He Knows What We Need Before We Ask

This is Jodi updating her own blog for once! I want to say hi to everybody and thank you for all your nice emails. I haven't been able to reply to most of them yet, but I have big plans to do that, so just hang tight!

I would like to share some experiences I have had with my friend Bornface this past month. Bornface is probably in his forties, and he is blind. Everyday at lunchtime I ride my bike out to his village to visit him. We usually study the Sabbath School lesson during our visits, and I have been getting to know him.

Bornface has been going blind for about 19 years. Back in '88 (I think) my Aunt Louanne visited Africa and paid for Bornface to have surgery on his eyes. The surgery gave him about 10 years of sight, but about 8 years ago, his eyesight began to leave him again, and now he is completely blind. I have made it a habit every time I visit Bornface to ask him what he wants me to pray for. One day he told me the story about what happened with his wife. Bornface has five sons and three daughters. His wife started running around with other men and had the three girls with other men. But Bornface raised those girls as if they were his own. His wife would repeatedly leave him and then come back, begging Bornface for mercy. Each time he took her back and loved her as if nothing had ever happened. Finally though, about three years ago she left him for good, and he hasn't really talked to her since. After telling me that story, he asked me to pray for her. He wants her to take Jesus back into her heart. He told me that even now, after all that has happened, he would still take her back if she wanted to come back as his wife. He said that God has been so merciful to him, that he can't turn around and be anything but merciful to her. I couldnt believe it, but I added his wife to our prayer list.

Another time when I asked Bornface if he had anything new to add to the prayer list, he told me about the co-operative they have in his village. If you buy into it, you can get your fertilizer and seed for planting for a much cheaper price than if you were to go buy it in town. The problem, he told me, was that this year he hasn't been able to get enough money, and that now he didn't know how he was going to be able to plant this year. So we started praying about it. I knew that God answers prayers, but I also knew that God often uses people to help him answer those prayers. It was obvious to me that God was going to use me to answer Bornface's prayer, so I decided that I was going to write home and see if I could raise some money because my parents had told me that there were some people at home interested in sending money for projects here. Three weeks passed and I still hadn't written home. We went on a trip to Lake Malawi, and I was so busy that I always had some excuse to give myself for why I still hadn't written home about Bornface.

Meanwhile, I was still visitng Bornface every day, and one day, he told me about his friend, Graham who is was very sick with TB. He had gone to visit him the previous Sabbath and he had found Graham doing much worse. I asked if we could go visit him that Sabbath, and Bornface thought that would be a good idea. So last Sabbath I walked to Bornface's house and together we went over to see Graham. Inside a surprisingly nice hut, (I say it was nice because it had a cement floor and a wooden door- where most huts have dirt floors and sometimes there is no door) I met Graham, sitting on a bed on the floor. He was breathing as if he had just finished running a marathon, and from the way he was swaying back and forth, I thought he might blow over if I so much as breathed on him. He did not strike me as the picture of health, to say the least. Graham didn't say much because every word took a huge effort. Just to breathe was enough of a chore. Bornface and I did most of the talking, and then I went over the Sabbath School lesson for that day with him. I couldn't help but smile as I read the Bible verses for that day's lesson, because they all seemed to fit the situation perfectly. ( the verses were Isaiah 40:27-31, John 14:1-14, Romans 8:28-39, and Ephesians1:18-23, in case anybody wanted to know what they were.) After we finished, Graham had to go take a bath, so we said we would wait until he came back so we could read to him some more. A relative came in and helped Graham stand, and together they walked out of the hut, painfully slow. I could
hardly believe that somebody so thin could have any life in him. We had to leave before he came back because it started to rain.

