Numbers

There seem to be a lot of important numbers floating around these days! Here are some significant numbers for the Floreen family…

1,187

There are 1,187 cases of covid-19 as of Sunday, March 29th. Only 1 death, and already 31 recovered. We are thankful that the cases here seem to mostly be mild, but we have watched the numbers climb consistently over the last week.

21

The government of SA has mandated a 21-day lockdown for the entire country. We can still get food and medicines, but no jogging or walking your dog or any such activities. We have heard that the military is out assisting local police in keeping people at home, but we have not been out ourselves since the lockdown began at midnight on Thursday.

6

While usually there are just 4 Floreens in our home, we now have 2 Smiths joining us for the lockdown! After multiple flight cancellations, my parents surrendered willingly to a little more time with the grandkids. They had planned to stay three weeks with us, but it looks like it will be at least 6 weeks now. We are enjoying this time with them, and before the stores closed we made sure Mom had a pile of yarn to knit into sweaters and Dad had enough sandpaper and sealant to refinish our sun porch table! So besides card games and board games and school and stories with the kids, we are keeping them plenty busy!

Not all of us are playing around as much as that last paragraph would imply. Matt and I are continuing to counsel via Skype and WhatsApp, and Matt will be preaching live from our living room for Antioch’s evening service tonight. He’s been especially busy with the other church staff setting up things on WhatsApp and the church website and YouTube pages to keep the believers of Antioch Bible Church connected and feasting on God’s Word. You can follow along with our services here: at the Antioch Bible Church website.

34

For fun and fitness, the number 34 is very significant for our family right now. We have decided that during this 21-day lockdown, we will be running a marathon. That’s 2km per day, totally 42.2 km by the end of lockdown. Since we can’t go outside our property, we can only run around our house – 34 times every day. That’s right, 34 laps around our house everyday. Dad is walking it, and the Floreens are all running it. Well, Naomi runs some and walks some with her Papa. 😊 Mom is our statistician, tallying our laps as we all go at different paces. It’s a bit of chaos, but we are all really enjoying it!

Untold Numbers

We are thankful for so many, many blessings we are enjoying these days: grandparents, consistently available food supplies, sweet times in the Word and prayer, and so many opportunities to love and care for others – albeit in new and digital ways! Thank you for your prayers for us during these strange days!

First Visitors

The prize for First Visitors goes to the Vieira family!

Amanda sent me a message on Saturday night to let us know they had decided on the spur of the moment to spend the end of their holiday time in Johannesburg and they would be coming to church with us the next morning! They joined us for church and then for the church picnic, and it was so wonderful to see these friends from Malawi. The girls loved being able to play with Cici again! We are thankful for friends old and new, and so glad we go to spend time with these dear ones again!

First Visitors

The prize for First Visitors goes to the Vieira family!

Amanda sent me a message on Saturday night to let us know they had decided on the spur of the moment to spend the end of their holiday time in Johannesburg and they would be coming to church with us the next morning! They joined us for church and then for the church picnic, and it was so wonderful to see these friends from Malawi. The girls loved being able to play with Cici again! We are thankful for friends old and new, and so glad we go to spend time with these dear ones again!

Construction

While Shelbi was teaching at the conference, the 6 men of the GCC team went to work. On Monday Shelbi, Abigail, Naomi, and I went to check out the progress on the church property.

The guys had been hard at work with surveying equipment, so there were lines all over the ground representing future buildings.

To get a look at the rest of it, Shelbi’s husband, Sean, took us on a tour.

They’ve been charting out and digging septic lines.

Digging the septic pit and leach field, as well as a cistern to collect and store run-off from our heavy Malawi rains.

They’re also making an awning for our current storeroom, which I believe will eventually be the maintenance area. Sean, Edgar, and Christopher are busy, but not too busy to strike a pose for a picture or two!

And they’re just about ready to lay pipes for the septic system. Abi and Omi were giving it a go to see if they were any good at construction. They are significantly better at wearing pink tutus and posing for cute shots than they are at construction, but they had a great time pretending!

