Missed Meetings, Marriage, and Malaria

Tuesday, May 13, 2008
We are delighted that Ray and Angela Motsi are our neighbors in the guest wing attached to our house for the duration of the week. We met Ray and Angela at our MCC Regional Retreat last December. They are pastoring in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and have chosen to stay in the country during these turbulent times even though they could move elsewhere. Over tea, Angela talked about the food shortages, the violence in the rural areas, and her husband taken to the police station for questioning nearly every day. But her real message was about how God is doing great things. She has begun a ministry to orphans, setting up family homes with house parents and up to ten orphans. Her desire is to see these orphans raised in a family environment where they get nurture and care and grow into contributing adults instead of traumatized orphans. One home is already up and running and they just received money for another house. With so many fleeing the country, it is not difficult to find homes for sale. I was so encouraged listening to Angela and amazed at how gracious she is when I know that times are very tough. It is nice to have a neighbor this week to come over and have tea and chat.

Wednesday, May 14
Carmen and I were talking this morning about calendars and daytimers and how prevalent they are in the United States. Daytimers are actually available here as well but they are for previous years. No matter. They can easily be used for taking notes. But, in general, there doesn’t seem to be the same obsession with keeping a schedule, planning in advance, sticking with scheduled meetings, etc. While I keep a schedule on my computer, I don’t feel so enslaved to it, I told Carmen. About two hours later, I discovered to my horror, that I had completely forgotten about reading to Jason’s class in the little library at his school. This is something I started a few weeks ago and the kids really look forward to coming. Today it slipped my mind entirely. Guess I should check my calendar a bit more often.

Thursday, May 15, 2008
As I was walking across the MEF campus, I was stopped by a young lady I had never met before. She told me that she had seen me often and that she really liked me. She wanted to be my friend. She isn’t actually part of the MEF community but attends the teacher college across the road. She wanted my phone number so that we could talk on the phone. This type of thing happens quite a bit to muzungus around here. Instead of giving her my phone number, I told her she could give me her number. As I walked away, I had to chuckle to myself. I was now in possession of the cell phone number for “Precious Change.” Now I know whom to call if precious change is needed.

Saturday, May 17, 2008
Jenny, Lynne, Carmen and I gathered over brunch this morning to discuss the enneagram. I brought two books along and we have been passing them around and trying to figure out more of our personalities and ways in which we can grow. It is also interesting discussing the enneagram while living in a foreign country. We were a bit surprised at the discrepancies regarding who we are in our host countries and who we are here. Layers seem to be peeled away, revealing more of our essence, when we don’t have so many comforts or distractions to hide behind. The stress of living cross-culturally also can bring out the worst in us, but even that is good to know so that we can cope better in the future. At the end, we made ourselves come up with one word to describe how we want people to see us, one word which we unconsciously use to mask our pain or insecurities. The different words were: fun, easygoing, competent, and good. For those familiar with the enneagram, you can probably guess which numbers we are! My word was “good” (surprise, surprise). It doesn’t mean that I am good but that I am invested in others seeing me that way. Striving to be perfect can be exhausting and the burden of making inevitable mistakes can fill me with shame. But I think I am learning to allow myself to be just human and not as consumed by presenting a good image. Maybe the readers of this blog think differently. Who knows. I do know that the cinnamon rolls that I brought to the brunch were less than perfect. It was my first time making cinnamon rolls and I learned a few things to do differently next time. So they weren’t stellar but anything tastes good when it is smothered in frosting. And, once again, it was confirmed that people like me even when I am not perfect.

Sunday, May 18, 2008
Jason came running into my bedroom a little after six this morning. “God said hello to me and I said hello back!” he told me excitedly. “It was in my dream and he said, ‘Jason, Jason,’ and I couldn’t see him but I could hear him.” I told Jason that this was very special. “You never heard God in my room, hey? But me, I heard him.” This last line is so typical of how Jason talks these days. He ends most questions with practically shouting, HEY? And he begins many sentences with, “Me, I . . .” So Zambian.