This past Monday, Bornface and I studied ahead in the qarterly because I was leaving for a two day bush clinic the next day and then Thursday was Thanksgiving, and I was going to be gone that day too, so we wouldn't be able to meet for three whole days. We finished the lesson for Wednesday, November 21, entitled "To carry all our Worry", with plans to do Thursday's and Friday's lessons on Friday when I got back. Wednesday's lesson was all about giving our worries to God and we read Matthew 6:25-33 where it talks about not worrying because our Heavenly Father knows what we need before we even ask for it, and how if He takes care of the birds and makes the lillies beautiful, how much more will He take care of us? At the end of the lesson, it asks, " What are things that cause you to worry now? However legitimate they are, however troublesome they are, is there anything too hard for the Lord? Maybe our biggest problem is that even though we believe that God knows about it and can fix it, we dont believe that He will resolve it the way we would like it to be resolved". I asked Bornface if there was anything he finds himself worrying about. I knew he was going to say the maize. And he did! He said, "Ah , Jodi! It is so hard to stop worrying! Sometimes I lie awake all night just thinking through my mind, how am I going to do this? I think I just need to remember how much God has taken care of me before, and then I can start to trust God." So then Bornface and I prayed that God would help us to trust Him with everything and to stop worrying. We thanked Him that He knows what we need even before we ask for it. We told God that we were going to trust Him with the maize because we knew He could take care of us. We prayed that God would be with Graham, and that somehow he would send Graham a moment of peace. Just a moment where the pain would be taken away and he could just relax for a second. Then I left.

On Tuesday we were supposed to leave for our overnight bush clinic. Ellen, a lady who does laundry for us SM's still hadn't arrived yet, and I was wondering where she was, because she usually is punctual. I asked my Aunt Pauline where she thought Ellen could be, and she said, "Oh, I betI know where she is, there's a funeral out in Shingoma today. She probably went to that." I gasped when I realized what had happened. Graham had died. I asked my Aunt and she confirmed my thoughts. Graham had died the afternoon of the day before. I could hardly believe it, but thenI remembered what Bornface and I had prayed just the day before, asking God to give Graham a moment of peace. God answers prayers in a big way around here. Graham is more peaceful right now than he has ever been before, and the next face he will see is the face of Jesus. How much more relaxing can you get? I wanted to go to the funeral, but we had a bush clinic to do, so off we went.

On the way, we stopped at the post office to pick up the mail. I was surprised to get a letter from my friend Tony Bentley, who is currently a Student Missionary over in Palau. I opened the letter and was surprised to see money folded inside the letter. I haven't seen American money in so long that I almost didn't recognize it! I didn't think much of the money, I was just so happy to read the letter, but then I got to the part that explained the money and I could not believe what was happening. Tony wrote me a nice letter about how he had read one of my emails telling about the way people live out here, and he decided he wanted to help. He said he has decided to send me his paychecks for the month. The paychecks he gets out in Palau are to pay for groceries and other essentials. He said he didn't know how things were going to work out for him, but that he was going to trust God to take care of him. The amount enclosed in the letter was $115, $15 more than the amount Bornface needed to buy fertilizer and Maize seeds. I was in awe. I was speechless. I was humbled, and my faith soared. Who am I to think that I was going to be God's answer to Bornface's prayer? Was my faith so small that I didn't think God had a plan already? I looked at the stamp on the envelope, it was from October 31. I didn't even know that Bornface needed money yet on October 31! And that is the amazing part to me. I didnt know, but GOD knew. Isn't that exactly what we had been studying just the day before? That God knows what we need even before we ask for it? I just couldnt believe what had happened. Still can't.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, and I was able to give Bornface the money. He was so thankful. He knows that God is taking care of him. He has in the past, He is today, and He will continue to do so in the future.

How about the rest of us, where is our faith? I was pretty sure I had faith before any of this happened, butI am beginning to realize how small that faith really was. In fact, I am learning that a lot of things I thought I had before coming to Zambia are things that I really don't have at all. I'm just praying that God will continue to work on me!

November 1, 2007

We just got back from Malawi a few hours ago. We had a really good time there. It took us about two days to drive there. We stayed at a lodge/resort place called Njaya. We had three little cottages, or bandas is what they called them. They are made out of bamboo branches or something, all tied together with a grass roof. You can kind of see through the walls. They were right on the edge of lake Malawi, which is soooooo nice. It’s like an ocean with no salt in it! We could see the mountains of Mozambique in the distance on the other side.


We took the first week for putting a church roof on for a congregation who has built their church four times now. Every time, it collapsed because the rains came and washed away all the mud that was holding the walls together because they had no roof to protect the walls. We finished the roof on Friday and on Sabbath we had church with them in the building. It was really neat because it rained that Sabbath! It gave them a lot to be thankful for. They said sometimes they couldn’t meet for as long as a month because it’s raining every Sabbath.


