Inward Renewal

On Sunday, the Action Zambia team thought it would be good to come together to worship the Lord and pray.  Andrea and I were tired, but knew that we especially needed fellowship and prayer during the circumstances that we are going through.  Steve and Stephanie put together a program for the kids and Stephanie read from the Jesus Storybook Bible which was really good.  We watched a video sermon from C.J. Mahaney on looking for grace in the lives of the saints and His church.  The team prayed over us and our situation.  They also prayed for Ian who had a tough first night out of our home.  His fever seemed to be on the increase.  The Lord touched his body after the service and calmed his nerves enough for him to eat a little.  Right now he’s running around back to his normal self.  Thank you God!

I woke up at 4:30 Saturday morning to check the height of the water coming up our front steps.  To be honest, I thought the water would be receding.  Instead, I was alarmed to find that  the water had advanced during the night.  By 6:30 Andrea and I decided we weren’t going to wait any longer.  We had to move.  The stench from the open sewer was reason enough to empty our house but the thought of moving everything was so overwhelming.  We had nowhere to move to and the skies were threatening to unleash even more rain.  I called Luke and woke him up to inquire if he could organize the team to help us vacate the house.  Within an hour, the AZ team had a game plan and everyone started to make their way to our place on the outskirts of town.  Meanwhile I put on my gumboots (rubber boots) and started dismantling the house.  Because of the contaminated water, I had to put on and take off my boots every time I entered and exited.

The team were delayed due to the bad roads in Makeni.  Reports were that the traffic was backed up for kilometers due to vehicles being stuck in the several crater water-holes.  Eventually, the team made it to Makeni.  With help from the Roberts, Whitfields, Allens, Megan B., Charles M. and a crew of guys sent from our home fellowship group at LBC, Andrea and I were able to get the whole house dismantled and moved out by 4 pm.  For not having planned this move, we are simply amazed at the amount of help and support from all those around us.  We are so grateful to the Lord for this provision, though we are immensely tired and emotionally frazzled.  Ian is very distressed about the move and has fallen ill with a fever of some sort.  We’re just praying he has picked up something from the contamination.

Our stuff is spread out in three different locations, which will present a significant challenge to find things when we need it.  But it’s so much better than losing our posessions!  We were able to work out a deal with our landlady to move into a one-bedroom flat just down the lane for a few weeks until we know where we’re going.  Please pray that the Lord might provide a place for us to live… soon.  One thing that we feel great about is that the Lord has put us in a position where we’re completly dependent on him for provision.  Whatever the reason for God’s hand being worked out this way, we know that we will be built up.  In that sense, all this is a bit exciting.  It’s just like Him to do good to his children in such an unconventional way.  Also pray for Andrea, as she lost her grandmother two nights ago.  On top of being pregnant, having a sick son, moving out of a house and not knowing where to call home, she is also grieving.  All we can do is look to the Lord right now…

Luke Whitfield and I have been scanning the country-side looking for alternative building materials to treated wood.  Prices of any steel scrap or composite materials turn out to be quite expensive.  We are in the process of pouring slabs of concrete for five chalets that will be available for camping out at Ciyanjano.  Because termite action here in Zambia is so bad, we were looking for a material for the chalet uprights that would be termite proof.

After getting a few leads from locals involved in the construction business, I visited TAP Zambia Limited which is based in Chilanga.  They manufacture asbestos roofing sheets as well as other concrete based composite products like drainage pipes, culverts.  The plant is massive and has been around for years, serving the infrastructure needs of Zambia.

What I discovered was that the plant has a lot of discarded product in their sewer-main piping division.  Because each pipe needs to be coupled with another pipe, each segment has a male and female end.  When one end is deffective then the product is discarded as scrap.  It turns out they were willing to sell these otherwise intact products at a significantly reduced rate.  Being 6 inches in diameter, and manufactured out of reinforced concrete, these  4 meter long pipes are used by construction crews for carport, chalet and porch uprights. Getting the material was an absolute fiasco, requiring several trips back and forth – not to mention many hours of waiting.

When we first navigated our way through the maze of access roads to the rear scrap yard we could see that much of the product was covered with vegetation.  Within two minutes of getting out of our lorry (truck) a security guard who was shadowing us killed a black mamba who was emerging out of the stacked product just meters from us.  As we loaded the product onto the flat bed, we encountered a second snake.  The Lord was definitely protecting us in that snake infested area.

