(I wrote this post in the dark on a Saturday night a few weeks ago)
Jackson and Caleb are outside camping tonight in their new tent with James. When their new tent arrived it had a flyer in it saying when National Campout day was, so here in the Southern Hemisphere it was still celebrated. The power is off, its dark outside and its dark inside.
And life is continuing on here in Zambia.
Panono panono
We’ve had quite a start to the year. In February we took a family vacation to the Indian Ocean at a beach north of Dar Es Salam in Tanzania. Both James and I have felt like we are plugging along in our jobs and businesses trying our hardest to make it, so the family vacation was a much needed rest. However just a few hours before going to the airport we realized that the bike James got for Christmas, the one that I bought him with my “own” money from the Cakery, had been stolen right off the back porch. The very bike that he wanted but we knew we didn’t have enough money to buy it within our budget, so I managed to pay myself that month from work and totally surprised him. (which is quite rare in our married life. In regards to gifts for him, I think the other time I totally surprised him is when I planned a trip to Jamaica and then told him just the week before we were leaving.) I was so sad I think I even cried. But at that point I just didn’t care. We got on the plane and left for our vacation. We had a really nice time with the kids at the beach. The last 2 days a few of them started getting a cold, but that is par for the course when traveling as a family of 8.
When we got back things kicked into even higher gear with work for James and myself. I just reread my post last year how I was going to try and slow it down a bit, but that hasn’t happened AS much as I expected. The other kids got back in the routine with school, piano lessons, homework, etc. Sarah worked hard and long hours and finished her school in the remaining months and applied for colleges and scholarships and was able to decide on Samford. She was down to the wire finishing her school online with Abeka Academy so that she would be included in this years graduating class. That was her main goal once she realized 2 years ago, graduating from the British Education System at the International School that for her best chance she would need to go back to the American school system and basically redo her last 2 years. So she accomplished her goal and we were and are very proud of her.
We had a graduation celebration with her youth group. I looked through all the old pictures, and put a sweet video together (that I will have to upload when I get to America in August) and James wrote a sweet letter that he read to her. It was a nice evening, with a dinner celebration and friends. We left the 2 youngest kids home with a sitter for the evening. Literally as James was reading his letter, someone was breaking into our home at the exact time. The 2nd robbery in the last 6 months after no problems whatsoever for 6 + years. The Sitter called me, scared and said they had gone, and they didn’t make it into the house but they used our broom and reached in through the bedroom window with bars on the windows and stole a laptop and phone. Later looking through the house we saw where they tried reaching though our bedroom window as well. It’s a scary feeling to be robbed, especially when you know that the thieves had to climb over a wall to get into the yard and the dogs were barking. We tried not to let it dampen the evening and had a campout in our room with most of the kids. In the morning James had to go to the police and I stayed home with the kids to make sure everyone was ok. It ended up being a sweet day of family time. There will be no victory for those thieves! A few of the family members even prayed for them.
James has had thefts at his workplace as well, laptops stolen and I had a group of guys break the lock on the gate to my Cakery and try to get in all the doors and windows. Thankfully they were not successful though it gave another scare and they even tried to come back afterwards to get in a second time. The crazy thing about our home robbery is we are almost sure someone was watching us leave and didn’t know the sitter remained because they came at 7:30 pm. Who breaks in at that hour?
Anyway, then 2 weeks ago James also had one of his delivery trucks stolen off of while it was slowing down to go through a small town in the early morning hours. People just jumped on it and threw packages off. It’s crazy.
So, times are tough. The economy is still doing poorly, the dollar going back up after it settled around 10 kwacha to 1 dollar for a few months. And the even crazier thing is in the midst of it we are trying to build businesses. Businesses that depend on non existent electricity and broken down equipment with no one to repair or parts to be found in Zambia. We are still after 6 months trying to get parts for our dryer fixed. With the amount of laundry we have every single day this has been a struggle!
