A Slice of Home

January came to a close with the arrival of 3 board members of Living Hope. I had met two of them just briefly on the two times I travelled back to Zambia in 2023, but Jon had never met them in person! While Zoom meetings are super convenient, and a great way to bridge distance, it certainly cannot replace in-person interaction! The two weeks that the board was here was filled with meetings and planning toward the future - which was super productive! Included in their visit was the handprint mural that the LHCA students got to be a part of. It's such a fun pop of color on the wall!

Dad and Mom Schutte arrived at the beginning of February! The anticipation was at an all-time high! It felt surreal to have them jump out of the vehicle and walk into our home on this side of the world! They came with hockey bags filled with books & other items that didn't fit to come with us when we moved. Also packed in there were sweet letters and cards from loved ones back home. The teachers from John Calvin Christian School had students write cards and notes to the kids, which our kids absolutely loved. My personal favorite was the letter that asked Ivy, "Do you still speak English?"

It was so lovely to have dad and mom stay in our house and join our routine. We could keep homeschooling for the morning, while dad and mom painted the interior of the house. We toured them around the campus and were able to introduce them to the people that we work with & interact with here. We could take them on our lovely road walk, and took them up our "hike" in town. We visited our favorite coffee shop, and had them watch our karate classes. Dad and mom were even there to witness our karate grading, and we all passed our exam and got new belt colors! London, who hasn't been the biggest fan of karate since day one, just admitted this week that she is actually starting to enjoy karate and was proud of herself for passing the grading. Sometimes you gotta push past the discomfort before you start to enjoy something! I'm so happy she's coming on board - cause I just love karate!

One lovely sponsor back in the United States sent a Valentine's Day craft for the Living Hope children to do. We combined this craft with a sugar cookie decorating competition, and the heart game. Do you know that game? All the girls write their name on a paper heart and attach it to their shirt. If they talk to a boy, they have to surrender their heart to him. It is the boy's objective to gather as many girls' hearts as they can. Man, they had so much fun pestering and prodding the girls in hopes of getting their hearts! They loved the cookie decorating & craft, too!

The soccer tournament is still in full swing. The amount of spectators coming to cheer the teams on continues to astound me! Words can hardly fully describe the environment. It's so much more than just people watching a soccer game. It's adults lining the field, cheering, laughing and connecting with friends. The kids are lighting the place up with their energy and laughter. Running, kicking a spare ball, playing on the swings. Living Hope isn't just hosting a soccer game, it is hosting a wholesome community event that is bringing excitement and unity, and I'm just so proud of it! One of the little village boys comes to every soccer match (I have a major soft spot for him), and he often is making up little games with whatever he can find. A few weeks ago he made up a game similar to marbles - using little round things from out of a tree. I just love the simplicity of it!

We also snuck away for 5 days! We travelled to Lake Kariba, which is a 9-hour drive from where we live. We broke it up and stayed at a place just outside of the capital city of Zambia and did the last 3 hours the next day. The drive was beautiful - filled with rolling hills and tiny little villages. We often had to stop for a herd of goats just randomly crossing the road. Lake Kariba, the world's largest man-made lake by volume, is a main power for source for both Zambia & Zimbabwe. We didn't know we needed our passports to go on the actual dam part of it (it borders Zimbabwe), so we opted for relaxing by the pool with waterslides, doing a little boat tour, and checking out a small local market. Being at Lake Kariba felt like we were in a different part of the world! It was lush and beautiful, and so full of character.

Now we are back into the swing of normalcy. I think we all needed some quiet days after 4 busy weeks. Jon continues to be busy with overseeing the maintenance side of things here, and simple trip into town for a few supplies can take aaages just because the roads are horrible, parts are hard to find, and the stores just take long to process orders. He really thrives in the mentoring and guiding side of his role. For myself, since moving here I have started waking up at 6 am to get an hour of quiet time before the rest of the house wakes up. Because we are together all the time, I do need that bit of respite before jumping into the day. I love spending it walking, and often just listen to piano music. My favorite is when it is rainy and cool, and it just reminds me so much of home. I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist, so homeschooling often has me feeling bad that I'm not as patient or organized or excited as I should be with it. I'm trying to reframe my mind to be at peace with the amount of effort and dedication we have already thrown into it, especially with it being such a year of change.

That pretty much summarizes our last month. The deeper we get into our stay, the more rooted I feel. There are days where we feel so far from home and the familiarity of all the things we grew up with. But then God has a way of just reassuring us with day like the other day - where the community comes out to watch sports, the little kids gather and sit up real close, and don't really say much (thanks to the language barrier), but you feel the contentment just the same. The other day I gave a ride to an older gentleman who was walking down the sideroad, and on Sunday this same man was watching soccer, and he came up and sat by me for a few minutes just to say hi and see how the day was going. The familiarity is setting in, and relationships are being formed, and it's an exciting place to be.

Thanks for those of you who are reading these posts, engaging us with messages & lifting us up in prayer. We feel so privileged to be able to serve the community in Zambia, and would just like to encourage you to reach out if you have any questions for us at all!

With love,

Renae