mustardseeds

Monday, February 5, 2018

Malawi Monday {City Life}

We have officially been city dwellers for a month! Although the past four years we have made MANY trips to the capital city for picking up visitors, supplies, groceries, or just to get away; it is definitely a different experience actually living here. {If you receive our monthly newsletter, you have probably already read most of this list! If you aren't receiving our monthly newsletter and would like to, sign up is here.}

Eight Experiences Living in the City:

Traffic here can be a beast! Plan accordingly and avoid certain roads at certain times, or you'll be stuck for quite awhile. Electricity being out means all "working" stop lights go out, too. No electrity= major traffic jams. We live relatively close to the new school our kids are going to. If we leave on time (6:30AM) it can take a mere 8 minutes to get to school. If we leave 5 minutes later, it will take an hour to get to school. yikes!
Everything still breaks in Malawi. This month our refrigerator, car, and water heater all broke. Things breaking is just part of normal life here, but the nice thing about living in the city is that you can usually find someone to come and help you more quickly than when you live way out in the village.
There is a good sized expat (foreigners like us) community in Lilongwe doing all kinds of ministries and work. We were invited to our first dinner this month with a family originally from Texas. We are thankful for the opportunity for community.
Church is so awesome in your native language! We have been able to go to an English speaking church every Sunday. This is such an amazing blessing. To sing and worship in your native tongue weekly is a game changer!
For the first time in 5 years, our children have the opportunity to participate in some extracurricular activities at school! The joy it has brought us to watch them try new things, even though they are nervous, has been truly a gift as a parent. They are brave and really putting themselves out there. We are proud!
Electricity is pretty good right now. We are in "rainy season" so the water supply is up and power outages are lasting about 8 hours a day (compared to 24-27 hour outages back in hot season). We have mostly had electricity all night (which is awesome, hello fans!). But the nice thing about living in the city is, I don't have to stock pile my groceries or worry about meat going bad. Grocery stores are nearby and all the big stores run on back up generators!
So many people speak English here. We are going to have to be really intentional about language learning since it is pretty easy to communicate in English!
Chitenjes are not required. When we lived in the village, I always kept a chitenje by the door to throw on if someone knocked. In the city, you see don't see as many people wearing chitenjes, but you do see lots of skinny jeans and Western wear.

Thursday, October 12, 2017

Four Years and What's Next

It is hard to believe that this month marks four years here in Malawi.

Four.full.years.

How is this even possible?!

Back in 2013, we arrived in Malawi with four children, ages nine and under.

Two of whom could not speak English!

We had a 10’ x 4’ space of our personal belongings and nervous excitement in our hearts.

We really had no clue the ride God would have us on and the lessons He would teach us.

So much has happened in the past four years. We have grown as a family and as individuals. We have developed relationships, started programs, learned a billion hard lessons, made and learned from mistakes, laughed and cried until it hurt. We can hardly recognize the people who stepped off that plane four years ago.

As October has been quickly approaching, marking the end of our contract, we have been deep in prayer for many months seeking God’s will on what is next for our family.

Through the adoption of our daughters, working with the children and families at Esther’s House, and being able to start a program working with single moms, God has really given us a heart and a passion for orphan prevention.

So much so, that we feel He is calling us to start a new ministry whose purpose is to reunite families and also preserve the family unit.

After discussing with Pure Mission, our Board of Directors, about where God was leading us, we have agreed to continue to partner together. We will begin the new ministry, called “Ufulu Groups”, under the umbrella of Pure Mission and continue to be governed by their Board. We are also very honored that David has been given a board seat at Pure Mission.

In January 2018, we will transition from Ntcheu to Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital city, about 2.5 hours away. We are really excited to begin this new ministry and to continue to partner with Pure Mission.

Here are some answers to questions that you may have:

1) What is the vision of your new ministry?

To empower vulnerable and under-resourced single parents through skills training and dignified work, resulting in family reunification and family preservation.

