Sunday, March 31, 2013
South Carolina Team
We were blessed to have a team here over Easter this year! Ricky & Niki Cook's team from Walhalla, South Carolina are doing ministry in Zambia for 2 weeks and were able to fit New Day into their visit! We were blessed to have them help with Kids Club and leading the Easter services here!
The team of 12
Mrs. Linda playing Frisbee
Limbo!
Drew having a chat
Face painting was the biggest hit!
Sidewalk chalk
Shannon paints a face (she also gave 6 of us haircuts!!
Brad & Drew wore themselves out playing soccer
Niki taught the lesson - we had 135 kids there!!
Parachute!
Mackenzie paints baby Blu's face
Jud & Denise at church this morning (love how they match!)
The illustration explaining the Gospel message this morning at church
The team of 12
Mrs. Linda playing Frisbee
Limbo!
Drew having a chat
Face painting was the biggest hit!
Sidewalk chalk
Shannon paints a face (she also gave 6 of us haircuts!!
Brad & Drew wore themselves out playing soccer
Niki taught the lesson - we had 135 kids there!!
Parachute!
Mackenzie paints baby Blu's face
Jud & Denise at church this morning (love how they match!)
The illustration explaining the Gospel message this morning at church
Friday, March 29, 2013
Field Trip!
We seem to be in a pattern of taking 3 field trips per year. Last year we went to the farmer's market, a national park, and the dentist/zoo. Today we took our first field trip for the year! We took all 22 kids and 13 adults to Momba Dairy Farms and to the Choma Museum. It was an exhausting and exciting day! At the dairy farm, we were able to see four cows being milked by a suction device (which we DON'T have at New Day!) Then we went to see the baby calves, the sheep farm, and the new lambs who were born just last night! Then we went to the ranching side of the farm and watched a slew of cows walking through their high-tech chemical spraying machine. We constantly watched our step and left smelling like a mixture of animal excrement ;) The coolest part was we saw them packaging some milk from their cows that is sold in the grocery store, and when we left they gave each of the kids their own pack of milk!
From the dairy farm, we headed to Choma museum where we had a nice picnic lunch on the awesome grounds there. We then separated so that some of us could buy orphanage groceries (Thursday are our usual shopping days), while some of our staffers took the kids in groups inside the museum. They learned a lot about traditional Tonga life and were pretty glad that they don't have to run bones through their noses anymore! The kids enjoyed playing outside and eating ice cream until it was time to go. We then took them to the gas station and the market. (I bet you could never get away with taking a group of American kids to a gas station, but that was some of our kids' first time to see one and see how fuel is put in a vehicle!) The market was neat for them to see where we get our vegetables every week!
Here are some pics to get a glimpse of our day!
Cambree enjoys her ice cream at the museum!
I told Joseph to smile with his ice cream, and he gave me a tiny smile...I kept asking him to "smile bigger" and his mouth kept getting wider and wider!! Hey, it's hard to focus on smiling when you're enjoying chocolate ice cream!
Picnic lunch
Joseph
Kefi
Muchoni (who had NO fear!)
Precious...isn't she?? :)
Mweene (who also had trouble focusing on both smiling and holding a squirming lamb!)
Cambree
Caedmon
Cason
Hildah, who is scared of her own shadow, had a lot of adventures today!
Cynthia
Cason found a nest on the ground where some baby birds had fallen..the kids were fascinated!
Watching the cows get sprayed
Cambree & Kelitah
The farm has around 1,000 sheeep!
Sisi, the last one to hold the lamb!
The farm had over 1000 sheep!
Papa Wes & Mama Lala with their group of 4
Hildah milks a cow for the first time!
See, quite the adventurer!
The kids loved checking out the suction that milks the cows!
