We are very grateful for your prayers for Nelrie and are happy to inform you that she seems now to be making a recovery from the severe bout of malaria. Originally she became sick on Sunday evening, a week ago (the 17th). Her parents administered malaria medication but her condition gradually worsened until they were very concerned about her. Although the fever and vomiting had subsided for the most part, she was extremely weak, refusing to eat or drink, very confused and unresponsive (delirious at times) and sometimes not even recognizing her parents. By Wednesday they realized that they would need to take her to hospital, so her father took her to Katete (1 hour away) where she still tested positive for malaria, showing that the previous treatment had not been effective. She was given different medication but not admitted, as the hospital staff told her father that he would be able to give her better care and an environment more conducive to care than they could. They spent the night with friends in Katete and returned home on Thursday, but Nelrie was still extremely weak and confused and they watched her carefully. During this time they had to feed her and give her drink using a syringe. By Saturday she had gotten up once or twice and walked outside to see what her brother was doing, but mostly just slept and was too weak to do anything else. Now there has been immense improvement and she is no longer confused or refusing food and drink. The malaria is gone, but please continue to pray for her full recovery. Nelrie, who is 5 years old (sorry I mistakenly informed you that she was 6) has lost at least 3 kgs (over 6 lbs) during this illness and now only weighs 2-3 kgs more than her 1-year-old sister. She is very weakened by this illness and it will be a while before she is back to normal.
Please also continue to pray for the rest of us here, that no one else would succumb to malaria or any other illness. We need your prayers for the Lord's protection.
Monday, 25 April 2011
Thursday, 21 April 2011
Welcome to our home - PHOTOS!
As you face the house, we have not one, but THREE entrances! On the left is the door to the toilet, shower, and laundry area. In the middle is our main front door, leading into our living area, kitchen, and bedroom. On the right is the door to the spare bedroom.
This is the back of the house, which faces the College. On the left are the spare bedroom windows – three of them. In the middle is our bedroom window, and the kitchen window. On the right is the window over the toilet (and our hot water heater).
This is the front of the house, looking into our enclosure. The fence was constructed to give us a bit of privacy because the main path to the village used to run directly in front of our front door. Now the villagers walk behind our house but they can still see into our windows! As you can see we have a couple nice shade trees on this side of our fence.
This is our laundry area and shower. Here you get the first glimpse of my twin-tub washing machine, which you have already been introduced to. As you can see, the shower is not enclosed so when we had a house guest (Rev. Macdonald from Ness) we had to rig up a sheet over the doorway to provide privacy and “signal” that the shower was in use. We always communicated very carefully about planned shower times! :)
The view out the bathroom door. The bicycle belongs to Asnet, the wife of Samuel who is one of our farm workers. Asnet helps me clean house once a week.
My washing machine!
The view from the front door. Kitchen and bedroom straight ahead, couch to the left.
My tiny gas cooker with 2 burners, and tiny oven. And wonderful fridge!!
My kitchen.
The view of our living area from the kitchen, looking towards the door to the spare bedroom. The front door is to the right of the photo.
The other side of our living area.
Our bedroom. Since this photo was taken we swapped the beds around so that ours is on the left and Elijah's is on the right, to accommodate a bigger mosquito net which encloses both the beds.We each have a trunk for our clothing and shoes (to keep the scorpions and other creepy crawlies out.)
Thanks for stopping by. :)
Wednesday, 20 April 2011
prayer request
Please pray for our colleague's 6-year-old daughter, Nelrie. She has been taken to the hospital in Katete (an hour away) tonight because she is not recovering from malaria. Please pray that her tiny body would be strengthened and that she would regain her appetite - she has been refusing to eat and drink - and that she will receive good care at the hospital.
This has been a VERY bad year for malaria. So many people have fallen ill - many of the students and staff here at the College have been sick. The rainy season (the worse time of year for malaria mosquitoes) has passed, but people are continuing to get sick. Please pray that no one else would get sick!
This has been a VERY bad year for malaria. So many people have fallen ill - many of the students and staff here at the College have been sick. The rainy season (the worse time of year for malaria mosquitoes) has passed, but people are continuing to get sick. Please pray that no one else would get sick!
Friday, 15 April 2011
life
Tonight, as David and I are sitting at the dining table playing a game together, we can hear village drums beating, not too far away. Living out here in the bush (fully recognizing that we are definitely not as far out in the bush as we could be!) the nights are full of what I would associate as "summer" noises. Crickets chirping, frogs croaking, a breeze in the trees. We are an 8-minute drive away from the nearest paved road, so there are no traffic noises, which is lovely. At night you can see hundreds of stars and constellations so clearly. Unfortunately we don't spend any time star-gazing because of the mosquitos!
It has gotten noticeably cooler at night now, almost too cold to be comfortable without a light sweater. The temperature changed drastically within the course of only one or two nights. I went digging through our clothing to find a couple of long-sleeved items, and was shocked to discover that I apparently didn't bring any for myself. Everything seems to have been left in our boxes. Discoveries like these (we've had a few) are pretty frustrating because we tried to pack so carefully! But when you're moving you can't keep track of everything no matter how hard you try. Pajamas are the only long-sleeved things Elijah has here. Thankfully during the day it still gets quite warm and the sun can be really intense, so he doesn't need anything long-sleeved except for sleeping.