We would be happy to answer any of your questions, and you can also check out the website for more information- www.ufulugroups.org (website is a work in progress)

2) What does this mean for Esther’s House?

We are very thankful to still be a part of Esther’s House! We will be coming to Esther’s House once a month to continue to support and help the Hanson family. We adore the Hansons and feel so good about leaving the ministry in their capable hands. We are thrilled to be able to continue to spend time with the kids and staff here. David has accepted a position on the Board of Directors, and we are thankful for the gift of continuing to be a part of the ministry at Esther’s House.

3) How will your children be affected by the move?

When we moved here, our oldest was a 9-year-old 3rd grader. He is now 13 and just started 7th grade. It is becoming more and more difficult to meet our children’s educational needs. We have tried to be creative here by hiring a private tutor. Last year, we even put him in the best school in our district. Unfortunately, it was not a viable option for our family. Moving to Lilongwe will hopefully allow all our kids to attend school with American curriculum, have friends, and participate in activities. The potential for these new opportunities for our children makes us feel relieved and hopeful, as it also coincides with the new ministry God has laid on our hearts.

4) What does this mean for current financial partnerships?

The way to partner with our family will not change. You will still be able to support our family and ministry through Pure Mission. More details will come out about this later. Honestly, with our move to the city, we will need your partnerships more than ever! We pray that you all will continue to see the value of what God is doing with our family in Malawi and continue to partner with us. Unfortunately, city life is considerably more expensive than living in the village. With rent and school, our budget will increase significantly, but we feel a peace that God will continue to provide, just as He has done for the past four years.

Sunday, October 8, 2017

AR to AF {Part 13 The Move}

I have had several people ask me, "how in the world did y'all wind up in Africa"?

Most of the time that ends with me stuttering around and giving some kind of a lame answer.
Not because there isn't a really good (non-lame) answer,
but because it is hard to know where to get started.

Sooo, I thought I would begin to share the story that God wrote for us.
It is a looonng story that spans many years.
But don't worry, no chapter book today!
I will give it to you a bit at a time!

If you want to catch up to speed, you can find:

Part 1 {here}
Part 2 {here}
Part 3 {here}
Part 4 {here}
Part 5 {here}
Part 6 {here}
Part 7 {here}
Part 8 {here}

Part 9 {here}

Part 10 {here}

Part 11 {here}

Part 12 {here}

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This month marks four year of living in Malawi...and I am finally finishing up how we wound up here. This is the last installment of AR to AF!

When we arrived back in the States from Congo, we spent a six short weeks rushing around to get all the girls' paperwork completed so that we would be able to move to Malawi. We finalized the re-adoption of the girls in our home state, acquired green cards, and US passports. God moved mountains and worked miracles to finalize everything so quickly.

Besides scrambling for paperwork, we tried to spend time with our family and also form bonds with our girls. You can check out some memories made in our adoption video . We had so much fun re-watching this today!

In October 2013, our new formed family of six boarded a plane to move to Malawi. That day was really surreal. We were ready to move and begin our new lives in Malawi. We were still fully immersed in the hard work of blending our family together. We were nervous, excited, anticipant, yet also really sad to be leaving our family, friends and church. It was a weird mix of emotions.

{Our family at the airport with our friends/BOD members/Co-founders of Esther's House}

After 3 days of traveling, we arrived in Malawi and were warmly greeted by the two families that were on our team (Carneys and Jacksons). We spent the night in the capital city so we could go grocery shopping in the morning. I remember having an emotional breakdown in the grocery store. What does 5,600 MWK for peanut butter mean? Are we going to go broke at the grocery store? What do we need to buy? If I don't buy it now, will we starve? I am so tired!

Oh my gosh, what have we done?!

We drove to Ntcheu and arrived to Esther's House after dark that night. We had nine little smiling faced children waiting for us on our front porch. We entered our home and found our boxes with all of our earthly belongings in the living room and our beds put together (thank you Carneys!).