Immigration has denied James his work permit twice now and they are on their last appeal. We are hopeful it will work out but on the “off” days its very hard to remain positive and focused. It is so arbitrary who they give work permits to and not. Yet they fail to see just in our one family, between James and I, we now employ 40 people. That’s jobs for 40 people. In a tanking economy. Not to mention even the orphans and vulnerable children that we have and continue to support. It would seem that is the type of people you want in your country. Not just handing out free money, but utilizing the resources here in Zambia and creating jobs and to use popular terminology - Empowering people.
So we will see. We come home dog tired, enjoy time with the family, fall into bed to wake up and do it all over again. James keeps telling me it WILL pay off. I believe it and we are starting to see it but we both are at the 2 year breaking even point with our businesses. And patience is sometimes SO HARD. We put in long days and I want to see the financial pay out at the end of the month for sure. But its that Patience thing again...
Panono panono
I’ve realized one or more of my employees are “pilfering” AKA stealing. And just because it seems culturally acceptable its still so annoying and frustrating! Tomatoes, Potatoes, Sugar, Toilet Paper...little things add up and I’ve just been finding this out more the last few weeks. I guess the bright side is that if I can get it back under control, then I should have decreased expenses.
These last 2 months with Sarah home I am employing her to help manage at the cakery, especially with the stock and money etc. Its been nice to have her at work with me, then Emma comes in the afternoon by the time I am going to pick up the other kids from school. For now the schedule is working, so we go with it.
Elections are in about 6 weeks for the new President here in Zambia. Things are heating up as they usually do, it seems like an excuse to just act crazy and randomly fight with people leading up to the election. But Hey that sounds like what I am hearing come out of America too though?! To be honest I wouldn’t want to be in America trying to choose a President at this point either.
We have begun to start helping our friend Nsangu Phiri that I mentioned in earlier posts. And I just want to say thank you to those that were moved by the situation and have been supporting him and the work there. We have had the privilege to help with important building projects. First the borehole and then second was building a fence to secure the property of the church and school and we have also begun to start on a few more solid classrooms and the beginnings of a kitchen as well. Just last week they installed the gate and so now as he wrote me today, “the place now looks beautiful. Thank you so very much for what you are doing at the church and in my life”.
I read that and am so thankful for the opportunity we have to help. It is generally not “our” money that is paying for those things. Its people, friends, family that are helping. He is a kind man but overly thankful, if that is possible. Its a fine line between genuine extreme thankfulness and gratefulness and flattery. And he treads the line carefully but he stays very close to that line...
James still preaches for his church every few months and has begun meeting with him just to encourage him and help give some direction as needed. We will go back out there in a couple weeks.
We are preparing for Sarah’s leaving, though trying not to think too much about it.
I started crying the other day when James and I were talking about planning to go somewhere with the family. I said “but Sarah won’t be here.” So we decided we could go in January when she is here for a few weeks. (James surely knows how to diffuse emotional situations very well by now!)
Sarah is our great organizer, she gets it from her Nonna, so we are enlisting her help to move rooms around before she leaves for college. Once she goes then everyone except Caleb and Jackson will have their own room. They love sharing a room together- it is too sweet, so everyone will be happy.
In happier news, we think we soon may have a solution to our 6+ years long water problems at the house. We are on city water, but we have 2 tanks that store the water so when the city water is turned off every day for several hours in theory we should still have water. But it has never been consistent. So this week we just had a booster pump installed for the tank that feeds into the house, so that when the pressure is so low it still “boosts” it into the tank and into our bathrooms. The last 2 days the water has been there every time we have turned it on and it is coming out with a lot of pressure rather than a drip and drizzle. That in itself is exciting. But what we are still waiting for now is the HOT water tank to be functioning properly... and then we will be soooo happy (and there will be far less tears and curses coming from the shower) !
Patience. Ugh.
There it is again.
There is a Bemba saying
Panono panono.
“Little by little”
So, we are half way through the year and we are making it, Panono panono.
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