Newsletter (November 11, 2010)

Dear all, It has been a very hectic two weeks for us. Our visitor has gone back to America and we do miss him. He has been a great help to us, always encouraging and whenever we needed to know something we had only to ask and he would help. With all his experience in Africa he had many stories to tell.

This week we have a couple from Canada and they came to visit TCCA with a view of serving here long term. We are very pleased to meet and talk to them and we hope they will decide to come. It is not easy for a family of six to come here to serve. The cost involved will be high and they will need to receive lots of support from churches. Many Christians in America think it is cheap to live in Africa. It is a very big misinformation. Although wages are low here (that’s where the misconception comes in) living standards are not, especially in the urban areas. Please pray for them and also pray that God will guide them here to serve in our midst.

The Zesco people have done something and our low voltage problem has improved a lot. They said they will still be coming to replace one part of the cable (about 2–3m). Hopefully they will come soon, but we are not very sure as the rainy season has started and there will be many faults and these are more urgent than our problem. Talking about rain, we finally had some rain and thunderstorms and the rainy season has now begun.

We have mentioned before but today we have just been reminded that death is very real here. When people pray, “Lord, thank you for giving us life today”, it carries a very special meaning to them, as life is something not to be taken for granted. We heard a lot of wailing from the house just next to the library behind the wall fence. People straightaway know someone has died. During tea break we came to learn that one of the daughters of the family has died in Lusaka, presumably drowned in the swimming pool of the house where she stayed. She was studying in Lusaka and the term has finished and she was about to return home tomorrow. It must be devastating for the family to hear the news, to have a young one die in such tragic circumstances. Later we also heard that the father of one our students just died. Several weeks ago, we heard that he was not well, but then later he seems to be better, and finally today we heard that he has passed away. We also forgot to mention that our neighbour lost two family members within a month in July/August, first the father and then one of his sons. So we have to be thankful for the days that God gives us, as we don’t know when he will call us back.

We do have some lizards living in our garden. They normally reside in the holes in some of the tree trunks. They have a very bright blue head, so we always call them blue-head lizards. They are particularly active in the rainy season and today we just saw a very big and very bright blue one. The colours are very beautiful. We should take a photo of it. Certain tribes in Zambia treat them as a delicacy! With Christian love.

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