It is always exciting to get to see the New Day kids experience things that they otherwise would never know about. I love field trips! (and I love it when they're over! ;)
From the dairy farm, we headed to Choma museum where we had a nice picnic lunch on the awesome grounds there. We then separated so that some of us could buy orphanage groceries (Thursday are our usual shopping days), while some of our staffers took the kids in groups inside the museum. They learned a lot about traditional Tonga life and were pretty glad that they don't have to run bones through their noses anymore! The kids enjoyed playing outside and eating ice cream until it was time to go. We then took them to the gas station and the market. (I bet you could never get away with taking a group of American kids to a gas station, but that was some of our kids' first time to see one and see how fuel is put in a vehicle!) The market was neat for them to see where we get our vegetables every week!
Here are some pics to get a glimpse of our day!
Cambree enjoys her ice cream at the museum!
I told Joseph to smile with his ice cream, and he gave me a tiny smile...I kept asking him to "smile bigger" and his mouth kept getting wider and wider!! Hey, it's hard to focus on smiling when you're enjoying chocolate ice cream!
Picnic lunch
Joseph
Kefi
Muchoni (who had NO fear!)
Precious...isn't she?? :)
Mweene (who also had trouble focusing on both smiling and holding a squirming lamb!)
Cambree
Caedmon
Cason
Hildah, who is scared of her own shadow, had a lot of adventures today!
Cynthia
Cason found a nest on the ground where some baby birds had fallen..the kids were fascinated!
Watching the cows get sprayed
Cambree & Kelitah
The farm has around 1,000 sheeep!
Sisi, the last one to hold the lamb!
The farm had over 1000 sheep!
Papa Wes & Mama Lala with their group of 4
Hildah milks a cow for the first time!
See, quite the adventurer!
The kids loved checking out the suction that milks the cows!
It is always exciting to get to see the New Day kids experience things that they otherwise would never know about. I love field trips! (and I love it when they're over! ;)
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Joyce
This is my friend Joyce. She is one of the first women I met at New Day back in 2010. She has 3 precious children, and she and her family faithfully attend New Day Church. Her husband is one of our best workers who has built many of the houses here at New Day. Joyce told us today that her husband took a second wife this past weekend. She is heartbroken, but this is quite common in the culture we live in. Please pray for Joyce in this very difficult situation, and please pray that God would give us wisdom as we talk to her husband.
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Catching Up
I feel like I haven't been posting as regularly as usual, so I thought I'd catch you up real quick, with the promise of some really amazing blog posts this coming week! :)
We are in the last 2 weeks of the school term here at New Day, so students will begin taking their end-of-term tests next week. Tomorrow afternoon will be busy at my house as we study spelling words, subtraction with borrowing, and the major rivers in Zambia! We also have a field trip to a dairy farm and the Tonga Museum this week, which will be awesome and hopefully provide me with some good blog material!
We also have a team coming over Easter weekend. They are coming to do a big mission meeting for the IMB missionaries here in Zambia but wanted to spend Saturday night here with us to get to experience Easter at New Day! (more good blog material!)
The days at New Day are busy with morning devotions, school, construction (working on a huge garage to hold New Day vehicles now, but also have broken ground on a computer lab and will break ground on a huge guest house/dorm area shortly!), expense reports, thank you notes, library time, music class, ladies Bible studies, math tutorials, Wed night prayer/praise, movie nights (kids loved Stuart Little last night!), Kids Club (fed 99 today!), Bible studies at Kabanga and Nabukowa, and of course Sunday church.
We love our family here at New Day, but we know that the New Day family has many other members who check my blog faithfully and pray for us daily! We are all extremely grateful! More posts coming next week!
We are in the last 2 weeks of the school term here at New Day, so students will begin taking their end-of-term tests next week. Tomorrow afternoon will be busy at my house as we study spelling words, subtraction with borrowing, and the major rivers in Zambia! We also have a field trip to a dairy farm and the Tonga Museum this week, which will be awesome and hopefully provide me with some good blog material!