We had no electricity.

We were home.

{First week in Malawi going to buy mangos with the Jacksons. Note how tiny my kids are!}

I don't have many pictures for the next few months after this.

We were learning how to live in Malawi.

How to do our jobs.

Where to buy stuff.

We were learning the culture and how things worked.

We were learning how to homeschool.

How to cook, find water, manage life without much electricity.

We were learning how to be a family of six.

How to be a working mom with no baby sitter.

How not to get sick when we ate.

How to parent kids from hard places.

Thinking back on those days, I realize how naive we were.

How many BIG changes we had just put our family through.

We had no idea the lessons we would learn, the hurts we would experience, the joy and healing that would come.

We could not fathom how God would show us how we desperately NEEDED Him,

minute by minute.

By the grace of God, we learned most those things (always learning) and by the grace of God we are still here!

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Thanks so much for following along with our family's journey. I hope you will keep hanging around as new adventures are on the horizon that we will be sharing with you all soon!

Sunday, July 23, 2017

Arkansas to Africa {Part 12 Hopping a Plane}

Part 9 {here}

Part 10 {here}

Part 11 {here}

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I left off last with our plans to go ahead and move to Malawi and wait on our girls' US Visas. We had booked our tickets to move to Malawi with the rest of our team in July 2013.

A few weeks before our departure date, we received incredible news from the US Embassy! Our investigation was complete! It was time to go pick up our girls! So, in a whirlwind, we canceled our Malawi tickets and booked tickets to go pick up our girls in DRCongo. In July, we traveled to the airport and sent off the two families that were on our team. We said, "see you later" and went back home to our empty house. It was a strange feeling not going with the rest of our team, but exciting also that we were just days away from meeting our girls!

On August 4, 2013, we boarded a plan to DRCongo! It was really the most surreal feeling. Finally completing our family after 3.5 years of waiting. This was our first time to land on the continent of Africa, and it was all just full of so many emotions as we had been dreaming about this day for so long!

On August 6, after a night of no sleep because of excitement jitters, a van pulled up in front of our hotel. Out popped two little girls.... our girls. A few quick words about schedules and likes/dislikes, and then we were alone. We were now mom and dad to 2 little ones that we had been staring at for months in photos.

We spent 3 weeks in DRCongo completing paperwork and waiting...lots and lots of waiting. We weren't allowed to leave our hotel very much, so the days were long. We missed our boys terribly and were ready to get back to the States so we could complete all the next steps to start our lives in Malawi. Understandably, there was lots of trauma and hard adjustments as we got to know each other and learn to trust. Looking back, I wish I could have whispered in my ear, "it's all going to be ok, it's just going to take time."

Three weeks later, we received our much anticipated Exit Letters and we rushed to the airport at dark to catch our flight. Five weeks later, the country quit issuing Exit Letters and held onto this suspension for over two years. We made it through the long, rough flights and landed back in Arkansas in late August 2013. All four of us were ready to be done with those flights and we were anxious to be back with the boys and start life as a family of six! I wrote more about our adoption here.

Now that we were back on American soil, we had several things to do to get ready for our move. We had to re-adopt the girls in our State, apply for SS #"s, wait on green cards, get new birth certificates and US passports. We lived in the States (in our empty house) for six weeks while we applied and waited for these documents. Looking back, I am still amazed that God accomplished all those things in six short weeks!

In those six weeks we tried to cocoon our family in so we could bond and become a new family. We also tried to soak in as much time as we could with our families since we were going to be moving away soon. It was an interesting transition time.

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I think the next installment of AR to AF will be the last! When I started off writing this series, I never dreamed it would take me 13 installments and almost 3 years!

Monday, June 19, 2017

Secondary School Graduation {Malawi Mondays}

It's time for a little Malawi Monday ! Today is all about Graduation Ceremonies!

