Follow-up

We have received a few comments from our last blog post. Some have been concerned about how we are doing. We have appreciated your concern, but also hope to bring clarity to the post.

As I read a book on cross-cultural ministry this afternoon, the following quote explained a lot of things:
"...We must enter a new community of strangers, often without many if not most of the comforts and symbols of home, and begin as children, learning at the feet of those we have gone to serve. We must be willing to become world Christians. The challenges will shape us; the changes will trouble us. Our bodies will get sick, our minds will suffer fatigue, our emotions will sweep us from ecstasy to depression. Yet the LOVE of CHRIST will sustain us so that we can identify with Paul, who said, "I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings (ICor. 9:22-23)."--Lingenfelter, Ministering Cross-Culturally, p.25.

I had hoped to invite you all into the difficult side of our work. It is easy for us to post only good, funny, and entertaining things. I fear though to do this would idealize this kind of work. And the reality is that we knew moving here would beat us up and leave us discouraged. But we also know that we serve a faithful God who WILL sustain us through the love of Christ and the Holy Spirit. We may FEEL like we want to give up, but we won't, because "faith is believing in what we cannot see." And we believe there is more going on that we can see each day that we live here.

We enjoy our time here and know it is a gift to live in Chipata, Zambia. We do not sit around depressed, instead we are giving our difficulties over to the Lord and striving to live with HOPE. Our desire in the last blog was to cast another view on what it means to believe in redemption and to believe in it when it looks like the odds are against you.

On another note: We have received a few questions about how Zambia is being affected during the current "economic crisis." Kyle found the article below felt it provided a good summary for Zambia. So if you are interested, check it out.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7920945.stm

Hope this encourages you and helps you to better understand our experiences.