Aaahhh... the peace of a quiet morning. I woke up at 4:30 this morning... wide awake. My mind immediately starting racing with all the decisions that needed to be made for the day. Wes begins his all day Science course he's taking this semester. That's exciting. We have a certified Science teacher who is offering a fantastic science and design tech course. It goes from 8-12 every thurs. This means I have to do some creative altering to his home school curriculum but it will be worth it. After that we rush to his violin lesson. Today will be the first one. So exciting. Arusha is really booming with opportunities. I don't feel like my kids lack for anything, truly! That is such a blessing. I do ache a bit for Savannah. There really isn't much for her in the way of extra curr activities. She does take flute lessons and that is a huge blessing and great outlet for her. But, in the way of sports or drama, etc...not much. There really aren't even that many friends her age. She has two good friends. One is on furlough right now and the other is in school at the international school here in town.
There are a lot of things being offered at the gym for the home school community. Yesterday Wes participated in a fantastic swimming program. He's not the greatest of swimmers but that's what this is for. It teaches technique and competitive swimming. I think it'll be really good for him. The best part is, it's free for members. Yeah! Soon they will be offering taekwondo and soccer. Meg will be thrilled. There is so much here for Wes and Meg's age but again, for Savannah... need to be praying more about that. Yesterday Savannah was even looking into RVA. That is a missionary boarding school in Nairobi. It's only 5 hours away but I never thot that as an option for our family. I always felt our kids should be at home with us. However, if she feels this would offer her more of a well rounded education with the blessing of friendships and activities...I told her I totally bless her in it and encouraged us all to look into it and be prayerfuly discerning if it is the best move. We won't consider it till her jr year so that is still 2 years away. That only makes sense since we furlough her sophmore year and we've already started her freshman year now. Sigh..... I hate the thot of it but must do what is best. I just NEVER want my children to feel like our work was ever more important than they are. We just need to pray about it and let the Lord guide us.
Todd comes home today. He and some college mates climbed Kili this past week. It'll be good to have him home. The Lord was so gracious to us while he was away these past 7 days. All went well with no major catastrophies. We had a few minor water pump leakage issues but again, nothing major. The challenge was just juggling home school, building a new house and all the decisions that need made as well as running this house we're temporarily living in. God was soooooooo gracious. The kids all slept in my room with me. So, aside from lack of good sleep :-) all really went well.
I've used the time while Todd was away to research some new approaches to our training. One is in the are of agriculture. So many of our rural church planters need to be self supporting. That's the nature of what we do. We train them to go back to their homes and disciple their own people. ONe of the ways they can provide for themselves is thru raising their own crops. This only makes sense to us. But, for the Maasai who are herdsmen and the Hadzabe who are hunters... this means an entire paradigm shift. Plus, many of them live in areas where there isn't much rain. But, if they are to live the abundant life they are called to, they must learn to embrace a "kingdom culture" mindset.
When a person comes to know Christ and is completely transformed by the "renewing of his mind.." he is set free to embrace all kinds of new and exciting things that the Spirit of God has for him. The Holy Spirit opens up the "eyes of his heart" and he is able to see for the first time God's amazing plan for his life. I believe one of these exciting things is to see God's provision in nature for him. Instead of worrying about how to get food, they rise up to embrace God's design for them...to have dominion over the earth. We are God's children... "THe earth is the Lord's...the fullness there of.. and the peopel who dwell in it." From creation we have been given charge over the things of earth. It all belongs to the Lord and I believe it is to be a blessing to us as His children. So, to cultivate reaps a great blessing to us.
I've recently learned of a fantastic course called, Farming God's Way. It is designed to bring about 3x the normal harvest as it simply reproduces the concepts taught in scripture concerning God, His creation and His example of how to care for His creation. I encourage any farmers out there to google it and share your thots with us. What I love about it is it not only teaches the pragmatics of farming but it also teaches God's Word and His promises along with each lesson. It ties in so well with our COmmunity Health Evangelism courses. Our hope is to train ourselves in this mode of farming to then train our students in it. Our intent is that while they are here training in church planting, they will take part in learning and implementing these farming skills hands on, eating of it's harvest while learning valuable skills to take back with them upon graduation. This will not only equip them with self sustaining principles but will also help to cut down on some of our food costs for the training. I'm also looking into raising chickens for the same purposes. Please pray for us. We need wisdom to know how to best equip and train these people. The challenge is they all come from such diverse backgrounds and tribes. We need all spiritual wisdom and discernment to recognize and address individual needs as well as needs as a whole.
Bummmer.... my alarm has gone off. Time to start my day... I'm off and running.
Till another time.....
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