The rainy season is over and already the grass is turning brown and the vegetation is dying. Within the next couple of months people will start burning the grass, to prevent raging wildfires which are a real problem later in the year (during the very hot months). Very soon the harvest will be brought in, as soon as it has time to finish drying.
I haven't been very successful at updating this blog very frequently. Sometimes I sit down to write a post and just can't find the words. It is hard to write about daily life because daily life (believe it or not, even in Africa) isn't always very exciting and it is hard to imagine it being post-worthy. :) Most of my time is spent doing the same things -- washing laundry, washing dishes, shopping, cooking meals, cleaning the house, and of course occupying Elijah. I am working on writing up a couple of posts about cultural things which have struck me recently, but that takes a lot of brain power, discretion, and prayer because I want to write about these things with sensitivity. I hope to post them soon, though.
There are many things to be thankful for. We received David's work permit on the 31st of March, which is good for two years and means that we are now legal residents of Zambia! This means that we can now arrange to have the rest of our belongings brought into the country. We were happy to receive notification that our boxes have been released for shipment from Glasgow and they are expected to reach Lusaka on the 19th of this month, so we should have them here at Covenant College at the end of this month!
The Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Covenant College Zambia Trust met from 31st March - 2nd April. The Trustees arrived at the College from near and far. We have local Trustees (from Petauke, from Eastern Province, and from Lusaka) as well as Trustees from South Africa, Scotland, England, America, etc representing the various denominations which support the ministries here. It was a busy weekend full of meetings from early in the morning until late at night, but we were all blessed by the spirit of unity and graciousness that prevailed. It was a pleasure to host our own Rev. MacDonald from Ness, Isle of Lewis in our home for several days. We enjoyed much warm, edifying fellowship around our table with him as well as others. Somehow when you are so far from family and friends, these visitors and times of fellowship become even more precious.
David had the opportunity to post some photos on Facebook the other day, which I hope many of you have enjoyed looking at. One of these days I do still hope to post a few on this blog, especially for those of you who may not use Facebook!
There are only 3 weeks left in this term, and then we will be saying goodbye to our students for a couple of months. They will travel to their homes to bring in the harvest and care for their families and congregations, and we will be kept busy here at the College with several conferences, travels, logistics, and preparing for the next term.
It has gotten noticeably cooler at night now, almost too cold to be comfortable without a light sweater. The temperature changed drastically within the course of only one or two nights. I went digging through our clothing to find a couple of long-sleeved items, and was shocked to discover that I apparently didn't bring any for myself. Everything seems to have been left in our boxes. Discoveries like these (we've had a few) are pretty frustrating because we tried to pack so carefully! But when you're moving you can't keep track of everything no matter how hard you try. Pajamas are the only long-sleeved things Elijah has here. Thankfully during the day it still gets quite warm and the sun can be really intense, so he doesn't need anything long-sleeved except for sleeping.
The rainy season is over and already the grass is turning brown and the vegetation is dying. Within the next couple of months people will start burning the grass, to prevent raging wildfires which are a real problem later in the year (during the very hot months). Very soon the harvest will be brought in, as soon as it has time to finish drying.
I haven't been very successful at updating this blog very frequently. Sometimes I sit down to write a post and just can't find the words. It is hard to write about daily life because daily life (believe it or not, even in Africa) isn't always very exciting and it is hard to imagine it being post-worthy. :) Most of my time is spent doing the same things -- washing laundry, washing dishes, shopping, cooking meals, cleaning the house, and of course occupying Elijah. I am working on writing up a couple of posts about cultural things which have struck me recently, but that takes a lot of brain power, discretion, and prayer because I want to write about these things with sensitivity. I hope to post them soon, though.
There are many things to be thankful for. We received David's work permit on the 31st of March, which is good for two years and means that we are now legal residents of Zambia! This means that we can now arrange to have the rest of our belongings brought into the country. We were happy to receive notification that our boxes have been released for shipment from Glasgow and they are expected to reach Lusaka on the 19th of this month, so we should have them here at Covenant College at the end of this month!
The Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Covenant College Zambia Trust met from 31st March - 2nd April. The Trustees arrived at the College from near and far. We have local Trustees (from Petauke, from Eastern Province, and from Lusaka) as well as Trustees from South Africa, Scotland, England, America, etc representing the various denominations which support the ministries here. It was a busy weekend full of meetings from early in the morning until late at night, but we were all blessed by the spirit of unity and graciousness that prevailed. It was a pleasure to host our own Rev. MacDonald from Ness, Isle of Lewis in our home for several days. We enjoyed much warm, edifying fellowship around our table with him as well as others. Somehow when you are so far from family and friends, these visitors and times of fellowship become even more precious.
David had the opportunity to post some photos on Facebook the other day, which I hope many of you have enjoyed looking at. One of these days I do still hope to post a few on this blog, especially for those of you who may not use Facebook!
There are only 3 weeks left in this term, and then we will be saying goodbye to our students for a couple of months. They will travel to their homes to bring in the harvest and care for their families and congregations, and we will be kept busy here at the College with several conferences, travels, logistics, and preparing for the next term.
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