We Got Wheels!

by Rachel

Not so long ago, and not so far away, we had a gold Toyota Fortuner.

It was a great car. It was big and safe, it could hold 7 people, it had traction control so could do muddy roads, and it had a great manual transmission with some serious get-up-and-go. It was, for our family, the perfect African vehicle.

We were sad to sell it, but the Lord had good plans for it. A pastor friend wanted to buy it, and a church in the States that knows both him and our family helped us all out by making sure that the pastor could get the car and that we could sell it before we left Malawi. Win-win, everyone is happy! Just a little sadness at leaving behind such a great car…

Fast-forward a couple months, and look at what we got:

A silver Toyota Fortuner! It’s one year newer than our Malawi version and it’s silver, but otherwise it’s exactly the same car! Same interior, same 7 seats, same traction control, same perfect-for-our-family African vehicle.

And similar to the Malawi side of the story, the Lord had good plans on this side as well. This Fortuner belonged to a family who are emigrating to New Zealand on Sunday, and the Lord not only provided us with a car, but also provided a way for this family to sell their vehicle before they move!

One funny difference between Fortuners in Malawi and Fortuners in South Africa is how the name is pronounced. In Malawi it is pronounced FORTUNE-er. Here in South Africa many people say for-TUNE-er. For the life of me, I can’t help but hear “I went fishin today an caught me for-TUNE-er fish!” 🤣

Tears of a TCK

by Rachel

“Mom, moving is too hard for me!” she says through sobs and tears, late into a night of jet lag. I know, my girl, it’s hard for me too.

“Mom, we can go ICE SKATING any time we want to!” I know, my girl, isn’t that great?

“I don’t think I can be fancy like the people here.” I know, my girl, me neither.

“This place is so beautiful!” I know, my girl, it’s amazing!

“I just want to go home, but we don’t have a home.” I know, my girl, I want a home too.

Raising a third-culture kid (TCK) is wonderfully difficult. And yet, aren’t we all to some degree TCKs? We live here, somewhere in this world, but it is not our home – not truly the home of anyone who has had their heart captured by heaven and the sweet Savior who is preparing such a true home for us. I pray for my girls as they experience all these transitions early in life that it will be one of the things that draws their hearts in faith to the Savior and his heavenly home.

For more thoughts on TCKs, I highly recommend a blog post by my dear friend Lisa La George. And yes, I’m pretty sure some of her examples are taken right out of the experiences of our last couple months!

Antioch Bible Church

by Rachel

Here’s the why of Johannesburg:

This church, Antioch Bible Church. We are so excited to be a part of this thriving, loving church where Christ is faithfully preached multiple times a week. Matt gets to be on staff here, to spend his days loving the body of Christ in tangible and intangible ways through discipleship and counseling, providing support and structure to some of the ministries, and being spurred on to spiritual and ministry growth by the rest of the pastoral staff.

We have only just begun – as of today we’ve been here for two weeks! – but we are looking forward to years of ministry, fellowship, and friendship within this church. As we look at houses to rent now, we think about how many church people can come for dinner, how many guest speakers can we host overnight, how long will it take to drive to the church on a weekday, on a Sunday…

We love the church, wherever it is in the world. And right now, this is the church family we get to think about, get to know, and get to love!

Winter

by Rachel

We are having a cold spell here in the Southern Hemisphere. I’m from Kansas originally, so I know cold, but the last 10 years in the tropics have really thinned my blood. It’s cold, and I’m looking forward to Tuesday!

We had to do a little shopping to stop the shivering… jeans, socks, sweatshirts, and leopard pajamas.

Yes, leopard pajamas. We have a couple of cool cats now!

The House Search

by Rachel

House hunting is hard!

We are still looking, but hope to find a great new home by the end of the week. Please pray with us for a house for our family to make a home in, a place where we could welcome many church friends and family!

First Things

by Rachel

As the jet lag lifts, we are starting to explore our new home: Johannesburg! Here are some highlights from our first few days.

We started setting up our new life right away: phones, banks, cars, houses… there’s a lot to organize in the first few days! We were told that setting up a bank account could take days – and the right connections – but First National Bank came through right away! Yay FNB!

Getting phones and banks organized the first day wore us all out, so we slept well that first night. Naomi gets the Sleeping Beauty prize – we’ve had to wake her up each morning so far. Jet lag’s got nothing on this girl!

It hasn’t been all work though. The girls and I got to run around with our hosts, the Russells, yesterday, to tennis lessons, a shopping centre, ballet class, and a library! A library! Living in a big city might not be so bad! 😉

Lots of new things, but also some good old friends! It wouldn’t be our first choice to see Kellen and Becca in a hospital, but we were SO excited to see these dear friends from Malawi, to catch up with them and to pray with them as they trust the Lord day by day. Please be praying for Kellen as the doctors and his body fight against East African sleeping sickness.

