The mountain hasn't moved

We are still facing the mountain. It seems like God might have other plans for us and for Jackson. Some of the family members met with the social welfare director for the area Saturday, but are hesitant to sign the adoption release. Adoption isn’t a common thing here, so they can’t understand how this could be a better option for him. So we continue to wait. Yet the possibilities have virtually run out with 3 weeks until we leave.

Our hearts are heavy as we think of what future Jackson has as it seems there is no one to care for him, yet the relatives won’t give up custody. We drove up to Mzuzu this week to meet him and talk with the social welfare department there. It was great to see him and hold him and Dudley was able to feed him. He is a beautiful little boy. Please pray for God to provide the best family situation possible for him.

It has been a time of soul searching for both Dudley and I. It has been interesting to see how we each grieve and struggle through these days. Our questions are different yet similar.

DUDLEY:
Though this whole process we have really felt this is what God had wanted us to do. Yet when things don’t look like they are going to work out I start to question if he really did call us to this. I was reading in a book that talked about faith and how Noah followed God in building the ark. He made sacrifices, was laughed at, with possibly no concept of rain, and he didn't see the reality of his faith for maybe 100 yrs. So I feel like we are also doing something crazy God has lead us to, we’ve made sacrifices, people have laughed at us, but I don't want to wait 100ys to know we are doing the right thing. But in this, I have come to trust God more not in that he will do what I want him to do, but in his loving character towards me, that he will do what is best for all of us.

But if he did really lead us here, and we do all we can, and we pray and lay it all in his hands, and he doesn't bring it about, what then? Somehow we need to pray for an insight into God’s eternal viewpoint. Maybe our summer here isn’t about adoption, but about helping us take a step into something bigger God has planned for us. It is just hard to wait for God to reveal is plan.

CHRIS:
My question has focused on making sense of God’s call for us this summer. It has been “If adoption is not the reason we were to come to Malawi this summer then what is this summer all about? Why did we feel so clearly God’s call to attempt this crazy thing?” The short answer is I am not sure yet. I have thought a lot about faith and what it is and isn’t. It has been an emotionally hard summer. I have prayed and cried more than I have in a couple of years combined. I have thought about these three kids and the pain that their lives will be filled with as they grow up without parents. I also have wept for the millions of kids in Africa that are struggling to survive as a result of the millions that have died from AIDS. It is a good lesson for me to learn that I can’t fix every problem even with God’s help for one little child. God is in control and I never will be. The world is unjust and systems are broken. Tears can be healing yet I still am not comfortable with them. What is God doing in me and us? We have to wait to find out. He is sovereign.

I have been praying and thinking a ton about James 1:27: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

He will show us His plan in His time. Thank you for praying with us and for us. Please continue to pray. We need it and the children of Malawi need it too.

Will God move the mountain?

Chris has returned safely from the mountains on his quest for Jackson’s family. It was an adventure. He drove for over 30 hours in 2 ½ days with much of that being in the mountains of Malawi on dirt roads with inclines of close to 75 degrees in some spots. He made it back safely. Praise God!

Our first miracle is that Chris was able to get the social welfare director for the area to actually go to the village!! Twice!! We haven’t been able to get social welfare to lift a pen for us the whole time we have been here. Sadly, they were unable to locate Jackson’s grandmother, who has the say in his future. But, through the village elders they set up a meeting with her and the social welfare person for Saturday. So we stand here before another set of mountains. The 70 plus year old grandmother will have to walk for several hours down and up the mountains to meet with the social worker. He will have to journey for over an hour and half on those mountain roads to meet her. Then they will have to discuss what is best for Jackson and come to a decision. We need this meeting to actually happen tomorrow for anything to move forward.

We are trying to trust God and yet we have experienced the broken systems here this summer and know there are many obstacles that could thwart our adoption dreams. Everything is now at critical stage. If this doesn’t happen we have very few options left.

So will you join us in praying that God will do what is best for Jackson and give us the insight to know what our response should be if the meeting doesn’t happen

Prayer for this week

We are humbled and very grateful for the many people that have said they pray for us every day: Cayla, Bonnie, Jeremiah, Sharon, Sylvia, Lyn and many others. A special thank you to our small group that has been praying for our adoption desires for almost 3 years. Thank you so much for your prayers and support.

This week we are making our last ditch effort to get something moving on adoption. Chris has been fighting his natural inclination to make things happen, instead he is trying to trust God and wait. (Not easy for him.) This last week we have sensed freedom to try something. So he is driving 12 hours north to Chitepa in a very remote section of Malawi in an effort to encourage social welfare to find Jackson’s extended family to verify his orphan status. He will take them to lunch and then drive them to his village to try and locate the family. He has an appointment with them Tuesday. Patrick has lent him his pickup to navigate the dusty roads and Madaritzo is going with him, because he is from there, knows the area and speaks the languages.

