A little here and there

I got to sit behind this precious little one during worship yesterday. Often children from the Kampande church meet us at the door ready for their handshakes. Mrs. Kasono brings the great majority of them with her each week. Some are her own children but many of them are orphans she has taken in. I remember one week seeing her hand each of them (around 10 children) kwacha to tithe, such a sweet scene. Jason and I both love seeing their happy smiling faces each week. They like to sit extremely close to me during the service which sometimes makes me feel squished but I always get a kick out of their natural rythum during chorus songs being so much better than mine!

In the past I have been given a jokingly hard time by teammates about adding random pictures of flowers from our garden to my blog posts. It kind of made me think about if they were necessary but then I concluded...I like flowers/gardening, taking pictures, and taking pictures of flowers/garden scenery, so I will continue on. : ) Our rainy season will be coming to end in in May so I won't have near as many blooms to admire in a couple months anyway. Below is an amethyst plant ( I have been patiently waiting for it to bloom for what seems like FOREVER) and one of the blooms on one of our rose plants.

 Our entire team leaves tomorrow morning for a team retreat at Nsobe Game Park in Ndola (about 4 hours away) for a few days. We will get to stay in little safari tents, go on fun game drives, canoe, and spend lots of good quality fun time together. I think we will all appreciate the relaxing time away and hopefully come back to Mumena refreshed and ready for the coming months!

The Heart of a Preacher, First Blooms, and Birthday Wishes!

It has been a great week so far. Sunday Jason and I visited the Rd. 68 congregation at the Maheba Refugee Settlement so we could transport a few young men back to Mumena for a preaching seminar Jason, Jeremy, and Brian have been teaching the past three days. I have sat in on a couple of Jason's classes and really enjoyed watching him strive to inspire these men while teaching about the "heart of a preacher." Jason has taught on the topics of love, humility, and lastly this morning, service. 

Yesterday Whitney and I had a great time with Catherine, Rwidness, and Mariam. Catherine amazingly retold last week's story of Jacob and Esau almost word for word. We then studied Jacob's dream and had the girls draw a picture to help them remember the story. It brings so much delight to watch them laugh as they draw. When my Mom is here in December she is going to have an art class with them. They are very excited about it and I certainly can't wait to see how much fun they have learning to draw from a true artist. 

Here is a picture of the bunch here for the seminar and a snap of one of the scriptures Jason used today in his lesson. "...serve one another humbly in love." (Galatians 5:13)

The consistent rains are here so we have had  a couple blooms this week including our first rose in months! The goats now have new grass and leaves to snack on so our plants can actually grow leaves and petals.

That is all for this quick update. Except... Happy Birthday to my sweet, loving, caring, encouraging, compassionate, giving, and joyful Mother! You are amazing, love you so much and can't wait to give you a huge hug next month!

Bougainvillea

We have few of these beautiful brightly colored bougainvillea bushes in our back yard. From far away it looks as if this plant has blooms on it but really its the leaves. The bougainvillea is a native plant to South America but is grows very well in southern Africa. I am the most fond of them when they are climbing on a fence, trellis, or anything of that sort. Ours were planted before we got here, they are just out in the open loving the full sun they get.

It's interesting to me how as I grow to become more observant of seemingly small things because of a blossoming interest or hobby I appreciate the beauty God created in this world so much more.

Jacaranda trees and preparing for piglets

After our weekly apprentice class this morning I thought it might be a good time for a picture of the beautiful Jacaranda trees that are blooming right now. We are tredging through our dry season (no rain since early May), everything is brown, dusty, or burned except for the one tree that blooms during this otherwise not so pretty time of year. We have one in front of our house and there are a whole line of them on the other side of the school campus. Here a couple pictures for you see:

 

Jason with his friend Pertheus. They are working on building pig pens for the piglets that will be born soon.

That's all for today's short update. Our ladies seminar starts on Thursday. We are so excited about the women wanting to learn easy techniques for teaching Sunday school at their churches. Hopefully we will have a good post for that next week. Happy Tuesday!

Quick Happy Monday post

The other day I looked out the back door and saw these boys climbing one of our trees. I thought they were looking for fruit so I went out to investigate. It turned out they were hunting for caterpillars! They had several in their bucket already and were planning on filling it up to have a yummy snack. This time of the year there are caterpillars everywhere so Zambians collect them, dry them in the sun, then fry them in oil. It doesn't sound too tasty to me but to each his own right?

Jason and I have been working hard on landscaping as a way to make our house a little more homey. We are blessed to have the perfect location and soil in Mumena for growing pretty much anything. Last week many of our flowers started blooming, Yay! Here are few pictures:

Just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. Let your roots grow down into him, and let you lives be built in him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness. 
-Colossians 2:6-7