A visit of some good friends

This past week we had the pleasure on Tuesday to enjoy our second Zambian holiday. This time it was to celebrate Youth Day. Around town there were all kinds of activities for youth. We had the pleasure of welcoming some very good friends from Canada. Henrietta, Harry and Kirk Reinders joined by Ray Scheepstra dropped in at our house for a visit on Tuesday morning. It was great to see some familiar faces and have some time to catch up. They were on their was to the airport for a flight to Livingstone where they would stay for a couple of days to see Victoria Falls as well as to visit Chobe National Park in Botswana.

On Thursday night they came back and were picked up by Kevin from the Esther School. De rest of the DeKam family stayed with us for dinner, dessert and a movie. It seemed that everyone enjoyed the food and we had a good time together. At around 9:00pm Kevin came back with Henrietta, Harry, Kirk and Ray as well as another vehicle (switched vehicles with Drew and family who just got back to Lusaka). After loading all the groceries into the van and all the passengers it was a very full vehicle heading back to Nyangwena.

Yesterday we went to visit our friends before they were heading back to Canada. Gert had to check up on the chickens at the orphan homes and Machteld and Lucinda joined the school for chapel so we had a good reason to head out that way. We got together for lunch for which Tina had prepared an amazing tasting potato soup. It seems as if we keep returning favors that way. In the afternoon Gert went to help Harry, Ray and Kevin to weld some braces to the support structure of the solar panels for the water pump. After a couple of hours of rain the ground was sticky so after a little while we were all walking around with a few pounds of clay and straw on our shoes and boots. When wet it is clear that the soil has a great potential to grow crops. At around 5:30pm we headed back for Lusaka and had a nice and easy dinner at Pizza Inn.

Earlier in the week on Monday, Gert had a meeting with Ben Frampton from Foundations for Farming. This is a Christian organization that started in Zimbabwe and teaches farmers the very basics of farming based on Christian principles. Their vision is to see the wonderful potential of the continent of Africa reached through the faithful stewardship of the land. Every great was built on the effective and productive use of the land and they believe this is the starting point for Africa too. We had some good conversations about the possibilities of working together to teach people in the Nyangwena area these basic farming techniques, intertwined with Christian principles. The results that they have been able to achieve in other places are amazing, sometimes yields of as much as 10 times were achieved. Based on these results it is clear that with the basic techniques and Christian principles taught and applied, Africa would be able to feed itself. Together with the Esther School we will explore opportunities to introduce these techniques in and around Nyangwena.

This morning, Machteld and Lucinda got an early call from Tina, Rachel and Jean from the Esther School. They had just dropped off our Canadian friends at the airport and were wondering whether the ladies were interested in doing a breakfast together. That did not fall on deaf ears so quickly after they left, leaving Gert behind to look after himself. Around noon they were back and we did some shopping for groceries and some plants for the garden this afternoon.

We are slowly but surely settling in and getting into a routine here in Zambia but having friends come over a visit is certainly a highlight of the week. It is at moments like that that we realize that we miss our close friends since we cannot just drop in quickly for a coffee or have a quick chat. Those little things are the things that we miss the most. Skype, email and other means of communication can help but never replace the time spent together. We are blessed to have such a great group of friends and family that continues to look after us and support us. It has always been much appreciated but after this week and seeing some friends here it has become even more precious to us. We thank God for all of you who care and support us. Words cannot express how blessed we feel of having friends.

Thank you all and thanks be to God.