Category: living in their world

What Really Matters.

She was excited for the interval, hungry for the next chapter. It didn’t matter that she was sitting in the middle of a straw mat in the heart of Africa with Portuguese and local dialects all around her. She had patiently waited, greeting everyone and sharing in hugs and hand shakes. She had made sure everyone was settled and happy with various picture books and white computer papers for origami.

And so she happily smiled, flipping to her previous page and soaking into her book when in an instance it was snatched from her hands. She turned to me and laughed at the irony. A young girl sitting beside her motioned quietly for her to wait as the girl looked at the book’s pictures sporadically included in the English chapter book. My little girl just waited, See, she knew in this kid cultural moment it wasn’t rude. She saw the young friend’s bubbling over excitement. Books are so scarce here that they’re super exciting. And besides, this is just how you love people here- you share when it’s not always convenient.

The grace my little girl showed was such an encouragement to me. It has been a slow whispering, an awakening to the true value. Books and things are always fun, but the hearts of those around us make us laugh in the ironic moments and share willingly with those around us; even when they don’t read English, were a little too excited to contain themselves, and when the irony of the situation is just too fun to not share with locked eyes and a chuckle. Kids here see with their hands. And they almost always hand it back momentarily. It’s just a game of patience while everyone gets a look before you get it back. Community is strong here. And how beautiful to see my little lady play her role so sweetly.

And sure enough, with patience and the passing of 30 seconds, my beloved little girl was back to her thirst-quenching exploration of the world of yet another novel character.

People will always matter more than things.

And irony is totally worth laughing at

there on a straw mat in the heart Africa.

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The Important Things

Because sometimes you just have to bring the guinea pigs to the prayer meeting.

Those squeakers really were so quiet and respectful while we all enjoyed prayer service. 😉

And yes, it brought many smiles to adult faces.

– Family ministry at its finest. 😉

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Marvelous Munchies

We “traveled” to Japan recently in homeschool studies and highly enjoyed some Japanese cuisine. 🙂

We had “cucumber sushi”, ramen noodle soup (with grated carrot, green onions and homemade veggie stock), Soy sauce corn and a Japanese jello dish.

Thank you again to all our friends and families whom have read us library books this past year’s worth of studying around the world. We have highly enjoyed learning alongside of you all. And this run through Japan we also enjoyed some YouTube videos of a little girl showing us around her Japanese apartment and breakfast preparations together. I have loved seeing the progression of “ew, that’s gross” reactions to food from some of my (once) pickier eaters to “Wow, that’s different. We should try it!”

We also enjoyed some stainglass window coloring sheets as we have studied about aspects of ocean life.

(Nevermind my handing cat window baskets [complete with cat] and their strings obstructing some of the picture views.)

It was a blast wrapping up our two weeks worth of Japanese studies. Next up? Russia, Australia and we’ll finish out the school year and our studies through the world with Antarctica. 🙂

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Igreja no Caro

When you travel an hour and ten minutes to your people group and it goes from sprinkling to thunder/lightning so no one shows up, what do you do?

Car church, baby!!!

You never know if when you start the drive by the time you get there it will have cleared up or will have begun raining cats and dogs.

Then while we sat in the car, toward the end of our car church service we were flagged by a church member who lives nearby who invited us into her porch for a visit. We enjoyed praying together and singing some fun songs with her kids.

Praising our Lord with our brothers and sisters in Christ is and will always be worth the adventure.

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A Family Interview

We were given an opportunity to be interviewed in order to be a prayer focus. I thought some of you all may have the same questions and may be entertained to hear our answers. If you have specific interests you could pop down to the boldface topics or buckle up for the whole interview. 😉 I have included in (parentheses) whom is speaking and in [further explanation or my commentary.] Also I have included in (Italics) pronunciations of some names.

But either way, thanks for continuing to journey with us, dear friends and family. We love sharing this adventure with you.

