Central Africa Baptist College graduation 2009

This past Friday, we were able to praise the Lord as 10 men graduated from CABC, our first graduating class. Nine of them received BA's in Bible and one received a certificate in Bible. Each of the men were presented with a towel with "Be great. Serve" embroidered on it to remind them that they have been trained to serve. Another interested Zambian aspect is that after each graduate is given his degree case and hooded he is greeted by family members, friends, etc who congregate at the front of the auditorium. This extends the time of the service, but with only 10 men, it was manageable. It was nice for the families to share in their graduate's accomplishments.

The faculty (minus some part-time) have poured their lives into these men. Three of the men have or are currently pastoring churches. Four of the men are from Kenya. Four of the men are married with families. The past few years have not been easy, but God has blessed them for their hard work and perseverance. Pray with us as the graduates go out to serve the Lord.

The church auditorium was packed as people continued to filter in well into the service. There were probably 300+ people at the graduation service. Following the service, everyone filed out and greeted all the graduates. That took a LONG time! Thankfully, the rain held off during that process.

Ladies Bible Study Dinner

Sophie enjoyed an evening out with some of the other ladies from Faith Baptist Church - Riverside. This special dinner marked the close of our Bible study for the year. We had fun playing some games and getting to know each other better. Of course, we also enjoyed some delicious food! It is always a blessing to fellowship and learn God's Word with Christian friends.

Thanksgiving 2009

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with missionary friends and plenty of good food.

Joshua and Caleb with a couple of their friends.

Becky with two of her friends.

After eating, we sangs a few hymns of thanksgiving, shared praises and read some verses reminding us to be thankful and give our praises to God. We also played some games and just had a great time fellowshipping.

Garden continued

The garden is doing well! We are grateful that God allowed us to have a yard with a garden. Thanks to the regular rains, we do not have to water it much now. That helps with the water bill! We still hope to buy some maize (corn) seeds and some regular tomatoes, but what is planted is growing fast.

The small corner that the children planted is starting to produce yellow squash and there are a few blossoms on the cherry tomato plants. We picked two of the yellow squash today.

The rest of the garden is as follows: At the bottom of the picture (in front of Joshua) are the cucumbers. We are looking forward to pickles! Yikes! I need to start on them this week! Behind Joshua are the cherry tomato plants. There are some blossoms and a few tiny tomatoes. If all those plants produce like cherry tomato plants normally do, we will have LOTS! I think I will be sending the kids out to the garden to pick their own snacks. On the other side of the garden (in front of Becky) are the squash plants. I'm pretty sure all of these are zucchini. We have picked and eaten some of these already. If you find zucchini on your doorstep, well... Beside Caleb is the lettuce. It is starting to form heads. We are looking forward to lots of healthy eating!

Garden

I'm not sure why the format of this is not cooperating. Sorry if it is difficult to decipher.

We finally have our garden started! Let me walk you through the process.

There was already an established garden plot from the previous tenants at the house. But it had to be dug up. Joshua and Caleb (mostly Caleb) enjoyed using Zambian hoes to help with this job.

Becky even got in on the action. Our yard worker, Ba Charles, actually did most of the work. He is very good with letting the kids "help" him. He has 6 children of his own.

John was able to get fence posts and buy chain link fencing to enclose the garden area. In the foreground are the two main reasons for the fence. The dogs are avid diggers and we don't want all our vegetables uprooted.

So far, we have cucumbers, zucchini, yellow squash, lettuce and cherry tomatoes planted. The children have a corner of the garden for them to tend.

Today, they each planted a cherry tomato plant in their plot. They will greatly enjoy eating the results of their labors.

Trip to Northern Province of Zambia

John was able to go along with missionary teammates Steve Hafler and Todd Beaman to see the Nothern Province of Zambia. This was a survey trip as they also took two of the college students who have been praying about ministering in this area of Zambia.

This is a short video about our trip.

A rough road

Group at Lake Tanganika

Hot Supper - it was 100F +

Our nights accomodations

Handing out tracks

I think Harold visited our yard with his purple crayon

While the dryness of the season causes grass and many plants to turn brown unless watered, the Zambian landscape is not devoid of color. It is during this time of year that the jacaranda trees erupt with their lavendar blossoms, the plumerias adorn their bare branches with beautiful and fragrant flowers, and numerous other trees are covered with blooms.

We are very fortunate to have mature trees in our yard. Two huge jacaranda trees shade a good part of our front yard.

On breezy days, more than dust is flying in the air now. The ground under the trees is a carpet of purple.