The second week we used for relaxing on the lake. We did a lot of snorkeling and swimming and camp firing and shopping at craft markets. We went on a boat ride that took us to a place to go cliff jumping, then we snorkeled, then we set up a volleyball net and played a few games, then we helped some fishermen pull in their nets. Then on the way back, we stopped and Bjorn swam through some sort of underwater tunnel. It was scary for those of us in the boat, waiting for him and Gary, the guy who took us, to come back up to the surface.


On our way home we stopped at a campground on a beach along lake Malawi for Uncle Alan’s birthday. There was an island in the water quite a ways from shore. About a 15-20 minute swim away, and the boys decided to be hardcore and sleep there that night. So they took nothing but flint and steel and their bathing suits ad they swam to the island. They built a fire and slept there all night and then swam back the next morning. Apparently they had a very rough night. I think they were cold and uncomfortable. Something to do with ants crawling out of their firewood and climbing all over them... anyways, they swam back the next morning and we were eating breakfast, and we look over at the island, and it is on fire! there were huge billows of smoke that made it look like a volcano, and we could see flames taller than the trees! We knew there was nobody else on the island since the boys had just come back (it was a pretty small island) so I guess they didn’t put out their campfire as well as they thought. It just burned all the dry grass and went out, but it was pretty cool to see, and they pretended that they had done it on purpose for Alan’s birthday.



Last night, (the day after the island burning) we were at another campsite and my ankle, which I had skinned on a rock a little bit on the second day of our trip, became really infected, it hurt to stand on it at all and it was really swollen. You wouldn’t believe it. So we put a charcoal poultice on it and it felt better this morning. It still hurts a lot and its still really swollen, but I think it will heal now that we are back at Riverside and I have time to actually take care of it. Oh yea, and I forgot to say; I got a really weird rash at Lake Malawi. Or maybe it was big bites. But they were all over my back and legs and arms.



I’m glad to be back at Riverside-- it’ll be nice to have a regular place to shower and a soft bed to sleep on. Every night that we were camping, Elena and I slept in just a small screen tent with see through walls and not even a floor, and we slept on just a tarp in our sleeping bags. So even though I’m proud we can do okay with hardly anything, my mattress at Riverside will feel really nice tonight.

October 19, 2007

We are leaving this Sunday for Malawi. We will be gone until Nov 2.

We were on an overnight bush clinic on Tuesday and Wednesday. A boy came with an infection on his leg. He had come last month with the same problem, but this month is was much bigger

It was like a huge crater in his leg, with a diameter of about 1 ½ inches. It was huge. Everybody was busy, so the task fell upon me to help him. I had him soak it in warm salt water, and then I (yes, I wore gloves, MOM!) cleaned it. It was really gross. It was like porridge. All the skin was rotten and white inside the wound. And all around it was dead too. The boy had no feeling because all the nerves were shot, so I guess that was good because he didn’t feel any pain as I cleaned it. I put some procaine penicillin powder in the wound and then bandaged it. We also prescribed him a course of amoxicillin to take away the infection.

I treated him again that night and again the next morning before we left. I used peroxide on it the next two times. You’ve never seen anything bubble as much as this did! I was surprised that I didn’t feel sick or anything. Every time I changed the dressing and cleaned the wound, it was right before a meal. And I ate afterwards! Anyways, so I left some things with him so he can continue to clean it and hopefully it will get better. I will see him when we go there again next month. I’ll try to send you a picture of the wound. It’s a humdinger.

Here’s a sad story for you. On Monday we had a man and a woman bring in a little girl named Gloria who was 1 year 4 months old. She was sick with a cough and she was severely malnourished. They couldn’t afford to feed her, so we gave them some bananas, porridge, soy flour, and baby formula for her so that she can get some nutrition, and we also gave her something for the cough. She was very listless and kind of out of it. A lot of the kids who are malnourished look like that. Anyways, the people that brought her in were her relatives because both of her parents have passed away. Not sure from what, could have been AIDS. Gloria lived with her Grandmother, but the Granny is lame, so that is why these relatives brought her.