Questions About Your Family
● How many brothers and sisters do you have? (Monica) We are a family with 4 sisters and no brothers. And yes, everyone has asked me for 9 years now if we’re going to have a boy. Ha!
● What are their names? Rachael, Abi, Hannah, Eden (Matt and Monica are the dad and mom)
● How do you like being a big/litter sister/brother? (Hannah) I don’t know. (Abi) Um.. it’s fine – [Ha! She sounds depressed. Lol] (Rachael) I like it because I get to be the leader and not like to boss around but like I get to sometimes show them a good example of something we should do. (Eden) I don’t want to be in here…. [lol. Referring to this interview.]
● Where does your Dad work / what does your dad do for a job? (Eden) Um…. He works…. I don’t know… (Hannah) He works in Inharrime [In-yar-eem-ee] and he teaches people about Jesus.
● Where does your Mom work / what does your mom do for a job? (Abi) My mom doesn’t really work. (Hannah) She works at our house and she teaches us school work.
● What is your favorite thing to do as a family? (Rachael) We like to play games together like flashlight hide and go seek. (Hannah) We like to watch movies. (Eden) To.. to… to… play? (Abi) Sit in the AC on hot days. [LOL!]
● Do you have any pets? What kind of pets? (Monica) We have a lot of pets. We like to joke that we’re a zoo. We have two dogs, Lady and Shadow. We have two cats, Niblet and Tiger. And we have two guinea pigs, Squeakers and Squealers with up to four baby guinea pigs on the way from Mama Pig, Squeakers.

Questions About Where You Are

  • Where do you live? Why are you living there? (Eden) In Africa. (Hannah) In Mozambique (Abi) in Maxixe [and she answered half in English and half in Portuguese]. (Rachael) We are living here because God told Mommy and Daddy that we should move to Mozambique to tell people about Jesus.
  • How long have you been there?  (Matt) We will have lived here for 2 years in October. How long do you think you will stay? (Abi) I think we will just stay here and not like move anywhere else to live. But we will visit places. (Hannah) A million years. (Rachael) I’m going to live here until I get grown up and have to go to college in the United States.
  • How many different places have you lived? (Hannah) America, Africa, um… Spain, Zambia, South Africa, uhh.. New York, Disney World, and Quelimane and Maxixe and we lived in that one place that we lived in where we learned VBS and I turned 5 there… yeah at FPO (Field Placement Orientation) [we visited or trained in each of the specific places that Hannah thinks we have lived – Missionary Kid life, baby!] (Monica) We lived for ten years serving at a church in Ohio in the USA, then we move to our training in Virginia in the USA for two months, then we moved to Quelimane, Mozambique for a year of language school and then moved 16 hours south to Maxixe, Mozambique where we live and work with our People Group.
  • Who is your closest neighbor? (Rachael) That we know? Yeah so I think it would be Eva and Annie [the closest neighbors with kids]. Though we have neighbors next door but I don’t know their names or who they are [they don’t have kids].
  • What is your favorite thing about where you are? (Abi) Going to the beach (Hannah) that it has KFC (Rachael) We have friends here (Monica) Life is simple and we’re right in the middle of where God wants us to be. 😉
  • What is the most amazing thing you have seen or done there? (Rachael) We saw a whale jump when we were at the beach. (Hannah) I got to learn how to swim at the beach. (Abi) Going on a safari with Goga and Gopa [Monica’s mom and dad].