All in all, it took us close to three days to secure these 30 pieces of material.  We’re very grateful however for the savings…  as well as a quality product that should last more than 60 years in a termite environment.  I look forward to posting pictures of these uprights installed.  A team from Illinois will be coming in a month’s time to mount header boards onto these as well as trusses for a roof.  Please pray that all goes according to plan.

Over the last couple of weeks, many of Lusaka’s compounds (townships) have been swamped with water.  The situation has grown worse with unprecedented rain in the area.  Some are saying that Lusaka hasn’t had this much rain since late in the 70’s.  Hundreds of people have already been evacuated from their homes that are now submerged.

The area that we live in Lusaka is also experiencing flooding… and things are getting worse.  Within the several acre plot that we live, our rental home is the lowest and water has been rising at an alarming rate.  Just a week ago, things were looking swampy, but today water is covering our front patio and touching our front step.  This morning we awoke to the terrible stench of sewage.  Wading through the now green stagnant water around our house, I discovered that several houses (including ours) which share a central sewage are now backed up.  The ground is completely saturated and the septic tank soak away is no longer working.

We are now very concerned because raw sewage is bubbling up out of our septic line, not allowing us to take showers or flush the toilet.  The swamped water around our house has now been contaminated and there are concerns that there may soon be surface water contamination of our well.  Mosquitos are breeding by the thousands and industrial run-off from further up the road is now slowly making its way to our backyard.  A public health “official” visited our home this afternoon unbenownst to us, and apparently “condemned the premises as a disaster area”.  So far, the water hasn’t entered our home but if it does, we’ll have to empty our house of everything.  We’re not sure how high the water will come, but we do know that it is unsafe for us to keep our kids here under these conditions.  Cholera could become a problem, but the biggest concern is us tracking ecoli into the house, where Ian and Ireen play.

Please pray for us.  The situation is changing by the hour.  We are trusting that the Lord will accomplish something good from this situation, but meanwhile the smell and concern for health is unsettling.  Tomorrow we will be moving out of our home to a small one-bedroom flat down the lane.  We don’t know how much longer the waters will rise nor how long it will take for them to subside.  But according to onlookers, the area where we live is so saturated they say we could be in this for more than a month.

Tracy Singleton, who works with pastors in our leadership training program, had a birthday recently.  Ian and Ireen worked hard on home-made cards to deliver to him.  With their cards in hand they walked across the lane and knocked at his back door.  They were pretty dissapointed to find out that Tracy had left home to run some errands.  Andrea reassured them that they could try again later.

Tracy loves working outdoors on his garden and trimming trees, so we thought getting him a tree would be just the perfect B-day gift.  The little tree in the picture is a naartjie tree.  It produces a soft, loose-skinned South African citrus fruit. The naartjie name is Afrikaans but  is also known as a mandarin or tangerine fruit outside of South Africa.  Ian and Ireen couldn’t have been more proud about the arrangement.  Happy B-day Tracy!

or nartjie, is a soft loose-skinned South African citrus fruit. It is also known as a mandarin, satsuma or tangerine outside of South Africa.^{[citation needed]}

Look up naartjie in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

The name is Afrikaans and is originally from the Tamil word nartei meaning citrus.

Etambuyu Imasiku is one of our national staff workers with Action Zambia.  Eta (her name short hand) has been working with the CROSS Project ministry for close to 5 years now.  She is known by everyone for her strong, resilient faith.  Her poise and grace speak volumes about her character.  Eta hasn’t been feeling well lately, like the vast majority of Lusaka.  This is the flu season and everyone seems to catch nasty respiratory bugs and/or congestion.  So after we ourselves recovered from the flu we went to her place in Kabwata to drop off a meal and visit.

Ian and Ireen were elated to pay her a visit.  Ireen stood up (with a little bit of coercion from me) and demonstrated her catechism memorization for us.  Eta lights up around children and perhaps they were better medicine for her than a hot meal.

The other evening I was preparing to make Jobetso Chicken – a great recipe from a South African friend of ours.  In the process, I learned an obvious lesson the hard way.  That was, never leave oil heating unattended.

I needed to borrow tomatoes and went to the Singletons to ask if they had any I could borrow.  As I was over there, I completely forgot that I was heating the oil and began talking with Karen.  Not too long after I was there, Ireen came running over and said, “Mama, you need to come home right away.  The oil is getting too hot.”  Never having experienced an oil fire before, I wasn’t too concerned but did head home.

