MARCH 2011

From The Kitchen Table

~ The Desk of Lynne Schaefer ~

March 2011

“I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jer 29:11

We are blessed!

It is amazing how one phone call can send you into a spin, create chaos, and doubts.  When our landlord phoned to say he wanted to move back to his farm, we were distraught.  The kids sobbed. But, now a few months later we can see that God had something so much better for us.  The farm that we have moved to is amazing.  We are blessed, and thank the Lord for providing a place far better than what we had before.  It has been a very stressful time, but now we can see God’s hand in the chaos, and are grateful to him for making our plans!

 

Language

Pray for us as we seek to really learn Bemba this year.  We are finding it much easier to learn now that we have been hearing it for so long.  Our ears are tuned to the language, we now just need to get our heads to learn it and our mouths to speak it.  We know the basics, but we want to really make an effort this year so we can be more effective in ministry.

 

Olivia’s Sheep

Little Olivia turned 6 on the 20^th March.  She is the organiser in the family.  She is the one who remembers everything and is like my “memory card”.  She always wanted a lamb, so we organised a pregnant ewe for her from a friend.  “Ma” arrived and we all fell in love with her.  She was such a funny sheep and kept us all entertained as she wondered around the yard.  She gave birth to a cute little lamb which Olivia named “Noodles”.  But, Ma got really sick and we tried everything to keep her alive, but sadly she died.  She was buried with tears and flowers on her grave.  Noodles has been adopted by our other sheep, “Mean Ma”, whose name describes her character!  To be fair, she is not as mean as she was when we got her.

 

Other News

The good news is we found the other “Boomslang” snake that got away. It was huge.  He dropped out of a tree only to meet a huge club swung by our gardener.

 

We are in the process of starting a new veggie garden.  It makes life quite hard not having one, as we rely so much on it for our family’s veggie needs.  So our meals have become even more basic, as we start over here on the new farm.

 

We are blessed to have many great walking paths here on the farm.  So in the afternoons, the kids and I take relaxing walks to de-stress from the day, pick wild flowers and examine fungi and other interesting things we come across as we walk. 

 

We have had a lot of power problems since we moved in.  Our transformer got struck by lightning which left us without power for 9 days.  The first month of being here in the new house, we had about 17 days out of 30 without power.  I am grateful for the little wood stove that we have in our kitchen.

 

Our driveway has also become a 4 x 4 vehicles only driveway, as cars continue to get stuck! It has got so bad and any attempt we make to fix it just makes it worse.  With the rains coming to an end, it has dried up a lot, so we look forward to the dry season where we will try to mend it in time for the next rainy season.

 

Praise God For:  

• For providing a great new farm for us

• For His love for us that he provides beyond our expectations

• For his provision during a very costly move

• For his protection

• For all of you who continually pray for us and support us

Please Pray for:

·         His protection from snakes and other creepy crawlies

·         For our financial needs, as the cost of living continues to increase

·         For wisdom for Grant as he continues to minister to folks

·         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

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

December 2010

From The Kitchen Table

~ The Desk of Lynne Schaefer ~

December 2010

“Christmas – When God gave us Jesus!!”  

 

Dear Family and Friends

 

We’re Moving...

Those of you who have visited us know that we are very settled here on our farm.  So, it came as a shock to all of us when our landlord phoned us and said he wishes to move back on the farm – giving us 3 months to move.  Moving a house is hard, but moving a farm, well, that is a bit of a challenge.

 

Part of the shock was that Grant had spoken to our landlord before we started to build our guest house, and he told us that he never plans to move back on the farm.  Basically, telling us we can stay on here long term.   We know that God must be in it all, so we got over the shock, and we found another farm to move to only a few days after we heard we had to move.  It is only a few kilometres from this farm. It is much bigger and has a well, and the house has enough space for us to have a guest room. We will move in the middle of February, cows, pigs, chickens, ducks, rabbits, kids and all!

I just want to ride!!

Grant has had a really busy year of ministry.  He felt the need to get some spiritual input for himself.  He needed to refresh himself after a busy year of ministry.  He travelled on his motorbike to Fiwale where he was the guest speaker at a graduation service. Then he rode on to Lusaka and flew to the REAP conference in South Africa where he was able to sit under some excellent teaching and get spiritually refreshed.  Travelling on his motorbike was also a time for him to relax and have some much needed time-out and away.