Questions About You

  • How old are you? Matt – 32 yrs old, Monica – 33yrs old, Rachael – 9 yrs old, Abi – 8 yrs old, Hannah – 6 yrs old, Eden – 4 yrs old.
    ● When is/was your birthday? Matt – May 10, Monica – Jan 19, Rachael – Jan 5, Abi – June 16, Hannah – Sept 5, Eden – July 9
    ● What is your favorite food? (Rachael) Daddy’s homemade pizza (Hannah) KFC (Abi) Nachos and cheese dip with the salsa (Eden) Nachos and cheese dip (Matt) Fajitas (Monica) Ice cream [I’d like to note that only R and H’s responses can be found in our country, though we can sometimes find/get cheese dip and vanilla ice cream which is a blessing.]
    ● What is your favorite color? (Hannah) pink and purple and blue  (Eden) pink and purple (Rachael) light blue (Abi) turquoise (Matt) Michigan State green or blue (Monica) royal blue
    ● What is your favorite animal? (Matt) wolf (Monica) cat (Rachael) kittens (Abi) cheetahs (Hannah) guppies – wait nevermind, um… sharks [super random and off the top of her head] (Eden) guinea pig
    ● What do you want to be when you get older? Why? (Rachael) A missionary mom because I think that it’s important that people around the world can hear about Jesus and have a chance to have a choice to have Jesus in their hearts and if no one goes how can they have a chance to hear? And I want to be a mom because I think that it’s really cool to have children and I really like babies so I think having children would be really fun and cool. (Abi) I want to be a missionary because I want to share Jesus with people that way then they can learn about Jesus. (Hannah) The same as Rachael because I think it’s cool to tell people about Jesus and I want them to learn the gospel. (Eden) I want to be a ballerina and a missionary mom because I want to be like you [she says to me, her Mom] because I want to pick my movies and like do stuff like you do.
  • Questions About School
    ● Where do you go to school? (Rachael) at my house (Abi) we don’t go to school we do it at our house (Hannah) Um… in.. wait… we don’t go to school, we do it at our house. You’re our teacher. [referring to Mom]
    ● What grade are you in? (Rachael) 4th (Abi) 2nd (Hannah) I’m in grade Kindergarten (Eden) I don’t know, Mommy. [Eden is in busy school grade. 😉 ]
    ● What is your teacher’s name? (R) Monica (A) Monica (H) Monica and sometimes Daddy and sometimes Ms. Elizabeth comes over and teaches
    ● What is your favorite thing to study at school? (Rachael) Reading (Abi) Science (Hannah) GoPhonics [reading program] (Eden) *mumbles*… [her activity cutting workbook]
    ● What are you studying in school right now in math? (Ra) mental math, time, division, subtraction, addition (A) I don’t know. I’m learning times. 2×2. [multiplication]

…language arts? (Ra) Is Language Arts Reading? Ok, so in Grammar I’m studying – hold on one sec- [goes and grabs her book — Ha! This child is my literalist] Adjectives!, in Reading I’m studying similes and metaphors, and then in Spelling I’m learning ph words and forms of the sound er.  (A) Um, I’m not quite sure. What is language arts? Oh, I’m writing and doing grammar and reading. I’m learning about how to make sentences and I’m learning spelling words and um…

..science? (Ra) Um… we’re learning about mountains and different ecosystems at different heights on the mountains and how temperatures are different at different parts of the mountain and so animals live in different parts. [Mom’s impressed.] (A) we’re learning about pollution [also true]

They wanted to share about history: (Ra)We’re learning about countries around the world and learning about how missionaries traveled to tell people about Jesus around the world. (A) I’m learning about animals from around the world. What we do on Fridays is whatever country we’re studying we cook the food that they would eat and then we eat it. So if we were studying Saudi Arabia then we eat Saudi Arabian food [like we did 2 weeks ago]. (H) We’re studying about India right now and about flags from around the world. (E) I like to watch videos about stories. [We had some friends and family back in the States read us some of our library books, since we don’t have access to English books here, so we could learn about countries and tales from countries all over the world this year. Eden loves seeing familiar faces read to us from new library books.]

