reminds me of my mom-- all vision and heart and love for children. She has given her life reaching out to others and I feel like I am with Mother Theresa everytime I am with her. A school has been built at the back of their property where kids walk 20-30 minutes from a neighboring compound each day. Davison and Dorothy have given their heart and soul for these kids. They live in a VERY simple house at the other end of their land and give themselves fully to these kids. (Incidentally, her ministry is named MERCY ministries after her special needs daughter, Mercy. I think if I had a child with special needs I would think that that was ENOUGH for me...)

I show up on Tuesday mornings and just come alongside Dorothy as she runs her school. Last week we went over a spreadsheet that I'm helping her make on operational expenses, drafted a letter to ask for donations from a local NGO, and went and picked up shoes that had been donated to some of the kids. In between these "tasks" I just got to love on the teachers and the kids. These kids just want to be touched. It's amazing...

And then I leave. And I drive back to Kabulonga which is where we live and can feel so "Africa" until I go out to the bush to the school and see kids in rags and hardly any shoes and... In Kabulonga we have coffee shops and nice grocery stores, and clean gas stations, and... I switch gears at home and head out to school to pick up my kids...

I am feeling more comfortable living on all these different levels. I feel very present with my kids and Jeff at home, I feel my friendships here deepening, I feel like i am finding my places of ministry... I don't feel so jarred by all the contradictions. I don't know if that is good or bad, but I can feel my capacity to live "in the midst" growing.

Mackenzie and Clara continue to try to figure out how to give in their own ways here. The 'charity' they started, TFC, is raising money (with the help of their uncles) and is allowing our family to help in practical ways a lot of the people with whom our lives intersect. They launched a TFC website that tells more about who and what TFC is supporting and hoping to support. It has been amazing to see what God is doing through them, and more importantly, IN them.

We are getting excited anticipating many visitors that begin to arrive this month. We will be able to see friends and family from home almost every month from now through the summer. We are so excited to share the people and experiences of Zambia with them...

Thank you for journeying with us.

Molly (on behalf of the whole fam)