More about the boys!

About the time I finished my last post, we had a couple more updates on the boys. Pictures say so much more than words, so I’ll let them speak for themselves, but here are some shots of the boys playing as they do most days – and ending up looking like they do by the end of most days. In so many ways, we feel like we have stepped back a few generations from what we know of modern Western culture. One of them that we appreciate is the freedom our kids have to explore freely throughout the great outdoors and enjoy unstructured (and apparently unsupervised) play without the distractions of busy American life.

Rowan also lost his first tooth this week! He actually knocked it loose playing soccer with his friends at school and we monitored it all day, including a few failed attempts to extract it. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner that included sweet corn from the market and afterward discovered that it was missing! We’re assuming that it snuck down with the corn, but we have a request in with the tooth fairy to see if she would be willing to make her payment without proof. This isn’t the first lost tooth for the DeKams in Zambia as Clayton has lost 2 since arrival, but we are celebrating with Rowan’s first. He is very excited because African folklore has it that when a child loses a tooth he places it under a hollow gourd and in the morning finds a chicken! We’ll see…

Overflowing

I was just thinking the other day that I needed to give an update on our water situation. This was obviously one of, if not the greatest challenge and concern that we had in our first several months here and it dramatically altered the experience we expected to have. I really haven’t said much about it since, but am often asked when people are checking in with us.

In short, our situation has improved dramatically. With a few improvements to our system, learning to conserve sparingly, closing off the water supply to campus except for the necessary buildings at necessary times (homes and school when its open), we have had much more success. We also have learned much through trial and error (mainly the latter) about how to best obtain, conserve, and use water. Unfortunately, we’ve had to move away – hopefully temporarily – from the solar pump we had hoped to use and have had to experiment with several borehole/pump/power source solutions until we found the combination that seems to work best.

For the past couple of months, we have been powering a 2HP pump with a 5KW Honda Generator in the newest deepest well (nearly 400 feet!). We monitored this pump time using a very sophisticated method of me (Kevin) climbing to the top of the 30 foot water tower and listening for the sound of water pumping. Then, when it stopped I would wave my hands to Drew who was waiting and watching about 500 feet away down the hill where the well is, and he would shut off the generator. In the beginning this would often mean that we were in position for over a half hour at a time which brought lots of interesting reactions from our neighbors!

We eventually honed in on the window of opportunity and were even able to “train” the well to pump even more so that it currently pumps for about an hour each morning and each night. At this point, supply has been keeping up with demand. In fact, on Monday, while pumping in the morning, I heard a strange sound outside the house and went out to find this:

I’m not sure how well you can see it, but these are pictures of our water tanks. And they’re OVERFLOWING!!! As far as we know, this has never happened before and it’s obviously a big practical and psychological blessing. Ironically, it happened in the morning just as I was leaving to pick up a plumber that was flown here to correct some plumbing issues we inherited. The timing was perfect, though, because we were able to conserve by closing off a few areas of campus that were leaking and he is working to fix them so we can open up the entire system. Now, especially heading into the rainy season, and Lord willing, we should be able to move forward with our water situation.

Homeschool

We had our first day of homeschool! Nothing against any of you homeschoolers out there…but homeschooling was one thing I (Tina) NEVER thought I would do! I am very right brained…more scattered with my thoughts…not someone who sits down every night and plans out lesson plans and new ways to intrigue the brain of my eight year old! But guess what? I am actually enjoying it! I am learning SO much. Who would have thought re-learning about vertebrates and invertebrates would be so fascinating? Arika and I joke about how we are going to be geniuses when we get back…we really should get ourselves onto a game show of some sort. :o) Clayton is doing great at picking up the material. We start our day every day with coffee (hot chocolate for Clay) and devotions then onto schoolwork. The first two days he had all his workbook pages done before I even had a chance to go through all the fun material I had planned! I had to give clearer instructions that he had to wait until I could explain the subject so at least I could “feel” like I was teaching. And there have been many reminders since that first day that I am the teacher and HE is the student. On Sunday night (the night before we were to start homeschool and I was just starting to do my planning for the week) he asked me what I was working on. When I told him I was planning out his week he was so disappointed. He thought that with homeschool he would be the one to pick out all the subjects and units and plan his day accordingly. I told him this homeschool situation would not work out well if he didn’t allow me to be the teacher. There have been many times this week where I have gotten frustrated with him because he clearly “knew” better than me.

On one of those days..a day I was feeling frustrated..I read my “Jesus Calling” devotional and God so calmly and quietly reminded me that I do the exact same thing him ALL the time. I forget that He is the teacher and I am the student. I try to get all my “workbook pages” done without consulting Him first. Thank you Lord for that reminder. Here is the excerpt from “Jesus Calling” (written in first person as God speaking…)

“They forget that I am sovereign and that My ways are higher than theirs. Underneath their driven service, they may secretly resent Me as a harsh taskmaster. Their worship of Me is lukewarm, because I am no longer their first love. My invitation never changes: Come to Me, all you who are weary, and I will give you rest. Worship Me by resting peacefully in My presence.”

1 Timothy 6 verse 15 reminds us that “God will bring about in his own time – God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.”

Enjoy these photos of the first days of school! The cool thing about homeschooling is you get to do “other things” too….ummm…mom don’t look at the motorcycle pic. :o)