 

Power Problems          

Every time the rainy season begins it brings electrical black-outs.  Since the rain started, the power has been terrible.  It has gone for days at a time.  While Grant was away, it went for 4 days.  Grant is the one who makes sure that the generator works to keeps the fridge and freezer cold for a few hours at a time.  Whenever Grant goes away, things go wrong.  But, as Joel has got older, he has developed into a Mr. Fix-it himself.  And has proved to be a very capable substitute for when Grant is out.  He fixed my car, fixed the generator, lit the wood stove, and made sure that any problems got solved.  He is only 13, but I am so thankful to the Lord for giving me a son who is a very capable and hard working.  He never complains about all the extra work loaded onto him.  

 

Merry Christmas

We pray you have a wonderful Christmas, remembering what Christ’s birth means to us.  We pray you have a joyous time with family and friends celebrating His birth.

 

Praise God For:

·         For Grant’s safe travels.

·         For providing another farm for us to move

·         For his protection daily

Please Pray for:

·         Us as we prepare to move

·         For us to continue to be a witness her in Mbala

·         For continual provision for us as a family

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

October 2010

From The Kitchen Table

~ The Desk of Lynne Schaefer ~

October 2010

“Do not worry about your life...” Matthew 6:25

Dear Family and Friends

Funerals!

One of the most important events in the Zambian culture is a funeral.  We have attended many in the years that we have been here.  But, the last month we had to organise one. Sadly, we had to bury the old white man Chris.  He had been part of our lives for many years, and died on September.  He had no family that he knew of, lived alone on a farm here in Mbala and Grant was basically “his family”.  For years Grant looked after his needs and we had a trustworthy young man live with him to care for him the past year.  He went blind, lame, and was very ill at the end.  His wish was to die on the farm and be buried there.  He got his wish.

A few days later, one of the chiefs died in a village where Grant does ministry and Grant was asked to preach at the funeral.  It was a huge cultural eye opener, with many traditional practices taking place at the burial.

Zanzibar

With the past year being rather hectic, and with all the responsibilities that I try to keep track of, I came to the point where I really needed a break as a mom.  My good friend Renate and I had the opportunity to go by train to Dar es Salam and then on to Zanzibar for a few days.  We had an amazing time, meeting wonderful people and just reading, relaxing and site seeing gave me energy to continue to be here, school the kids and be a hostess to many, many people passing through our home.  It was a break I really needed and thank the Lord for providing it.

.

On the Home Front...

Grant has been very busy with various ministry opportunities.  He has preached many Sundays at our local Baptist church, shown the Jesus film in the village, taught at seminars and continued with his evening classes.  He is also training to run an Ultra-marathon with our missionary friend, Steve.  They run early in the morning, trying to fit it into their busy day.

The children are all well.  School is going great, but difficult to do in this incredible October heat.  Here in Zambia, October is known as suicide month, because it gets really hot from early morning!  It becomes difficult to achieve anything!

We have started to build our guest house where we will be able to accommodate all our visitors. We have started to pour the foundations.  We still have not finished the house painting – but really hope to do so....sometime soon! 

We thank the Lord that I was able to sell some vegetables from our garden today, to help with the many financial needs we have.  We are grateful to the Lord for always supplying our needs and more.  We have fresh organic veggies, milk, eggs and meat just from the farm.  Our children are happy and have a life that they enjoy.  We have lots to be thankful for. 

Praise God For:

· Good health

· For the various ministry opportunities Grant has had the past months.

· For my R & R trip to Zanzibar

· For his protection daily

Please Pray for:

· Our financial needs

· Protection against sickness

· Grant’s  students

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

See more great pictures at grantandlynneschaefer.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

July 2010

From The Kitchen Table

~ The Desk of Lynne Schaefer ~

July 2010

“So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the Glory of God.”

1 Corinthians 10:31

Dear Family and Friends

They Came, They Played, And They Painted!

For nearly two weeks we hosted an amazing team from Hilton Baptist. Five amazing people filled our home with laughter and joy as they sanded and painted our rather dilapidated house. It was hard work, and there were some rather funny paint “incidents”. They ran a 5 day Bible club at the Luse Orphanage; the children were so blessed to have them. Our children had so much fun accompanying them to the orphanage and playing with the team in our yard. These were 5 very gifted people, with hearts that serve the Lord in all that they do.

