Have you ever played the game Chutes and Ladders? Our social worker in the US, emailed us recently and said that one her clients had used that game as an illustration for adoption. It is a good illustration.
Today was an emotional chute. We both just wanted to cry. First the embassy emailed explaining the process for adopting an HIV positive child here in Malawi. It could take 3 additional months and there is no guarantee that the waiver will be approved even if we are legal parents of a child. The second is that the social welfare department is not being helpful. We have gotten the run around again and again. I will go tomorrow to talk with them again.
Please pray for favor with the woman in charge of the office in Lilongwe. We plan to travel to Mzuzu on Tuesday July 22 to try to jump start the process with the social welfare department there.
Our attorney is also trying to get in touch with people higher up in the social welfare department to talk about the current options.
We need God to come through in a major way. Please pray. We are holding on to hope but it is hard.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Gratitude
What are you thankful for today? Sometimes it is easy to forget all the things that God has provided for us. After a month of being here and having ice cold showers each day, I have had warm showers the past two days. We finally got a fridge on Friday. Several on the team remarked how great it was to have a cold drink.
I am also so thankful to God for our family and friends. We are blessed to have this opportunity to be here to serve and to be on this roller coaster ride as we attempt to adopt. We are definitely going up and down in our emotions. We hold to hope and trust that we are where He wants us. I am also thankful for God’s leading and guidance through our faith journey. I am grateful you are on this journey with us. We have so much to be thankful for today.
So we are thankful for warm showers, cold drinks, friendship and partnership and for our loving, gracious Father. What are you thankful for today?
With His great love,
Chris
I am also so thankful to God for our family and friends. We are blessed to have this opportunity to be here to serve and to be on this roller coaster ride as we attempt to adopt. We are definitely going up and down in our emotions. We hold to hope and trust that we are where He wants us. I am also thankful for God’s leading and guidance through our faith journey. I am grateful you are on this journey with us. We have so much to be thankful for today.
So we are thankful for warm showers, cold drinks, friendship and partnership and for our loving, gracious Father. What are you thankful for today?
With His great love,
Chris
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Malawi and USA independence
With the 6th of July being Malawi's independence day, Greg one of our students thought it would be great to celebrate with both on the 5th with our Malawi friends. So after church today we had a party at our place for 30 people. It was great fun with great food. It is a blessing to make friends and fellowship together. Here is a picture I took of our crowd. God bless and thank you for your prayers.
Chris
Friday, July 3, 2009
This week
It has been a good week. The team had a good day and a half rest and then has been going this week. They went to a fellowship meeting on Tuesday night, Bible study on Wednesday, Feeding program with Children of the Nations on Thursday and a Bible study at a secondary school today. We will have a barbeque Sunday with some students coming over to our house.
Our hearts rejoice with being able to serve in so many different contexts. Our family has been to a secondary school in the rural area where we will go later this month as the conference speaker. We were able to go to the crisis nursery this week several times and got to help entertain and care for the babies. It was sad though as one of the children died last week. These babies come to the nursery in really rough condition. Many are sick and severely malnourished.
Please pray for my preparation. I will be teaching at conferences two weeks in a row. I long for God’s word to come alive and speak to the students hearts calling them to a deeper sense of his love and call for their lives. I long to see these young men and women become change agents in the church and community God has them in.
Adoption update: Things move slowly here. As I have mentioned before Fuluke (actually spelled Farook I think)is HIV positive. He has been tested and is positive but they do a second test in a month to be sure. His mom died of complications from AIDS. We have learned that the US is allowing adoptions of HIV positive children now but it is unclear if they will from Malawi. We are trying to find that out and are still in process with Farook seeking the Lord’s guidance. We are also looking into another boy, Jackson, who is in the Mzuzu Crisis Nursery. He is 4 months old. We will know more as the social welfare department contacts relatives to see if he is “unattached.”