Yesterday I was in the clinic and I saw the man who had brought Gloria in on Monday. I was really happy to see him because I figured he needed more food for Gloria because she was eating so much now or something. I went over to him and asked him how Gloria was doing, and he said," Ah, I am very sorry Madam, but Gloria, she passed away yesterday”. I couldn’t believe him. Apparently she had gotten a high fever all of a sudden, so they decided to take her to the hospital. She died on the way. I have never felt so awful in all my life. He had come to ask for food because there were so many relatives at his house mourning that he couldn’t feed them all with the small amount of food he did have. We sent him home with 10 cabbages, some cooking oil, salt, some milk, and two loaves of bread.

There are a lot of things that we could use money for here. I have been using my own money for little things like buying food for a baby, but I am going to run out soon. There are many projects that I want to do. There is a family with ten children and I promised to buy them shoes because they have none. There is a lady named Gloria who we met when we went to western province who wants to come to Riverside to learn how to sew, but can’t afford the tuition, and there is Ellen, the lady who does laundry for all of us SMs, who needs a roof on her house before the rainy season gets here. The roof will cost 200$ and the four of us SMs each agreed to split the cost and pay 50$ each so she can have a roof. So, as you can see my money will run out soon. I would conserve it, but I feel so selfish if I don’t at least try to help because money is so much more available to me than to the people here.

I don’t know how to even explain how just the fact that I am from North America and have connections with people there, makes me so rich. These people have NOTHING. And no way of even earning money. At least in North America, we are able to earn money in some way if we want it. The job might not be awesome, but people can usually make money somehow. Here, it is virtually impossible. They grow their own food, make their own houses with the materials around them, they have no use for money, except when they need something like shoes, or food if their crop fails. And when that happens, there is no money.

Do you think it would be possible to raise some money around there for some little projects? I could outline each need and send pictures of them and tell their stories and stuff and you could somehow show it to people and maybe someone would want to take on a project.

Maybe some kids in the area would like to send money for shoes for those ten kids. Maybe there is an older couple in the church that would sponsor Gloria to Riverside. I can tell you how much needs to be raised for each project. And there is always money that needs to be raised for malnourished children. Food has to be bought for them. If someone wanted to send money for the clinic to buy supplies or to send even a package with first aid stuff in it. When I patched up that boy’s leg, I used my own first aid kit and its pretty much empty already because I left him the things he needed to continue to take care of it. I could go on and on and on with all the things that are needed here and the things that you could help with if you wanted to.

Ok, its almost lunch time now. After lunch I am going on my bike to visit a blind man named Bornface. I have visited him twice already.

October 12, 2007

Guess what I was doing from:00 last night until 7:00 this morning?? Helping to deliver a baby!!!!


Evelyn (the nurse) came knocking on my door around 8:45 last night and I went with her and the mother for a walk. We climbed part way up the got worse and worse and her water still hadn’t broken yet. Finally around 5:00 am, her water broke. I didn’t know it was such a.... POP! It was like, POP! And then lots of gross liquid came out like, a serious rush. I had been standing near the end of the bed, and Evelyn told me to watch out in case the water broke, so I’m glad I moved, because that would have been really gross.


As soon as the water broke, she started pushing. And that was it, the top of the head appeared like, immediately, and then within seconds the entire head was out, then it was like it was stuck. The mama was pushing really hard and the nurses were getting nervous. One of them was pulling on the head trying to help the shoulders come out reached in and I don’t know what she did, but the baby came out!


The cord was wrapped around its neck and it was pretty blue, but somehow on its way out, the nurse unwrapped it, and then it was like, really fast! Just like, blooooop! It kind of bumped and skidded across the table and then the nurse kind of scooped it up and plopped it on the mama’s belly while they cut the cord and started doing whatever it was they were doing with whatever it was that was still coming out of the mother. We took the baby over to another table and sucked its nose and mouth. And by we, I mean Evelyn did. I watched.


Then we didn’t even clean the baby, we just wrapped it in a blanket and found some clothes and put it on her. I did that part. The not cleaning it wasn’t my idea though! Then we put some ointment in its eyes and stuff. I got to hold the baby for a little bit while they cleaned up the mother, and then that was pretty much it.


So that was cool. I’m glad I got to see that. She didn’t take any medicine at all. And she hardly made a sound except at the end. I can’t believe these Africans!