There are so many areas here we need God to work. Many we don’t even know to ask you to pray for. But do pray that they would be able to find the family, and get the necessary paper work, that we could file papers soon to get a court date before we are due to leave. Also pray for safety on the roads. They will have to travel some at night and that can be dangerous.


On the quiz:
Everyone guessed well. It was my toilet at the Nsaru conference.

A quiz

Hey everyone,

I have a picture for you to guess what it is?

What is this?

Chris

Thank you for all the guesses. I will put the explanation up tomorrow 8/2.

Nsaru Secondary School Conference

This weekend I had the privilege of speaking at the Nsaru conference. Nsaru is a rural area about 1 hour from Lilongwe. It was an amazing and eye opening experience. The conference was held at a private, girls secondary school in the area. (I could go on and on about the amazing boarding school but for the sake of time, let me say that this school is the vision of a young woman and her husband to provide a good education to young girls that wouldn’t be able to go to school otherwise.) The school has nice buildings, but it is very primitive. They don’t have electricity yet, they are still waiting (2 years now) for the electric company to install their transformer. They have a generator that runs 2 hours each night to give some light. Since they don’t have power there is no running water. Toilets consist of a small building with a hole in the cement floor, and showers are a bucket of cold water and a cup. Enough about the conditions, lets get on to the conference.

They have never had a student conference in this area before and this first weekend drew over 80 students. The cost of the conference was 300 Kwatcha or almost $2. Now this was too expensive for some students, so they needed scholarships to allow them to come. These students families are generally make a living through subsistence farming and odd jobs. And many can’t produce enough food to eat well all year long. It is a tough way to grow up and live.

I was asked to speak on “Impacting Society with Christian Values.” I chose to speak from James 1 and 2. I also helped with bible studies each day. These students haven’t ever had anyone teach them how to study the scriptures or any literature. Their schools are very poor. They normally have one textbook per class so the students don’t even get to touch it let alone use it to study. Though English is taught, most had very poor English skills but better than my Chichewa  Since I have such a bad accent for them, I had an interpreter. Thokozani is just finishing high school in Lilongwe at the age of 16. She did a great job. (She is the daughter of one of the SCOM staff. You can see her pictured with me.)

The students couldn’t stop saying how much the conference and God changed their lives. It is amazing how much they improved in their Bible study skills. God is touching lives through his word and his people. These young people really need mature Godly people to model the Christian life, showing them what it means to be a Godly man and woman.

One sad note for me was how the students and staff responded to me. I was a full participant through out the conference eating their food, sleeping on the floor, and all the rest. This was amazing to them! They could not believe a “white person” would choose to live like them. It would happen here is what they kept saying. I was so sad that white privilege meant that we couldn’t/wouldn’t sacrifice to be with them and love them. I was glad I could give them a different picture and enjoy the weekend with them. As is usually the case, I was so much more blessed by them than I could ever be a blessing to them. May God continue to help me and others to make such small sacrifices for His Kingdom’s advance.

Quick sand

I am sorry for the delay in writing. It has been hard to want to write with the difficult news. So here goes! Thank you for your support and prayers. - Chris

We had a great weekend in Salima. Students were taught how to do manuscript study and God spoke to them from Abraham's life. God challenged me again to trust.

Let me tell you a story that illustrates our adoption process to this point.
Have you ever driven in soft sand with a full bus and van? I don't recommend it. Friday night on our way there we drove on a dirt road buy the lake. Well a Sand Dune had covered part of the road and our bus got stuck. we were able to push it out then I drove our little van quickly across the spot but not quick enough and it too got stuck. This time the van got really stuck. We all got around and pushed and it seemed the harder we worked the deeper it went. We were finally able to back it out and then I drove as fast as the van would go careening and narrowly missing a tree but we made it through.

Our adoption process:
While we were stuck in the sand, I got a phone call from the crisis nursery in Mzuzu. They informed me that they had found the mother of the little girl that had been abandoned and that she was arrested for attempted murder. This is a big problem because now we must wait for her to be legally separated from the little girl before our process can begin. We were also told that the little boy was still waiting for the social welfare department to finalize his status as a unattached orphan. So we are stuck in the sand and it seems to be getting deeper with no end in sight.

We hope for a miracle but we must wait and trust in God. Our hearts haven't lost hope but we are still downcast in the waiting process.

Join us to pray for a miracle.

In other news: I am preaching Saturday and Sunday at a student conference on the topic of How it makes a difference being a Christian? Pray for my clarity and for God to speak through me to the hearts of the students.

Team Left for South Africa

We had a great weekend. I will post something in the next day or so about that. Our team left today at 2:55 pm. They will spend some time in South Africa for the next week processing what God has done in their lives and through them to others.

Please pray for them. Pray that God would speak to their hearts and help them process their amazing time in Malawi so they can be prepared to share the ways God has blessed them with their friends and family at home.