Please pray for us to clearly hear God’s voice as we continue to follow his leadership. Adopting a boy with HIV will be even more life changing for our whole family, we don’t walk in blinded but also know that without medication Farook will not likely live past the age of two but with medication he can live a healthy life. So we pray and seek the Lord which child He has for us. Please join us.
Thank you for your emails and comments. Please keep them coming. We are encouraged by our friends and family love and support as we try to walk by faith.
Our hearts rejoice with being able to serve in so many different contexts. Our family has been to a secondary school in the rural area where we will go later this month as the conference speaker. We were able to go to the crisis nursery this week several times and got to help entertain and care for the babies. It was sad though as one of the children died last week. These babies come to the nursery in really rough condition. Many are sick and severely malnourished.
Please pray for my preparation. I will be teaching at conferences two weeks in a row. I long for God’s word to come alive and speak to the students hearts calling them to a deeper sense of his love and call for their lives. I long to see these young men and women become change agents in the church and community God has them in.
Adoption update: Things move slowly here. As I have mentioned before Fuluke (actually spelled Farook I think)is HIV positive. He has been tested and is positive but they do a second test in a month to be sure. His mom died of complications from AIDS. We have learned that the US is allowing adoptions of HIV positive children now but it is unclear if they will from Malawi. We are trying to find that out and are still in process with Farook seeking the Lord’s guidance. We are also looking into another boy, Jackson, who is in the Mzuzu Crisis Nursery. He is 4 months old. We will know more as the social welfare department contacts relatives to see if he is “unattached.”
Please pray for us to clearly hear God’s voice as we continue to follow his leadership. Adopting a boy with HIV will be even more life changing for our whole family, we don’t walk in blinded but also know that without medication Farook will not likely live past the age of two but with medication he can live a healthy life. So we pray and seek the Lord which child He has for us. Please join us.
Thank you for your emails and comments. Please keep them coming. We are encouraged by our friends and family love and support as we try to walk by faith.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Email problems
Friends, some of you have been trying to get email updates from the student trip and have been getting our family updates instead. This has been fixed but you will need to go to the student blog to sign up again for emails to be sent to you.
One brief update on the team, they have returned from Mzuzu and have many stories so we will update their blog tomorrow. But everyone is a bit tired from the journey back and getting settled in our house.
I am sorry for the confusion and problems.
God bless you all,
Chris
One brief update on the team, they have returned from Mzuzu and have many stories so we will update their blog tomorrow. But everyone is a bit tired from the journey back and getting settled in our house.
I am sorry for the confusion and problems.
God bless you all,
Chris
Challenges students face
I had the chance to counsel and encourage a student this week. I thought I would share her story. She began by saying she hadn’t felt the ability to talk with anyone then she went on to tell about her shame and guilt she carried. She said that her mom had remarried when she was 11 and her brothers and sisters when to live with her grandmother. So when her mom was gone her step-father began to physically abuse her. She told her mother and she said she was lying and that she should be quite and not say such things about her step father. So the abuse continued until she became pregnant at 13. She told her grandmother who is a midwife and she forced her to get an abortion.
She shared how she saw men, the anger she felt toward her mom and grandmother. She wants to forgive them and feels she has but still carries the emotions. She also isn’t sure she can ever find a man she can trust.
We talked about her relationship with Jesus. I apologized as a man and a father that she was so mistreated. We then talked about the long term process of forgiveness and that Jesus would continue to help her totally forgive. I prayed for her to find male friends that would help her to trust men.
I was so impressed with her trust in Jesus and her experience of His love for her. Faith is a journey that isn’t always easy but it is always freeing.
Please pray for her as she continues to heal emotionally and journeys down.
She shared how she saw men, the anger she felt toward her mom and grandmother. She wants to forgive them and feels she has but still carries the emotions. She also isn’t sure she can ever find a man she can trust.
We talked about her relationship with Jesus. I apologized as a man and a father that she was so mistreated. We then talked about the long term process of forgiveness and that Jesus would continue to help her totally forgive. I prayed for her to find male friends that would help her to trust men.