  • Who is your best friend? (Matt) Monica (Monica) Matt (Ra) Kelly [local national Pastor’s oldest daughter] (A) Gildo [Jill-do] [our guard who plays with the kids] (H) Eva and Annie [two missionary kids we have schooled with and are returning to the States in November] (E) Eva and Annie

Questions About The Previous Week
● What was something fun you did this week? (A) We went to the beach on Hannah’s birthday with Gildo. (H) I learned how to swim on my birthday at the beach.
● What was something you had to do this week that you didn’t care for? (Ra) I had to take a grammar test. But then I got most of everything right. (Matt) Stand in lines and drive between government offices to start the rabbit trail of paperwork for our yearly country visas.

Questions About Activities
● What do you like to do for fun? (E) Watch a movie. (A) Play games

  • Do you prefer to spend your time inside or outside? (Matt) [I forgot to ask him] (Monica) outside in the shade (Ra) outside (A) outside (H) outside (E) outside
    ● Do you like to draw? What kinds of things do you draw? (A) Yes, I like to draw with markers and the pictures that I like to draw are mountains, rainbows, people, forests, flower fields. (H) I like to draw with sharpie markers [“Ha! No way!’ says her mom.], wait no the markers that Rachael has that I never get to use. I like to draw with markers. I like to draw persons. Rainbows. Houses. Animals. (E) Persons, grass, sun, fairies, sky, and…. Persons, girls.. And I like to draw boats and… leaves… and….. Starfishes and…. Toasters… [LOL]
    ● Where is the most exciting place you have been in the past year? (Ra) Safari in South Africa and saw all kinds of animals. (A) South Africa because of the big bouncy trampoline park and the foam pits. (H) Bouncy Place [South Africa] (E) The foam pit place with a lot of trampolines and we get to jump in the foam pit. (Monica) Madrid, Spain in the freezing cold winter – AHH!!!! (Matt) Kruger Safari park

Questions About Hobbies

  • What is the best toy that you have? (H) I don’t know we have a lot of really good toys. I like play kitchen a lot. Oh wait I like rice bin and playdoh and water colors… (A) Playdoh because I get to pretend I’m making a bakery (Ra) My books (E) playdoh and rice bin (Matt) the trampoline (Monica) the Wii
    ● Do you like to read? (Monica) All of us love to read/be read to, in fact a lot of our allotted crate space with the IMB was filled with English books. Haha! Priorities, people! 😉 We each enjoy reading and have our allotted space on our hallway bookshelves with our favorite reading material. Matt and I enjoy taking turns reading Christian missionary novels to the girls each night before bed. We just finished Amy Carmichael and are starting into Gladys Aylward. We read the “Christian Heroes: Then and Now” series by YWAM and have been reading our girls to sleep since Rachael, our oldest, was 11 months old. The girls absolutely love this time and often beg for one more chapter if they’re not already asleep. Matt and I, personally, are attempting to read the Chronicles of Narnia in Portuguese and I am currently reading “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist” on the side. Rachael is reading the Chronicles of Narnia in English and she is reading through the rest of her historical American Girl doll books in order to hand them off to Abi when she’s done. Abi is reading the Moana chapter book right now and has completed the Princess in Black chapter books recently. She also has enjoyed reading Elephant and Piggie books almost daily to Hannah and Eden and is looking forward to starting the Magic Tree House series soon. Hannah is reading beginner reading books and both Hannah and Eden are constantly found on the couch with various picture books in their hands throughout the day.
    ● What is your favorite book? (Ra) Chronicles of Narnia (A) Moana [chapter book she’s reading]
    ● What is your favorite song? (Monica) “Loyal” by Lauren Daigle and “First” deluxe remix by Lauren Daigle (Ra) “I will Trust in You” by Lauren Daigle (A) Adele songs ‘Hello from the other side’, ‘Set Fire to the Rain’, ‘Rolling in the Deep’, ‘Someone like You’  [Can you tell we like Daigle and Adele? Haha.]
    ● Do you like to dance? (Monica) The girls all love to dance and are often found in all-out dance parties in the living room complete with dramatic, jumping entrances. 😉
    ● Do you know how to play any instruments? Which one(s)? (Matt) nope (Monica) guitar (Rachael) ukulele (Abi) ukulele a bit and (H) and (E) drums [in a wild rhythm]