September 27, 2007

We went on a bush clinic yesterday. Everything went very smoothly even though we didn’t take the nurse with us this time. The four of us SMs plus Uncle Alan can pretty much handle everything now. All we have to do is weigh babies and figure out which immunizations they need. Plus check the pregnant mothers to make sure everything is ok.

Whenever we go somewhere where there are kids, the boys bring a soccer ball to play with. Then they usually give the soccer ball to the kids when they leave. This time I decided to bring crayons and paper, so when I finished my work, I went and colored with the bored older kids whose mothers had dragged them along to the clinic with them.

Before we left the place where the clinic was, we took a walk to a place where there is a waterfall in the rainy season. On the way we came across some lemon trees. I got really excited and picked A LOT because I had been wishing for some lemon juice. You learn to be really resourceful around here, and when you find something like a tree full of lemons, you don’t pass it by! There is nothing to drink except for water, so lemonade will be good! And lemon juice is handy for lots of other things like putting in an apple pie and making a lemon meringue pie out of... that is what I would love the recipe for if somebody (hint, hint) would like to send it to me.

Speaking of being resourceful, we are constantly trying to improve our eating situation. The food in the cafeteria is extremely lacking. It’s very repetitive and really corny. And by corny, I mean there is a LOT of maize and they use it for everything. For the bread, for the porridge, for the shima, (that’s the three basic meals right there.... bread and bananas and porridge for breakfast. shima for lunch. bread and bananas for supper, over and over and over and over and over again!) so far what we have discovered is that pie is amazing! There are mulberries here that we can pick, and piecrust has hardly anything to it. We’re excited that it’s so easy and fairly cheap. I also tried making a papaya pie... something like a pumpkin pie. Josh (one of the guy SMs) tried it and spit it down the sink. So I guess I haven’t perfected it yet.

The missionaries all get together for a potluck every Sabbath. It’s the one day of the week that we get real food that tastes good, so it’s really exciting! This week, Elena and I are going to have a pie-baking contest against the boys. We will each bring our pies to the potluck and get everyone else to judge them for us. I think Elena and I have the edge though, because we actually have an oven. The guys only have a hotplate. Not sure how they’re going do it, but it’ll be interesting!

I also made peanut butter right from scratch. I bought the “ground nuts” from some lady named Doreen. Then I shelled them, roasted them, and took them to Pauline’s house where I used her champion juicer to grind them. It tastes pretty good if I say so myself.

The boys have taken more complicated measures to curb their hunger. They made bamboo fishing poles and went fishing one day. I went with them. We didn’t catch anything, but it was beautiful on the Kafue River. None of the locals will go out on it because of the hippos and the crocodiles, but we didn’t see any!

We have pets now. The boys have a python named “lil’ Bruce” and we girls have a chameleon. Not sure what we’re going to name it yet. Maybe” Big Bruce” ?? I held the snake today. It was kind of cool. But I was really nervous. We took it around the village and all the local people ran away.

This Sunday we are taking a trip to western province. Not sure where that is. West I guess. We’re putting a roof on a church and will be gone until Thursday. I’m excited about that!

It’s nice here, but it’s exciting to get away from the predictability of the clinic. I hang out in a little room and play pharmacist all day. All I do is put pills in bags. Now and then I get to come look at something. One man had some cotton stuck in his ear, so we flushed it out. I saw glaucoma, cataracts, scabies, a lady with a discharge, and a little boy with a big cut between his eyes. I got to help stitch that one up.

I think I’ve been kind of homesick. Or at least North America sick. Things are so different here. There’s so much I miss. I would give anything to be able to eat even my least favorite dish from home, just to have food from home.

You know something funny? I don’t feel comfortable in pants or shorts anymore. I’m so used to wearing a skirt or a chitenge all the time that I feel so exposed if even my knees are showing! I’m running out of things to say. I wish you all could be here.

September 21, 2007

On Tuesday and Wednesday we went on an overnight bush clinic. We checked all the pregnant mothers on Tuesday (I learned how to check the position of the baby!!!) and on Wednesday we had 215 babies under 5 come in to get immunizations. It was crazy! I got sick though; i threw up in the middle of the night in my tent. It was so gross! I feel bad for Elena, the other SM girl. It smelled pretty bad. I wanted my mommy!

