February 2011

From The Kitchen Table

~ The Desk of Lynne Schaefer ~

“Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Psalm 90:12

February 2010

A Really Interesting Move...

The past 2 months have been spent trying to get the move done. We first had to help Mrs Silungwe whose farm we have moved onto, to move out.  Then we had to fix up the new farm house, and move us, our stuff and all our animals.  We had to catch our chickens at night, while they were half asleep.  The pigs got loaded into the back of the truck, and getting them out into their new sty was very interesting!  The cows are still at the old farm, while we continue to prepare a kraal for them.  They will be walked here.

We have had many challenges, but at least we now have water coming into the house as Grant managed to rig a pump up to the well. The well gives really good clean water.  We need not even boil it for drinking.  It tastes so good!

The house is huge and there is so much space.  We have a guest room and a school room and a laundry room. 

The kitchen has a separate scullery.  The yard is very muddy, we have got stuck a number of times in the driveway.  The road to the farm is a bit of a mud bath, but only a km long.  We are still fixing things and finding a place for everything.   The windows still need to have mosquito screens fitted to them and we still need to find curtains for a few windows.

 

We don’t have a landline, only cell phone.  The cell phone signal is very bad on this new farm.  The best place to get just a low signal is in the kitchen.  So doing email etc is quite a challenge at the moment. The best signal is actually on top of the huge anthill outside the kitchen. Grant says I should change the name of this newsletter from “From the Kitchen Table” to “From the Anthill!”

Why the move to another farm?

 

People have asked why we moved to another farm and not back into town.  The reason is that the farm supplies so many of our needs.  We get almost all our vegetables from our garden; it provides a lot of our meat and other needs.  Our cows provide all our milk, butter and some cheese.  We have a huge strawberry patch (which we have planted here too) that provides jam.  When we first moved to Mbala we had some very tough times where we ran out of food and money.  It was then decided that we should live on a farm where a lot of our needs could be provided for. 

More Snakes

We are grateful to our friends who came to help us paint.  While painting one day, our friend, Mike, spotted two huge Boomslang snakes in the tree just outside the kitchen.  He managed to kill one, but one escaped. They are a very poisonous snake.  Grant also almost stepped on a small Cobra just near where the gate now is.

Praise God For:

· For providing a great new farm for us

· For all the help we received during the move

· For his protection and provision

 

Please Pray for:

·         Us to settle in well

·         For our safety

·         For continual provision for us as a family

·         Grant and I as we really try to tackle learning the language this year

 

 

 

Grant is blogging his daily life as a missionary – A Missionary Diary at the web address: grantschaefer.blogspot.com.

 

Thanks for your encouragement, your prayers and support of our ministry here.

 

God bless.

 

Lynne Schaefer and Family

Grant, Joel, Hope, Charley, Olivia, Luke

PO Box, 420032, Mbala, Zambia