Settled?

We just wanted to offer a quick update, especially for those who we haven’t had a chance to catch up with yet or have not had the time to really sit down and share. We are often asked in passing how we are adjusting or whether we have settled into our home/life/routines. For the most part (and for better or worse!) we have. We spent most of our focus initially on getting settled back into our home and helping the kids settle into their routines. They are all in school, Clayton is playing football, Rowan soccer, and all are doing quite well.

We are fortunate that we were thoroughly warned that the adjustment back to the States would likely be more difficult than our initial adjustment to entering the mission field. While this holds true in many ways, our transition so far hasn’t been as difficult as we were braced for. Also, while we miss so much about our life in Zambia, we are grateful to be “home”.

The next most common set of questions we are asked falls into the “what’s next” category. We know a few things “for certain”. We know we need to return to Zambia for a period of time in order to finalize our adoption. We are both planning to return in late December with Teya and hopes for a court date in early January. The boys will stay here with Grandparents at home and in school. We have been told that Tina will be able to return after the court proceedings, leaving Kevin and Teya to work though the remaining steps with the US government. We hope that the entire process will take 4-6 weeks or less but need to be prepared for every possible contingency. We also hope to spend some time at the Esther School and be a blessing there in whatever way we can.

It took considerable time and energy just to get back up to full steam, but we are now focusing on our next steps. We took for granted what it would take to line up new phones, utilities, vehicles, insurance, etc. and often wondered how we could find time for work outside of those full-time duties! Tina is still more than busy tending to family schedules, the kids and home. I have been able to start focusing on work am very excited about getting back to it. After much prayer and consideration, I am pursuing a prompting and desire to begin my own private practice in counseling. I truly missed that work and am excited to return to it and to begin building something. I was also looking forward to working closer to home and school activities, so am grateful for the opportunity to set up an office in Byron Center.

We will say more later about what we miss about Zambia already, but one thing is our access to fresh food and the opportunity to grow it ourselves. While we may not fare too well with bananas in Michigan (41 degrees F and rainy today – or 5 C for our friends in Zambia) we have returned to chicken farming with 25 egg layers and 200 meat birds. We expect the broilers to finish in late October and plan to sell them for some extra income. Eggs will be coming in January.

So while we have largely settled back into life in these United States, we continue to covet your prayers as we find our place and seek God’s direction in life, work, and ministry. We have much that is still uncertain and, actually, prefer that it stays that way to some extent. Living a life that was responsive to God’s specific leading and constantly reliant on His provision made us appreciate uncertainty and resent the comfort and predictability we so often tend to seek. We also ask for your continued prayers over the Esther School, its students, families and the new team committed to seeing it through year 3.

Finally, we will be speaking at Friendship CRC this coming Wednesday October 8 at their Missions Dinner that begins at 6pm. We hope to provide some further updates as well as share some stories about God’s work through our family over the past few years.

Thanks for continuing to follow us

The DeKams-who-used-to-be-in-Zambia