July 22, 2018

The path of life..

“You will show me the path of life. In your presence is fulness of joy, at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Psalm 16:11

Hello family and friends, 

Julie here.. I know it has been a while...

I almost forgot about our blog, lol.

And then a lot happens and we forget to write about it, and then more life happens.. 


    
It has been quite a summer so far… but before that, I wanted to share a few thoughts on here about what I shared during convention...  - you say WHAT now?! ..yes, I was asked (sometimes I get asked.. and say no) to share a little about our life in Malawi  -mothers/ladies session- and I said yes!  -I even surprise myself sometimes-...lol 

ok then… 

Motherhood and the missionfield ..
 
There is this saying I read about, when someone talks about distance or a far away land it brings this fascination or a magical intrigue. You look at families far away or people who come back from a foreign place, and you wonder and it interests you. 
Some people ask questions: why do you do it? How do you do it? When did you know? What about money?...
You get asked for news and if we have any prayer requests...

The closer you get to Home, the less captivating the work of sacrifice may seem. When you are a mother at home with your children, the church and everyone around, is not asking you for prayer requests. Your work is normal. You have the Lord and you want to share the Gospel. It is So easy to feel discouraged thinking that the work you are doing is not important. But there is no greater sacrifice than motherhood, whether overseas or back at home. Our children have eternal souls and they are our mission field.





Motherhood on the foreign field ..
Now the difference between you and the life my family and I have, will be in the change of location, moving and adapting to a different culture, packing and unpacking lots of bags, adjusting to different situations that we don't know, learning and trying to understand a foreign language….


I thought I would share on here a few challenges that I have gone through personally in the first few years in Africa.
The first one would be loneliness. Yes I have a husband and children. I am talking more about having to go out there and making new friends with people from a different background and culture. It is a long and difficult process. My husband is usually busy with his own ministry schedule and I am just at home with my children. 

I had prayed for many years for female team members in which God answered and this has helped a lot. We also found a homeschool Co-op and met with many other american missionary families.

The second challenge will be the Culture. Our point of view, the way we live, what we eat and where we live is so different. We are free and have joy but we need to learn to be sensitive and respectful.  We also have 3 different culture going on in and around our family. I was born and grew up in France, my husband is greek american and we live in a third culture with the malawian/african culture. 
My children are loud and cant stay still. Wherever we go we will be a spectacle no matter what we wear or do or what we say will be taken differently or with a different meaning... Malawian children will run to them and touch them or be afraid of them.. they will want to feed them and us too.. 
No matter how many times we can say No to someone who is trying to sell us something, they will not get it, until we tell them, no money or next time or not now ...



 



The third challenge will be in family and time management. I struggle with it (almost) everyday …
This challenge will be similar to yours at first: homeschooling, prepping meals, planning activities, having a budget, church, homeschool coop… 

It all depends where you live but what a lot of moms have observed is that it takes more time and energy to complete  daily tasks in another culture, especially when we have irregular electrical power and sporadic water supply.
And then comes a time when I have my grocery list ready and arrive at the store and half the ingredients that I'm used to finding are not available (the downside of a landlocked third world african country)… and then I'm finally home getting the food ready and POOOOF, the power is OUT! and we can be without it for a few hours (but we never know)...
and then there are those days when I’m overpowered by the dirty laundry and all i can put in the load is ready and then the water is shut off.. thats when my lady friend/cleaner comes in..I am thankful for her; she comes twice a week now to my house to help me with washing and cleaning! 
No water will mean: being ready -in advance -when we think of it- with water buckets and bucket showers… 
I have to confess that the hardest days are when we have no water and no power at the same time -which will happen from time to time! but out of the two I can live without power but I CAN DEFINITELY NOT live without water. 

The fruits of these challenges: 
I have learned to bring everything to God. And we see God’s powerful and loving hand on a regular basis. We have learned to be flexible early on and to adapt. For the Isolation, I have learn to come out of my comfort zone. I was teaching an English class for the ladies after sunday service. Being involved with the worship team has been so fun too!
For our family, God has given us many friends from all over the world, missionaries or expats that have become dear to us. 
As a family, we try to go on church visitations at least twice a month.  





Now we have been back in America for about a month and half and it is a whirlwind. The time goes by so fast. Convention was amazing: the messages were stirring and carried weight for our souls, the fellowship was short but amazing, and the time for our kids was above and beyond what we could of asked. What touches us is the way that the church family gives to us continuously, we feel so honored. It may be little things, like families taking our kids out for play dates, or little cards of encouragement. We often feel humbled to be part of such a great family. Jesus didn’t choose a restaurant to cater the 5000+ people to feed. He used a small boy with 5 loaves and 2 fish. God uses so many different members from the Body of Christ many times with limited finances to bless people around the world. 






The rest of the summer will be split between visiting family and supporters around the east coast. It will be a lot of driving with small children coupled with a lot of fellowship. We are thankful for your prayers and support. We return to Malawi in a few short weeks. 

Please pray as we continue raising up our newly ordained pastors and plans for a future church plant in the northern city of Mzuzu.