I've been able to attend a few Secondary School Graduations (both government and private) and they are so much fun!

Friday, we attended the graduation of one of our Form 4 (12th grade) students from Esther's House! It's so much fun watching a kid that has grown up in the sponsorship program at EH hit this great milestone! It's a big accomplishment to finish Secondary School here in Malawi!

When we received the invitation for graduation, it listed the start time at 8AM. At almost four years of living here, I did not fall for the start time! Like many African countries, Malawi runs on it's own time schedule and we knew if we showed up at 8, we'd most likely be waiting for several hours. So, we played it safe and showed up around 10 AM. Graduation actually started at 11:30. Honestly, I love the laid back time schedule here. For a person who is perpetually late, I love not stressing about being exactly on time. It's freeing knowing that if you show up late, no one is going to be mad at you and you probably won't miss much!

So, from 10-11:30, we (myself, my 7 year old daughter, one of the EH girls, my sister, and two awesome interns) wandered around the auditorium, took photos, and danced with little kids in the back.

{Essau, the graduate}

{"L", one of our EH kiddos posing for some photos while we wait}

{cute neighbor kids dancing in the back}

{graduates waiting to start}

{guys chillin' while they wait for the program to start}

{My Asher-girl killing some time}

My favorite thing about Malawian graduation ceremonies are the dance-in entrances!

I love the joy, the moves, the celebration!

So fun!

{If you visit my Instagram page, you can see the actual video}

Our two interns are so much fun and danced in with the graduates.

The graduates were pumped having visitors celebrating with them and ate it up!

The dance- in was followed by all kinds of student led activities.

Boys' acapella songs, reminiscent of Boyz || Men. Lots of rap renditions, poem recitations,

and even Acrobat Steve!

There are speeches given by the outgoing and incoming prefects.

The speeches are very free and one even complained about the teachers, to the cheers of her peers.

Many headmen are in attendance and sit in special seating on the front row.

An honored guest speaker gives a speech to the graduates.

{Acrobat Steve}

{There were cultural dances}

Finally, the certificates are passed out!

So proud of Essau!

Awards are given to the top student in each subject.

Another fun thing that takes place in Malawi is when a student wins an award.

The parents usually run, whooping with joy to hug their student and often give them gifts of money or food.

It's sweet to see the joy/pride/celebration of the family members.

Next, all the graduates will take their MSCE (National Exam). They will find out the results of this test in September/October. The results on this test will dictate what they can do in their future. If they pass, more opportunities will be available. Entrance into universities and different schools will depend on what kind of score they receive.

It's a LOT of pressure!

Saturday, June 17, 2017

{thirteen} a teenager birthday post

On June 10th, our oldest entered into teenage-hood.

This has felt so big for our family!

I didn't notice all the changes that have happened this year until I looked back on last years pictures. Our kid is really growing up (sniffle)!

Past birthdays:

Twelve

Eleven

Ten

We wanted to make this birthday a big milestone birthday, which feels a little tricky when you are living overseas. But, we tried our best!

I do love how our kids have grasped onto the simple parties.

Choosing their favorite meal, simple gifts, and some friends over and they will declare it

"the best day ever".

Z has been counting down the days until his birthday for awhile!

He picked his favorite breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

He had his friends over for a water balloon war.

His grandparents and cousins had sent gifts with a visiting team, so he had several presents to open up through out the day.

We have two other families living here with us, two interns, and a visiting friend.

So, we had a full house for his party!

We had been filing away some ideas for his birthday from other families we admire and from books we have read. We wanted to make this milestone birthday about THREE things:

Privilege

Responsibility

Biblical Man-hood

Privilege in our family, where we live, means later bed times and some more movie options.

Responsibility at 13, looks like Zander having to wash his own clothes and also owning the lawn mowing in our back yard. We want to be intentional about preparing him for adult-hood and giving him more responsibilities to learn hard work and excellence. We are hoping to continue to add to the privilege and responsibility areas each year until he is ready to fly on his own after high school graduation.

