Keeping things Interesting

As many of you know, our travel plans home have been quite exciting. There have been hard moments and exhilarating moments seeing Gods perfect timing and provision. Just to keep things interesting our flight home has been delayed 24 hours, so here we sit in Abu Dhabi. It is a long story, but in short there was some misguiding from the staff at the airport and basically we were told to wait in the wrong area, hence missing our flight. Sounds crazy, and it was…there wasn’t really any earthly sense to any of it besides the enemy getting one last shot at us, leaving us feeling defeated. We have been dreaming of the day we returned to America, especially with so many family and friends anxious to meet our new daughter and be reunited with their precious grandsons.

It has been a long day in the airport. After missing our original flight, we we’re told we had to wait for our baggage to be examined and taken off the plane (2 hours) before we could even book new tickets. We sat watching the monitors as flight after flight departed for the US until there were no more. We were then told there were no more flights available until morning, and we may even be responsible for paying for a whole new set of tickets. After explaining our situation and what had happened they were able to convince the airline to cover our new tickets, as well as book us the exact same itinerary right into Grand Rapids, just the following day. The offered us free breakfast, lunch, and dinner and a free hotel stay. The only problem was that Teya couldn’t get a visa to leave the airport. So Kevin agreed to sleep in the airport with Teya while I took the boys to the hotel. A few hours later, as the boys and I were resting in our room, we got a call that Kevin and Teya were able to join us after all…the Visa came through at the last minute. Kevin actually has the boys and Teya at the pool as we speak (the kids are swimming in their undies as we have no luggage) and they actually said they thought missing our flight was worth it to get another day of swimming!

This whole trip home, Kevin and I have just been overwhelmed with a sense of thankfulness. For all that the Lord has blessed us with and how we can go forward knowing that He does walk ahead of us and alongside us. Sometimes it is so hard to trust when these things happen…and things are left until the last minute! But God is so good and He lifts us up in our most humble times. My mother in law just sent me these verses from a song a little while ago, “Trust Him when dark doubts assail thee, trust Him when your strength is small, Trust Him when to simply trust Him seems the hardest thing of all.” We choose FAITH again today and are trusting Him in all situations. Please continue to pray as tomorrow will be a long day of travel, especially for the kiddos after a long day at the airport. Thanks you everyone for your support!

Ever Faithful

We promised to tell of God’s Faithfulness and will continue to today. Had we written an update over the past few days (as I know many of you were anxious for!) you would likely have heard of more frustrations, of doubt, of backup planning, but we had boldly (was it foolishly?) proclaimed that we were choosing faith. Our faith often falters but His Faithfulness never will.

I will admit that after hearing nothing new all week and into the weekend we had started checking into alternate flights which, between ridiculous costs and even worse itineraries, we’re not looking pretty. By yesterday we had all but resigned ourselves to postponing the return trip and forfeiting a few details like a direct route, a Grand Rapids arrival, reasonable price and our extra family day during the layover. This morning a last minute check gave no more hope, but we decided to head off to church in Lusaka and pick our poison when we got back.

Just as we were walking out the door the phone rang. It was the Consular himself calling to say that he had been given the green light to process a few of the many waiting visas and had chosen ours among them. We headed straight there and he met us in the parking lot in workout clothes. When I joked about his appearance he admitted that he had just come in to use the Embassy gym and decided to check his email first just in case. When he saw the permission to print the visas he assembled core staff to process them and it was ready when we arrived. We were only about a half hour late to church, which isn’t far off from what we would be on a normal Sunday!

Since we hadn’t selected a new flight, our original tickets or hotel were never cancelled, so we are back on track without having to make any further changes. Now I just need to start packing! There are a few other details and amazing chapters to the story that I won’t publish here until we are safely home and, obviously, many human hands were at work in the process (thank you so much Dan and Rob), but once again God has delivered and proven his faithfulness. Please join us in thanking Him and, as I said:

We will see you soon!

We Choose Faith

For those of you who have not yet heard, we are planning to leave Zambia next week and return to the US! Teya’s visa was approved on Monday and we were given permission to pick it up the following day. We had a flight itinerary on hold that would have had us leaving on Tuesday but we got word yesterday that the price had unexplainably tripled overnight. No worries. Fortunately, the friend who is helping us with the tickets found the same itinerary for the same original price leaving one day earlier so we are now planning to leave on Monday, take an extra day to relax with the family on the way home, and arrive in Grand Rapids Thursday night.

And so begins the scramble to prepare for departure, which Tina has jumped into, and to wrap up as many loose ends as possible for the school which I (Kevin) have been focusing on. This week has been spent finishing odd jobs around campus, applying epoxy to the new kitchen and refurbished preschool floors, cleaning out the chicken coop and preparing it for the 200 new broiler chicks that arrived yesterday. I also had a final meeting with the school’s attorney, interviewed a teacher candidate and tried to line up some more applications, and will begin making my way around the village to say goodbyes.

But there is one job that is not yet finished. Somehow, after all that we have been through, we still need to be reminded to have constant faith in our Father. After all of the floors have again worn through, after the chickens are but a delicious memory, after teachers and legal issues have come and gone, we will still need to depend on God and trust Him in all things. But learning this well is a job that is not yet finished. And so we are being challenged in that one more time before we leave…

The visa was approved. We were told we could pick it up yesterday. We received a call that it wasn’t ready yet. No worries. I planned to return to town today to finish some other business and pick it up at the end of the day. We called to confirm this morning and were told that it was still not ready. Some worries. Then they said that there is actually a “World-wide problem with the printing of visas” and they hoped it would be fixed soon, maybe by Monday. Bigger worries. We checked and our tickets and hotel may not be refundable. Substantial worries.