Last week, we had a little boy come in to the clinic at like 7:30 pm after it was closed. He had fallen and hit his head on something and split his face open on the bridge of his nose, between his eyes. I got to help stitch him up. I held cotton over the wound to stop the bleeding and then I got to push the needle through for one of the stitches. I still don’t feel very well since my throwing up experience. I might go get tested for malaria.

September 16, 2007

This weekend was really fun!!! I saw my first elephants and my first hippos! The place where we went is beautiful! You wouldn’t believe how nice it was, yet simple too. The house had screen instead of walls, and a straw roof. But it was a huge house. They had curtains inside so it was private too. It’s right on the river. You can hear the hippos grunting and stuff. The bathroom is outside and only has walls, no roof. The monkeys can come and spy on you when you take a shower!

We walked to the building site for an orphanage and like, 50 kids from the villages followed us. I felt like a celebrity. We slept in a screen tent that you could see through. So we could see the stars. It was cool. A little scary though. Hein, the man whose house it was, was putting on an evangelistic series, so us SMs sang a song for them on Friday night. Also we sang two more on Sabbath.

I can’t believe we have only been here for 2 ½ weeks. It feels like forever. I haven’t showered in two whole days. It’s so dusty here that when you do shower, its like you are washing your tan off. It’s liberating to be dirty and have no one care. I want to stay here forever. What do you think of that?

September 9, 2007

The nurse is back today, and it’s much better now. (The nurse had been sick for a little while).

Here’s a funny story: I saw a weird thing flopping on the ground, and I thought it was a snake, but it was a weird shape and it had no head. I looked closer and it looked to me like a lizard tail. It was!!! I guess I stepped on a lizard without knowing it. So, then I start freaking out because I thought it must be dead, so I looked around for it, and I found the lizard a few feet away, without his tail! I just couldn’t handle it! I was screaming! I thought I would have to kill it to put it out of its misery, but Uncle Alan came and told me that they lose their tails all the time—it’s a defense. If someone steps on it, they just drop off their tail. So I felt better. The tail flops around for a long time to distract the “predator”. That was so gross! We also accidentally slammed a lizard in our door. It’s been like four days and it’s still stuck to it because we think it’s gross and we won’t touch it to throw it away!

They were pulling teeth in the clinic today. I peeked in the room through a crack in the door and saw three people holding down a boy while the nurse’s husband who is also a nurse, tried to inject a needle into his gums. The poor boy was screaming and yelling so loud. It was awful. I felt like Christy in those movies when she first arrives at the mission and they are doing surgery on Alt’s head. I felt like a real missionary. But it was awful.

My official job now that things are back to normal at the clinic is to fill prescriptions. I’m basically a pharmacist. They examine the patients, decide what they need, give me the paper, I go to my little room full of drugs and count the pills out and put them into little baggies and then I give them to the receptionist and she gives them to the patients and they pay her.

Did I tell you I have been sick? We went into Lusaka last Tuesday and there is a Subway there. I ate a sub-sandwich. It’s not the same as Subway back home, though, and it made me feel queasy after. So, until today, I haven’t really been able to eat much. The thought of food makes me want to barf, and the smell of the food in the cafeteria made me feel really sick.

September 13, 2007

We are going camping this weekend at Hein's place. He lives along the Zambezi. He's the one whose brother was gored to death by an elephant. We went on a bush clinic yesterday. It was hectic!!!! This week I gave a lady a pregnancy test and another lady a syphilis test. Both came out positive.

I'm not sick anymore.

August 30, 2007

Hey! Just wanted to let you know that I am here! We got to Riverside at 8 this morning. I haven’t slept in three days now. Hardly eaten. I feel like I am going to collapse.

It’s good here, though. I like it already. It’s really exciting! All the student missionaries are getting along splendidly.

London yesterday was pretty cool. We spent the morning/afternoon walking around and taking the subway to different places, like Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey. We saw the sunrise on the plane when we came into Lusaka this morning. Pretty cool I thought.
I think I am going to get tired of the food here soon. We ate lunch --- it was rice and cabbage and tofu. Nothing to drink. No dessert, just rice and cabbage and tofu.