Making New Traditions

We have never done anything intentional during Easter before. We have spent most of our Easters on the road, it seems. Last year, over the Easter long weekend we were driving back to Mozambique with a three week old Ambrose. This year, we stayed at home and started a new family tradition. I must now give a plug to Noel Piper's book "Treasuring God in our Traditions". It has good arguments for teaching our children about God through traditions and great practical ideas on how to do it.

So, taking Mrs. Piper's advice, each day a week before Easter we read parts of Jesus' journey to Jerusalem and to the cross, and it's surrounding events. We used toys from around the house and wire stick figure people to act out and to represent the stories. I have to say, it was the most meaningful Easter I've had, not to mention the impact it made on our young children (even though their favorite part was blowing out the candles each day…)

Thank you, Lord, for conquering death! He is risen!

Flashback to Australia

We had the privilege of going to Australia to spend Christmas with my family last year. I don't think I wrote about it, so here is our visit in pictures…

Eliana

Lilah

Yes folks, this is where I am from….

Ambrose 

Daddy never leaves a beach without first making a sand castle

Iron Enriched Bath Water

We live in a remote area without electricity. We have some solar panels so that we can charge electronics. We have a gas powered fridge and oven. We have a generator so that we can pump water into a tank from a nearby well. Life is very peaceful out here, and we have many of the comforts of the western world. Some things, though, are great reminders of where we are. 

Here is our bath water. We heat water by lighting a fire under a very old donkey (iron barrel). What you see is not dirt from our son (though I won't deny he gets dirty after playing in our yard!). It's sediment, rust and iron tinted water. It may not look too pleasant, but it does come with benefits. My current pregnancy is the first one in four pregnancies where my blood work has shown iron levels in the normal range. :)

Gifts

Over the last few weeks, Nate has had six men approach him and ask him to study the Bible with them. Wow! The Lord is working here. May the Lord bring about such a wonderful change in this place that people will say "The Lord has done it."

Come and join us see Him work!

African Spinning Tops

We have noticed lots of boys playing a game here with home made 'spinning tops'. They carve a piece of wood into a point to make a spinning top, then they fashion a whip out of sticks and scrap material. They then whip their spinning top and can keep it going for a very long time. I haven't figured all of the rules of the game (or if there are any) but they seem to try and knock into each other's spinning top. They don't mind whipping each other around the ankles either :)

The Fort, Phase One

Nate is working on a fort for our kids. It's a long process, finding someone to chop the trees, waiting for the wood to dry, having people sand and plane the wood, painting the bottom of the planks with diesel in the hope to prevent termite damage, driving down the rode to shovel sand into sacks for mixing with cement…. But bit by bit he is getting it done, and doing a great job.

He always does things well. I hear him tell Eliana as she help him dig holes, "Eliana, whatever, we are doing, we are doing it for the Lord, and so we should always do our best."

Resurrection Day

Over a month ago, Nate asked the local believers if they knew what Easter was. Most of them didn't. So Nate launched into a month and a half long teaching series about the Passover, the Lord's Supper, and the death and resurrection of Christ. It has been wonderful teaching. It has been great to see the believers learn and grow. It summited with their first Easter celebration together, inviting believers from nearby villages and celebrating the Lord's supper and eating chicken and boiled maize flour together.

It was a really great day, remembering our Lord's death and resurrection so that people from all nations could become children of God.