The Biblical Man-hood piece was really fun! We contacted a couple hand-full of men that have been consistent in Zander's life. These men are guys that Zander looks up to and strive to chase after God. We asked these men to write letters to Zander for his birthday. The letters were so awesome! I teared up with each letter as they came in because they were EXACTLY what I was wanting for Zander. The notes were filled with encouragement and words of affirmation. They laid out what it looks like transitioning into man-hood, ways that Satan will try to trip him up, and even personal challenges that they faced when they were his age. David and I also added a letter to the mix! We are praying that these letters will be read over and over again as he encounters the blessings and challenges as he transitions into adult-hood.

Uncle Titus and Aunt Ashley gifted Zander with their telescope! Such a special gift!

All the Esther's House kids came over and we enjoyed lots of cake and playing!

This years' cake request was sugar cookie cake on top and bottom with funfetti cake in the middle (Thanks Tyler ;)

We're so thankful for all who helped make his day special!

I always enjoy taking pictures of my kids on their birthdays and Zander reluctantly allowed me to snap a few pics in the back yard.

Gosh, we love this kid so much!

I definitely feel like we are entering a new era of parenting and a new phase of beginning that "let- go" process as we give more privileges and responsibilities. I am praying that our relationship will continue to grow and morph and will come out stronger on the other side! Friends with kids in the stage ahead of us, we are watching you and grabbing on to any advice you can give us!

Thursday, May 11, 2017

TEN {a birthday post}

In April, Esther turned the big double digit 1-0!

I don't know if it is the whole four kids thing, or the ages of my kids, or the busy-ness of life, but I feel like the birthdays are coming so quickly these days!

Past birthdays can be found here:

SIX

SEVEN

NINE

The day I took these photos of my kids in this pretty wild flower field, was that day that Esther became a follower of Jesus! It was such a special day!

Esther is a kind friend, a hard worker, a diligent student and a compassionate young lady!

I am sure I probably have said this in years past, but she is really good at laughing at herself and not taking things too seriously! I love that quality about her!

{pic taken by Nic Taylor Photography}

She is fiercely loyal and an encourager to others!

She is such a integral member of our family!

10 year old interview:

Favorite Color: pink and purple

Favorite movie: Sing and Moana

Favorite Food: Rice and grilled cheese

Favorite drink: pineapple Fanta

Favorite Friend: all the EH girls

Favorite thing to do with mom: doing school, cooking and playing games

Favorite thing to do with dad: throwing the ball with me on the trampoline and reading a book

Favorite thing about living in Africa: that I have a lot of friends

Favorite Bible Story: Esther

Favorite subject in school: handwriting (cursive)

What you want to be when you grow up: an actor

Sunday, April 30, 2017

ELEVEN {birthday post}

Ahhh, these birthdays just won't stop.

And while I am so proud of my kids and the people they are coming, these birthdays are so bittersweet.

The time is just going by so fast.

Every time I do one of these birthday posts, I remind myself to just soak it all up.

This month, our G man turned 11!

Past birthday posts below:

Eight

Nine

Ten

Grainger is our out-going, silly, confidant guy!

He develops friendships easy with kids and adults.

Usually when we are out and about without kids, adults will always ask, "Ah, how is Grainger?"

He is a favorite of our guards and when he goes out to talk to them at night, you can hear them laughing and chatting in Chichewa.

This picture just sums him up!

Goofy and loves to make people laugh.

He is quite the joke-ster.

G loves to process his feelings verbally (which is a lot).

He loves to cook and many times I will come in late from work to find he has already made dinner!

He enjoys drawing, building Lego's and playing football (soccer).

He is either best friends or worst enemies with his siblings.

He is usually the first to apologize when he has sinned and lost self control and recognizes the convictions of the Holy Spirit.