The spiritual moment with Jason in our bed was quickly eclipsed by the whirlwind of our day. Following church, we took our boys out to Jerry and Brenda’s home who graciously agreed to babysit them this afternoon while we attended a church couples seminar. It was difficult to pull ourselves away from visiting with Brenda and Jerry when it came time to depart, it is so easy to converse with them. And to be honest, Peter and I weren’t very much looking forward to the seminar. But it turned out to be alright. The first part was spent discussing questions that church members had submitted to the pastor. There were questions like: Should a spouse go through the pockets of their spouse or read their text messages? Is it a sin to be attracted to a person other than your spouse? Is it a sin to have a friend of the opposite sex? The discussion revealed the spectrum of perspectives church members hold from the very traditional to very modern. Peter and I mostly listened, but I was proud of Peter when he spoke up in response to this question: Should a husband help his wife in the house? His response was: No, a husband should not help a wife in the house. This raised a few eyebrows from the modern folks and got a few nods from the traditional men. But then he went on to explain that by using the word “help,” it implies that anything in the house is the wife’s duty and men just need to do a bit. Instead, men and women can share responsibilities and duties and mutually serve each other, inside the home and without. After he explained, those who had raised eyebrows earlier now nodded their heads and those previously nodding were now with raised eyebrows. Ha! He made me proud! After we ate lunch, the speaker shared with us how to have a strong and enjoyable marriage. Because we had started an hour and a half late, the final “How well do you know your spouse” game was cancelled, but there was still time to hear the speaker. Let’s just say I would have enjoyed playing the game instead. Overall, I’m glad we went as it gave us more opportunities to converse with our fellow church members. I am getting more of a sense of who is married to whom, as men and women don’t generally sit together. And it was good to hear the range or perspectives and understand where different people are coming from.

From there we raced back to Jerry and Brenda’s where the missionary fellowship worship service was already in progress. The boys were right in the middle of it all, singing their hearts out to the songs they knew. There were a lot of kids present, especially since one family has nine children. When Eric, a missionary from Ireland, got up to speak he had them all eating out of his hand. He told me later that he was planning on preaching on something totally different but when he got up and saw all the kids looking up at him, he changed his topic entirely. Amazing. And what he spoke on was God saying, “I know you. I have called you by name.” So we started the day and ended the day with God drawing us into relationship and knowing us each personally. What a precious gift.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008
I am now the only person in our family to be malaria-free. Jason is the first one in our family to be officially diagnosed as having malaria. Brendan and Peter had malaria but their malaria tests couldn’t confirm this. Not that this is a badge that Jason wears proudly. He declared, “Mosquitoes are the worstest in the whole world.”

Jason woke us up at 12:30 a.m. (early Monday morning) calling out that he had thrown up in his bed. This was a surprise for all of us as he had been feeling fine the day before. Since his bed was uninhabitable, Jason crawled into bed with us. He proceeded to vomit every 45 minutes or so until morning came. The fever and headache followed so we took him into the clinic. The test came back positive and we got him on medication right away. He continued to throw up anything he ate or drank so we were a bit worried about dehydration. By the afternoon on Tuesday, he was looking and feeling much better. He was able to eat and drink and keep it down. This morning he returned to school with his old energy back. He was quite tired in the afternoon but he seems to be fine again. I think between the prayers, prophylactic, and prescription, the malaria didn’t last long, for which I am very thankful. I am also thankful that we caught the puke in the pail 11 out of 12 times. Just that first one caught us all by surprise but then we became quite proficient at containing it. Whew!

In the evening, we continued with our tradition of inviting the API facilitators over for tea and dessert. One of the facilitators this week is Pascal Kulungu from Congo. He studied in Fresno, CA for several years but our time there did not overlap. It was wonderful to hear about his experience there and the people he connected with. We know so many people in common! Each week we get to meet interesting people from all over Africa. What a treat!