It was fun to see progress on the land! I’m sure we have many, many months of construction ahead, but I’m looking forward to the day when both the church and CAPA can move onto this property!

CAPA Wives Conference

One of the blessings of having the GCC team here was the opportunity to have Shelbi Cullen teach the wives of our current and graduated CAPA students. These wives have seen their husbands stretched and grown over the course of their studies, and they wanted to learn too! So we put on a Marriage and Family conference for them.

We had 20 CAPA wives in attendance, and a few missionary wives joined in each session. Shelbi covered an amazing breadth of information as she took the wives through the gospel and the authority of Scripture, and then brought the Word to bear on their daily lives as wives and mothers.

Naomi, whose husband finished the MDiv program in April, did a fantastic job translating for Shelbi. The men at CAPA study in English with all English-speaking professors and classes, but not all of their wives speak English – or at least are not as comfortable in English. If you’ve never heard how teaching works with translation, listen to the clip below as Shelbi shared part of the gospel and Naomi translated for her.

We are thankful for the opportunity to invest in the wives and families of our CAPA students. And as a bonus, we – the missionary wives – were also encouraged and loved on by Shelbi!

I am thankful for this good friend. Her wisdom, faithful teaching, and likemindedness encouraged my heart! As a true friend and true sister, Shelbi draws my mind to the greatness and grace of God. I pray that the Lord would let me do the same for the women in my life!

GCC Team

We have had a construction/conference team with us for the past week! They’re from Grace Community Church in California, our sending church, and include some dear friends. We have been able to host 2 of the team in our home this week, and now have more dear friends! I’ll post more on the conference and construction work soon.

This team has truly been a blessing! I do love the young, eager teams who come to help on the field, but this humble team of 7 has blessed us with a combined total of HUNDREDS of years of ministry and construction experience. Many people think “missionaries are great,” but as a missionary who is very aware of how normal and not-so-great she is, I want you to know that these people right here are some of my heroes. Their faithfulness and humility, wisdom and grace have blessed us time and again. We are so thankful for them, and we get 3 more days with them!

Visitors

Today we were tremendously blessed to have two dear friends come to lunch. George Crawford is an elder at our sending church in California, and Rodney Anderson is the new pastor over missionary care at the same church. We have known these men and their families for 10+ years, so it was so, so good to see them both!

These men blessed us with their encouragement and counsel. I can’t even begin to tell you the importance of having a great, supporting sending church, and today these men embodied that care and support to us. We feel loved and very well cared for!

And so do our girls! What girl (of any age!) doesn’t feel loved and cared for when they are given mounds of chocolate and peanut butter?!?

I even got a little extra love too: a hand-stamped tea towel and sweet note from Glenna and Amy Anderson. (Thank you ladies!!)

We are so thankful for the show of love and support our sending church poured out on us today! These guys will catch up with the rest of the team here, and then head down to our organization’s regional conferences in South Africa on Wednesday. Matt goes with them to those conferences, so keep us girls in your prayers this week!

Loving Team Time

Over the last several weeks we have had the privilege of hosting a team from The Master’s University. We had a fantastic time with them!

They came to do the kids’ program for our church camp, and stayed around to help with lots of admin projects for both the church and the training center. Then they got to experience life in rural Malawi by spending 3 weeks working with Action International in Ntcheu. Sunday night they came back to our place for a little debrief, and Monday afternoon we dropped them off at the airport.

We so enjoyed this team! Dinners were long and full of conversation.

Our evenings were fun as they loved on our girls.

We got to share life with them and enjoyed showing them some of our favorite things about Malawi.

We were very blessed to get to know these college students! We will miss their deep theological conversation, their hilarious antics, and the genuine love they poured out on us. Thank you TMU team, for the blessing you were to our family and to so many others here in Malawi!

Oleander Hawk Moth

Not all our bugs are scary. Some are just beautiful! This morning as Matt and Aaron left to teach at CAPA, Aaron found this beautiful oleander hawk moth (Daphnis nerii).