I was so impressed with her trust in Jesus and her experience of His love for her. Faith is a journey that isn’t always easy but it is always freeing.
Please pray for her as she continues to heal emotionally and journeys down.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
SCOM Awareness Event
The team joined us Friday. It is great to have them here.
Saturday was the culmination event of SCOM awareness month. It began with about 1000 Secondary and College students marching 2 miles through the busiest part of town sweeping the streets, singing and dancing (complete with a truck with loudspeaker). We got stopped at one intersection, we thought because of traffic, but it turned out that they were waiting on the national TV cameras to get there as they were at the state house covering another event. It was quite a sight, and very fun when the SCOM students would come up and encourage us in our dancing. One told us we need to move our butt more.
It ended at the Commuinity center which had a soccer field with large grand stand. After a long wait, the students were fed a roll and a soda. They actually ran our of rolls, but more came and hour later. There was alot of singing and dancing, then we heard from some speakers. First was SCOM's General Secreatry and then Malawi's Attorney General encouraging the students to set some big goals and go after them. The final speaker was an evangleist (in the true sense of the word) who implored the students to live pure lives and run away from sexual sin. You could tell from the crowd's engagement and loud cheering that it was exactly what this student group needed to hear.
"How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to Your word" Ps. 119:9
Many students responded to the call to live lives of purity. Hundreds went forward for prayer and a few committed their lives to Jesus for the first time.. Praise God.
Health update:
Jacob's arm: He is ready to have the cast off. It itches and can be hard to sleep. We plan to remove it on Wednesday.
My Face: On Friday 3 weeks movement began to return. It is not fully restored but it is much better. I still have some discomfort as the nerves regenerate. Praise God for progress.
What is happening this week:
The team heads to Mzuzu tomorrow. I will be working the Patrick the SCOM General Secretary this week on several projects in the office. Dudley will be doing some computer repair (with slow internet she needs your prayers)
Prayer requests:
Safety for the team as they travel and live with college students.
Evangelistic fruit as they join in the evangelism week on campus at Mzuzu University.
Our adoption process as we begin to expand the search for other children that can be adopted.
Saturday was the culmination event of SCOM awareness month. It began with about 1000 Secondary and College students marching 2 miles through the busiest part of town sweeping the streets, singing and dancing (complete with a truck with loudspeaker). We got stopped at one intersection, we thought because of traffic, but it turned out that they were waiting on the national TV cameras to get there as they were at the state house covering another event. It was quite a sight, and very fun when the SCOM students would come up and encourage us in our dancing. One told us we need to move our butt more.
It ended at the Commuinity center which had a soccer field with large grand stand. After a long wait, the students were fed a roll and a soda. They actually ran our of rolls, but more came and hour later. There was alot of singing and dancing, then we heard from some speakers. First was SCOM's General Secreatry and then Malawi's Attorney General encouraging the students to set some big goals and go after them. The final speaker was an evangleist (in the true sense of the word) who implored the students to live pure lives and run away from sexual sin. You could tell from the crowd's engagement and loud cheering that it was exactly what this student group needed to hear.
"How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to Your word" Ps. 119:9
Many students responded to the call to live lives of purity. Hundreds went forward for prayer and a few committed their lives to Jesus for the first time.. Praise God.
Health update:
Jacob's arm: He is ready to have the cast off. It itches and can be hard to sleep. We plan to remove it on Wednesday.
My Face: On Friday 3 weeks movement began to return. It is not fully restored but it is much better. I still have some discomfort as the nerves regenerate. Praise God for progress.
What is happening this week:
The team heads to Mzuzu tomorrow. I will be working the Patrick the SCOM General Secretary this week on several projects in the office. Dudley will be doing some computer repair (with slow internet she needs your prayers)
Prayer requests:
Safety for the team as they travel and live with college students.
Evangelistic fruit as they join in the evangelism week on campus at Mzuzu University.
Our adoption process as we begin to expand the search for other children that can be adopted.
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