When I got home I found my favorite pot sitting on our patio with flames billowing out of it.  It was spitting rain, and whenever one of those rain droplettes hit the fire…it created a sort of fire works display.  Inside the house Tim was busy positioning fans at the windows to try and direct the abundant smoke out of the house.  When he did come back outside he sat down and was visibly having trouble breathing.  I went inside to get his inhaler and came out gasping for breath and coughing because of the smoke.

Karen was kind enough to let me cook supper at her place.  When I got home with the supper we ate mostly in silence. Tim shared with me that he had smelled the oil getting hot and went in to check on the pot.  Instinctively he carefully removed the lid and stood back.  Praise the Lord he did, because flames exploded reaching the ceiling.  He threw the lid back on the pot and carefully carried it outside.  I apologized profusely for being careless and putting him in such danger.  All has been forgiven, but I will forever be more careful and attentive with cooking.

When the city council came through and tore out the entrance to our community’s entrance, it created a crisis of sorts.  There’s a government clinic within the premises and large numbers of people come in and out of the gate all day long. Vehicles come in and out for the agricultural programs as well as the residents who live on site.  The first thing the community needed to do was to construct a bridge.  That solution was pretty easy to come by in theory, but in planning and site construction it turned out to be quite complicated.

Rather than have one engineer overseeing construction of the bridge, there were five to six!  I watched events unfold as everyone became an overseer and only one person was working.  Not that all Zambians function like this, but it’s not uncommon to see road construction crews of 12 plus men all standing around watching one man work.  The same principle was at work here.  Because of the plethora of opinions on how the bridge should best be built, we ended up with no cohesive strategy for the bridge.  Major things were overlooked regarding the integrity of the structure for vehicles, but that didn’t really matter as much because this way everyone contributed.

I’ve included the picture to the left to demonstrate why our driveway was torn up in the first place.  The driveway that we did have passed over two large drainpipes.  Of course, there was nothing wrong with the drainpipes other than that they were clogged with dirt.  Rather than working to unclog the drains, the city council decided to take corrective action by tearing the whole thing out.  Again this illustrated a different approach to problem solving.  Here, little emphasis is placed on preventative maintenance.  When a little problem became a big problem, then the solution was to entirely replace.  Considering the inconvenience to all and the total net expenditure, this has ended up being a very costly venture indeed.

There’s been a lot of flooding in our area over the last few weeks because there is nowhere for water to drain to.  So water has submerged dirt roads and flooded residential areas.  The community in our area has gotten fed up – so the Lusaka City Council has finally sent “help” .  The plan?  To create drainage ditches on either side of the road using a ditch digger.   The hope was that this would allow drainage for flooded plots.

The city coucil never warned residents of their action, they just started digging trenches that are now a couple miles long.  Residences with entrances off the main road are now cut off.  The council has yet to put drainage pipes or temp vehicle bridges for every entrance.  The trench is 3-4 ft deep and wide enough that children can’t jump across.

Our driveway was torn up at 17:00, just before people started to arrive home from work.   Luckily, I came home early today and passed through the front entrance.  An hour later, the council came through without notice and created an impassable flowing river.  So, we’re trapped in until a bridge is made.

Our neighbors, the Singletons weren’t so fortunate.  They returned home too late and were trapped outside.  We’ll see how long it takes for the council to put things back together again.  Meanwhile, we’re getting used to the idea that our vehicle won’t be of much use to us.

I’ve been commenting how the land in Lusaka has just about reached its saturation point.  Portions of the road are under water in our neighborhood which means that the roads are taking a beating.  The tarmac that is laid down is very thin and underneath it is dirt.  When the ground beneath gets soft then potholes begin to emerge.  A few road logistics companies are based down our road which means that the heavy traffic is ruining the road.  Everyday tractors and trailers are parked along the roadside waiting to be unloaded.  The tractors pull off the roadway into mud holes that fill up with water as they wait.  It’s amazing what some of the overland truckers try to pull off with their big rigs.  Some make u-turns in the middle of the road if they dare.  I snapped this pic with my phone the other day as I was travelling into town.  This truck driver got stuck in the mud as he was trying to turn around… which caused a snarl in traffic for hours as anyone and everyone tried to hook chains to his rig to pull him out.  Have I shared that the rains cause a slight inconvenience around here?