 

The Early Birds Show the Soccer

The World Cup did not go by unnoticed in Mbala. Grant and our missionary friend Steve teamed up and decided to show the soccer World Cup evening games on 2 big screens for the local Zambian folks. Few people have TV’s and would miss the games. Zambians love soccer so they decided to show every evening game in the location area where most folks live. The only down-side being, that both Grant and Steve are very early nighters and get up very early to run together  and get other chores done. But, they did it and survived a month of late nights and it was very much appreciated by the locals. They used the 15 minute half time as an outreach, where various people preached a short message or gave their testimony. On average there were about 300 -500 people watching and hearing the testimonies.

The Lodge...

A couple days after the team left, we got a desperate phone call from our friend Rone who runs the Lodge on Lake Tanganyika. She had to rush to South Africa with her husband, Sean, as her mother was very, very sick. Sean also needed some urgent medical attention. They asked if we would be able to run the lodge while they are away. It is a very busy time at the lodge with many guests. The children and I are busy running things for her while Grant continues with ministry in Mbala. We brought all our school books and are enjoying a different perspective to our usual Mbala life.

Praise God For:

· The work done by the team from Hilton Baptist, and for their safe travel

· For the Bible messages and prayer given by the team at the orphanage

· For the World Cup Soccer outreach

· For his protection daily

Please Pray for:

· The Bible school grant is running this week on the college land

· For our continued protection as a family

· For the Lord to continue to provide for the Luse Orphanage

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

See more great pictures at grantandlynneschaefer.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

 

 

From The Kitchen Table May

From The Kitchen Table

~ The Desk of Lynne Schaefer ~

May 2010

“Whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two.” Matthew 5:41      

Dear Family and Friends

Twazwane

A couple of weeks ago I was able to deliver a load of goods to the Luse Orphanage from the community of Mbala through the Twazwane project. We have initiated the project to try and involve the community in the orphanages. Too often they are supported by well meaning folks overseas, but too often those well meaning folks withdraw their support leaving vulnerable, hungry children who have been dependent on their support. This is exactly what has happened to Luse Orphanage. Now the orphanage has no food or means to support the children. Through Twazwane, business men and individuals can give to the orphanage knowing that what they give is definitely going to the children. It is Zambian tradition that the community look after children in their community. That everyone is responsible for the children not just the parents. It is on this tradition that we feel the community is also responsible for the orphans, not just well meaning foreigners.

Snake Skinning Boys

We got home from a really great lunch at our missionary friends the Schwarz’s house, only to find the man who looks after our cows had killed a huge Puff Adder just by our pig sty. We had two extra boys, Tobias and Matthew who are both very good friends of Joel. Tobias had just got his first pocket knife ever for his Birthday. The boys were all very interested in the snake, but I was rather upset about it. The kids are often out by the pig sty and this was a huge, dangerous snake. I recalled a friend who grew up on the mission field telling us one day how his mother made him and his brother get to know snakes well, because they were always out catching them etc. She made them read a lot about them, and get to know the different kinds. I thought what a better way for these 3 boys to get some snake experience than to skin it and see its fangs, insides and so on. I gave them the challenge and in a short while they had the snaked skinned with their pocket knives, researched how to cure the skin, and had it curing in a jar!

Flat Out!

A really strange looking mosquito bit me at a friend’s place out by her gate one afternoon. Exactly 10 days later I came down with a really bad dose of malaria, and was literally knocked flat by it. I shivered and shook for a few days and when I was feeling better I went outside and tripped and sprained my ankle. We thought it was broken from the loud cracking sound it made. But, we thankfully discovered it was not after having to drive 160km to the nearest working x-ray machine.

The Team

A team of 5 will be coming this month from the Hilton Baptist Church in Natal, South Africa. They will be going to the Luse Orphanage to play games and do various activities, and to encourage the staff there. They are also giving us a tremendous gift – they will be painting the inside of our house! They are bringing the paint and supplies. Our house is in a serious need of a paint – with the ceiling paint falling off, the mud walls showing through etc. Please pray for them as they prepare for the trip up, they will be driving.

We also praise God for a donation from a church in SA for us to be able to purchase ministry materials, to be able to finish fixing the boat, and to be able to build a small guest house here to accommodate all our visitors.

Missionary Diary:   Grant has started a blog diary. He will be recording the events of his days and his ministry, you can check it out at: grantschaefer.blogspot.com

Praise God For:

· The donations for the guesthouse, boat and materials

· For my recovery

· For the team that is coming

· For His protection daily

Please Pray for:

· The Team to travel safely

· For our continued protection as a family

· For the Twazwane project to really take off and the community to take full responsibility of the orphanages

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