We also have a team coming over Easter weekend. They are coming to do a big mission meeting for the IMB missionaries here in Zambia but wanted to spend Saturday night here with us to get to experience Easter at New Day! (more good blog material!)
The days at New Day are busy with morning devotions, school, construction (working on a huge garage to hold New Day vehicles now, but also have broken ground on a computer lab and will break ground on a huge guest house/dorm area shortly!), expense reports, thank you notes, library time, music class, ladies Bible studies, math tutorials, Wed night prayer/praise, movie nights (kids loved Stuart Little last night!), Kids Club (fed 99 today!), Bible studies at Kabanga and Nabukowa, and of course Sunday church.
We love our family here at New Day, but we know that the New Day family has many other members who check my blog faithfully and pray for us daily! We are all extremely grateful! More posts coming next week!
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
My Gardener
As I've blogged before, our 7 year old (almost 8!) LOVES to garden. Every Saturday he plants 8 new seeds outside, and he is constantly watering, weeding, and checking on his plants. He also helps prune my flowers and keeps the whole yard in good shape. This gene definitely came from his Grandpa! Last weekend he helped harvest our sweet potatoes - we planted these about 2 years ago and kinda forget aboout them. :) We now have some MASSIVE sweet potatoes that I have to find something to do with! We also have a few heads of lettuce, black beans growing, and our banana trees are starting to produce!
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Youth Day 2013
Every year on March 12th, we celebrate Youth Day in Zambia. As I watched the 22 children running around today playing games, I thought back to our first Youth Day in 2010 – which consisted of Mulenga! In 2011, we had most of our staffers here – Abby, Hildah, Elizabeth, Mulenga & Kalenga – but no children yet! Last year, in 2012, we had 14 children. And this Youth Day – to have 22 children on the soccer field was amazing! God has brought us many blessings in the last 3 years!
Youth Day is for anyone in Zambia from aged 13 to 35 that is single, so we try to have most of the games for our staff, but we did throw some kids games in there! They loved the sack races and the water balloon toss! Our adults also love the water balloon toss and enjoyed learning the new game of Ladderball this year!
We ended our day with snacks in the dining hall, but today was a special treat – everyone got cokes, iced donuts, lemons (thanks Uncle Jeff & Aunt Staci!), and lollipops!
We can’t wait to see what (or who!) Youth Day 2014 will bring to New Day!
The adults enjoyed the Ladderball tournament!
Move out of the way - Teacher Carolyn is throwing!!
Mama Lala must have been practicing in America, because she was good at this game!
Mama Joyce had a blast!
We had some awesome snacks this year!
Seconds before Mweene's balloon burst!
Sisi & Cynthia as defending champions of the Water Balloon Toss!
Elizabeth & Wes also defended their title - just wait until 2014 guys - you will be dethroned!
Cason did NOT want to throw his balloon to Glory - he'd rather hand it to her!
Kelitah did great in the sack race!
Sisi easily won the sack race with her long jumps!
Joseph won the sack race for the younger kids, but Mweene was right behind him!
Mama Lala had to give Kefi a boost!
Caedmon & Misheck couldn't stop laughing in the partners' sack race!
The adults enjoyed the Ladderball tournament!
Move out of the way - Teacher Carolyn is throwing!!
Mama Lala must have been practicing in America, because she was good at this game!
Mama Joyce had a blast!
We had some awesome snacks this year!
Seconds before Mweene's balloon burst!
Sisi & Cynthia as defending champions of the Water Balloon Toss!
Elizabeth & Wes also defended their title - just wait until 2014 guys - you will be dethroned!
Cason did NOT want to throw his balloon to Glory - he'd rather hand it to her!
Kelitah did great in the sack race!
Sisi easily won the sack race with her long jumps!
Joseph won the sack race for the younger kids, but Mweene was right behind him!
Mama Lala had to give Kefi a boost!
Caedmon & Misheck couldn't stop laughing in the partners' sack race!
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