Questions About Spiritual Things
● Do you like to read your Bible? (Monica) we all read our Bibles daily. Matt and I are reading through the bible in 90 days and I often play a dramatic reading of the audio bible as a soundtrack to cooking/cleaning. Rachael is currently doing a guided kid bible study through the book of James, and Abi, Hannah and Eden are doing a kids reading plan through the book of John. We are also reading and memorizing Scripture with out daily homeschool Bible time. Right now we’re working though the sermon on the mount in Matthew ch 5 and 6. We’re also memorizing Matthew 11: 28-30.
● Do you have a favorite Bible verse?   (Monica) Oh man, it’s hard to pick. Romans 10: 13-15 or James 1:27 or Philippians 3:8-11 (ooo, this one’s so good and so much to chew on) or my all-time favorite Philippians 3:12-14. No way I could pick just one. Hehe.  (Ra) John 3:16 (A) John 3:16 (H) Deut 6:5 (E) Matthew 5:14-16 (Matt) Romans 10:13-17 [He also struggled to nail only one Bible verse down]
● What is the funniest name in the Bible? (Matt) Melchizedek (Monica) Habakkuk [it sounds like “Have a cookie” when said in Portuguese]. (Ra) Bartholomew [hope I spelled that right]
● Do you pray to God every day? (Matt and Monica) We pray daily. =) (Ra) At meal times and I also pray when I do my Bible study and sometimes at nighttime after Daddy has prayed if I have something that Daddy didn’t mention then I’ll pray more. (H) Yes. We pray at every meal.
● What types of things do you pray for? (Ra) against bad dreams, at bible study that God will help me understand and learn how to use what I learn in my life, at meal time I thank God for the food that we have to eat and pray for those who don’t have food and I pray if someone’s sick then I pray about that. (A) I pray for Mommy and Daddy and Rachael, Eden and Hannah, Gildo and Eva and Annie. I pray about that we would have a fun time and that we would learn a lot in school.
● When you think of God, how do you picture him? (Ra) A kind and loving person and someone that when I get to heaven I’ll run up to Him and give Him a hug and it’ll be like I’ve known Him all my life. (A) I picture Him in heaven with me.
● Why do you think Jesus decided to come and die for our sins? (Ra) Because He knew that God loves us and that while we were still sinners He loves us and doesn’t want us to be separated from Him and to never be with God because of our sins. (A) because He loves us.
● Do you tell other people about Jesus? (Matt and Monica) yup. =) (A) yup, I tell Gildo and Evo [our guards]
● Who have you told about Jesus recently? (Matt) Jessica, our people group in Chemane, youth at a youth camp we got to work with (Monica) the children at church on Sunday. I’m also trying to reach out to our unbelieving guards. (A) yup, I tell Gildo [Jill-do] and Evo [EE-voo] [[our guards]]

Did I miss something you want them to know?

(Monica) I am not even sure if that’s possible. Hehe. You were wonderfully thorough. But we’re always open to share more should anyone else have a question. We covet your prayers and are so thankful for this opportunity to serve together here in Mozambique. That’s right, we’re serving together with you all as you pray alongside of us for the salvation of Mozambicans and Americans and the whole world. May His glory fill the earth! May His name be exalted unto the heavens! There IS no one like our God, for sure. May we never be the same, thanks to the Cross!

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Braving the New

I love catching those moments of just the raw normality of learning to fit into a new space.

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A new people.

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A new friendship budding through vulnerability.

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How I am blessed to encourage and witness the brave steps of these little ladies.

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Friendships are worth the challenges of crossing languages and cultures.

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It’s so beautiful to watch the Lord care for each of their hearts.

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Thank you, Jesus, for answering this Mommy’s prayers for her loves. 

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