But here’s the thing. We are all challenged by situations every day – big or small – that require us to choose a response. We can choose to live in FEAR or we can choose to live in FAITH. When we found out we were able to return home we were very excited. We felt very happy. That was very easy. It would have been and, in fact was, also very easy to charge ahead with our plans fueled by that happy feeling.

It would also be easy now to feel afraid or upset or angry or any number of things, and allow those feelings to fuel our response, but faith isn’t a feeling. It is a choice and it requires us to take action. We have been challenged by many things during our time in Zambia. God blessed us with His peace, protection and the gift of faith in many big and small situations. You’ve heard about some of them – living without water, bizarre infections, a failed adoption, a collapsed school building, snakes, a child hospitalized with severe malaria…

But you didn’t read about all of the times when we allowed ourselves to succumb to our fears. We didn’t exactly rush to write any blog posts about the many challenges, often laughably insignificant, that we panicked over, allowing ourselves to wallow in fear, frustration and self-pity. I’m ashamed to admit that they would probably outnumber our victories!

And so today, again, we face a challenge with potentially difficult consequences. We feel fear. But today, WE CHOOSE FAITH. We choose faith and we choose to tell about the way the God has delivered us so many times and will again. This was a promise often made hastily during difficult times and as quickly forgotten when He provided and we received the outcome we desired. Please join us in praying boldly – even fasting if so led – for God to prove His faithfulness once again.

See you soon.

Embassy Appointment

Just a quick update, we have our embassy appointment scheduled for 7:45am our time tomorrow (Monday) morning. This is where we will be requesting permission from the US to grant Teya a visa to enter the US so that we can come home. If anyone is still up at 1:45 EST please pray for us! (those of you in Montana and California don’t have to stay up quite so late!)

We hope to update you tomorrow when we have word, as well as share some pictures of a great weekend of village soccer and a fun day at My Father’s House, the orphan home down the road…

Next Steps

While so much continues to happen on the campus of the Esther School, I know many of you follow this blog for the personal side as well. Particularly, many of you are trying to keep up with our adoption process and for close friends and family,the focus seems to be on our timeframe for returning to the US. Here is the latest for you.

Due to the generosity of some dear friends who are in the States and have offered full access to their home in Lusaka, we were able to stay in town last week and focus on getting some things done without the usual logistical challenges of living over an hour away and in the bush. Most of Monday was spent at the hospital for Rowan’s malaria follow up (in case you missed the last blog – a clean bill of health). Tuesday I (Kevin) took advantage of the strong Internet to get some work and planning done.

Wednesday we spent some time in meetings with various parties from social welfare and applied for a travel license for Teya so that we could all travel home, hopefully in time to attend a missionary debriefing in mid-August and get settled in time for the kids to start school in the US. We are in the midst of applying for a Zambian passport for her and the next big step in that process would be to apply for a visa allowing her into the US. We don’t have our meeting scheduled with the embassy yet, but hope to get one soon (after the passport is issued) and will keep you posted.

Please pray for God’s continued leading and blessing in this process.

Thanks!

Last day of school

It’s been awhile since the last day of school, but wanted to share some memories and photos from this day. It was a bitter sweet day on campus…teachers and administrators ready for a break, yet cherishing every moment with each student and taking in every part of their smiling faces. The campus was busy as teachers and students were preparing their rooms so parents could visit, see their child active in their classroom, reciting bible verses, singing songs, and even watch a slideshow of photos from throughout the year. The day ended with the parents all coming together, as well as all the students, for a time of prayer and singing. Everyone was then invited for lemonade and a snack, and for a time of fellowship. Please enjoy some photos from that day.

A lot of goodbyes were said that day…and then the following week as we said goodbye basically to everyone on campus except for the Miedema family. Kevin and Brent have stayed busy around campus as usual…finishing the repairs on the preschool, finishing the new kitchen, getting the grounds ready for the new 1st through 3rd grade building, planning for an additional borehole, uniform estimates…the list goes on. We also have had a chance to spend some quality family time with the campus a little less crowded. We have been able to celebrate a few birthdays – Clayton on June 10, Hudson on June 29, and Kevin on July 7. We also celebrated our 14 th wedding anniversary on June 24! Our anniversary date night here in the African bush looked a little different than American standards but we were happy to just have some down time. Here are a few pictures from the last few weeks…

For Clayton’s birthday Kevin promised Clayton they could sleep outside on top of our shipping container…it sounded so fun that Rowan joined, as well as part of the Miedema clan. They hauled their bug tents and sleeping backs up there and made it all night. It was cold!

Nothing’s better than birthday cake…

An update on Rowan….if some of you hadn’t heard, Rowan was diagnosed with severe malaria on June 27. He had just had a mild fever for a day or so, but then shot up to 103.9. We decided to give Jim’s malaria test, since we had our own kit, and it came back positive. We started the normal treatment…just an oral anti-malaria medicine…very standard. We were assured he would start feeling better within 24-36 hours. But the next day he started vomiting so we too him to a local clinic where they did a blood draw and found his platelet levels had dropped into the 80s. Normal levels are between 150 and 450. After an hour of the doctor searching the city for an injectable treatment, she finally found a hospital who had it and we were admitted for treatment as well as an IV for dehydration. It was a scary few days there, but as of today Rowan is malaria free and his platelet levels are back into the 300s PTL! Thank you to all who were praying fervently for Rowan and for healing. We have seen God at work, in the midst of turmoil, He is closer yet. What a mighty God we serve.

More updates to come soon!