In the last couple months we went from autumn weather in Malawi, to summer weather in California, to now the dead of winter in South Africa. It’s cold here!!! It’s 65 degrees now, but it got down to 42 last night! We are definitely not in the tropics now! But we are starting to figure out how to live here.

Moving

by Rachel

If you haven’t kept up on our newsletters lately, you really should catch up!

We are moving to South Africa! Like, right now! We checked in at LAX, and flying to SA over the next couple days. 😏

While we fly, you can catch up with us here:

March 2019 Newsletter

May 2019 Newsletter

June 2019 Newsletter

23 July: Haha! We’re upside down! Well, that is how it feels moving your family from one country to another, changing 10 time zones… so I’ll leave it! 

America 2018 :: Week 2

by Rachel

Week #2 started with a trip to the optometrist. We were all (over)due to get our eyes checked. Results: Abigail gets glasses! It’s a very slight prescription, but with as much reading as she does we thought it might help prevent some eye strain.

Abi also got a referral to an ophthalmologist! There were a few little spots on one of her retina, so we found a pediatric retinal specialist in North Hollywood.

The Dr was fantastic, and this was such an interesting visit!

We got to see her optic nerve, the center of her vision, and the 3 little spots on her retina. They are little “chirpies,” basically little freckles or scars on the retina. The Dr asked if she had been poked in the eye lately, and we remembered that someone had thrown a stick in her eye about 6 months ago. “Yep, that would do it!” he said. I’m so thankful for the Lord’s protection of Abigail’s eye. Chirpies are generally harmless, but we’ll see the Dr again next time we come to the States just to make sure there has been no change.

The rest of the week was busy with meetings and dinners with friends and supporters. Every once in a while we had an hour or so as a family, whether at home or on the road between meetings, so we tried to maximize those times. A kite tossed in the back of the car can be lots of last minute fun for our family!

Another family event of the week was Abigail’s lost tooth! She woke up one morning and came out with a tooth in her hand, “Look what came out in the night, Mom!” Biting has gotten more difficult, and she has two more loose teeth, so she may be on a smoothie diet before long!

A highlight of Week 2 was the Malawi Market! We decorated a room at church with chitinji fabric, put up lots of pictures about life in Malawi, and opened a little “market” as a way to share Malawi with many friends who have not been able to visit us in Malawi. Matt got to share about the ministry in Malawi…

We got to see and catch up with lots of friends!…

And everyone got to do a little bartering for some Malawian nicknacks.

We had a fantastic time catching up with lots of friends on Week 2! We are so thankful for these special days with friends!

America 2018 :: Week 1

by Rachel

We made it to America! It doesn’t matter how you cut it, it’s a very long trip from Lilongwe to LA. But everyone was in good spirits, and we enjoyed one another’s company for the entire 35 hours of travel time! That might be a first!

If you’ve talked with us about travel any time in the last couple years, you’ve probably heard about our short trip to the States in 2016 when we discovered Naomi’s propensity to get air sick. This time we kept a rigid schedule of Dramamine (which is hard to do when crossing time zones!) and supplemented with Zofran a couple times. We made it all the way to LA without incident – whew!

Once in LA, welcome jet lag! It was, um, very exciting. For some of us.

She could hold out for a while, adamantly refuse to sleep for rest time, and then be asleep within 2 minutes of opening a book!

Naomi wasn’t the only one who slept quite a bit the first week: Matt spent a lot of hours in bed this week too. The poor guy came down with a ferocious cold and cough on our second day in the States. He lost his voice on Tuesday evening, and didn’t really get it back until Sunday! If the cold wasn’t enough reason, the lack of a voice forced us to cancel almost everything on the schedule for the first week. Even in the moment we realized that we, Matt especially, were really tired and we needed the extra days of forced rest. So we took it slow and enjoyed the quieter days.

Meanwhile, the girls found the drinking fountains! Grace Community Church has a number of drinking fountains, and since we are in the missionary house right next door, we stop by for a sip almost every day! The girls are not very good at actually getting more in the mouth than down the shirt, but practice makes perfect!

AND, just around the corner from the favorite drinking fountains is the church’s brand new playground! This place is super-busy on Sundays, but deserted for most of the rest of the week, so the girls have it to themselves every day. There is nothing like this in all of Malawi. We try to teach our girls that there are special things we only enjoy in Malawi, and there are special things we only enjoy in America. This playground is high on the list of special things in America!

Also special to America is the dishwasher. The girls have taken it upon themselves to load and empty the dishwasher every day! No complaints from this mama!

Week #1 – a quiet week of rest and discovery.

3 Months Stateside

by Rachel

Today we fly out of Lilongwe with tickets to return in early December. We will be furloughing in the States for these 3 months, and are looking forward to seeing many friends and all our family. We will be sharing about the work in Malawi in lots of churches, from Missouri to California to Washington state. If you’d like to how it’s going in Malawi, our schedule for speaking at churches is in our latest newsletter.

But first, we have to get there! America here we come!