Lenten Journey
The last time we posted, it was the beginning of Lent. As it turns out, a lot happened in Lent which resulted in an unintentional fast from blog posting! We’ll try to make up for that now as there’s so much to update you on!
The biggest challenge of Lent was another unintentional fast – 26 days without reliable running water. To be fair, for the first week, the water would come on at night around 6pm and go out by 7am the next morning, so it wasn’t that much of a hardship. We’d fill up when there was water and live off of it and runoff rain water the rest of the time. But then, there was no running water at all and very infrequent rain. So, we had to go get water in our jerry cans from the tap on campus or sometimes from our neighbors. This proved to be a “yay” and “yuck” duck experience.
[For those of you who aren’t familiar with our “yay” and “yuck” ducks, here they are….
It’s a pair-of-ducks….par-a-dox…paradox. There is the good and the bad in situations. You can just side with one and be an optimist or the other and be a pessimist, or you can hold both in tension at the same time in paradox. It’s hard to do, but it’s an important skill to master in a well-balanced life and perspective. The ducks are a way to make it a fun and approachable concept for kids.]
YUCK – Walking the 5 minutes (I know, it could be much farther) up to the tap/faucet on campus to wait in line to fill a container with water and then carry it back home (often with both kids along) was not my idea of a great time.
YAY – While waiting in line, I got to practice my Chichewa and learn some new words like kuseka= to laugh. Of course, I asked for this word because the children in line were laughing at me, but hey, it’s okay…I’m different! We were also very thankful for our house helper who did a lot of water carrying for us!
The problem ended up being a broken pump which got fixed on day 26 which resulted in much rejoicing across campus! Not having water in our faucets for that long even changed my expectation. I didn’t even try the faucet most times. I’ve heard before that when you do something for three weeks, it makes a habit. It’s true – after 2-3 weeks, the way I lived my life changed – the way I did the dishes, bathed, gave the kids baths, cleaned the house…my routines changed and I adjusted. No big deal, right?
Well, then there were the days when the power went out, too. On these days, we often turn to eating PB&J sandwiches and fruit. We cook dinner on our propane stove and we strive not to open the fridge or freezer at all since we have no idea how long until power returns. No big deal, right?
No, these didn’t seem like big deals, but after a while of dealing with them, even with a good attitude, they start wearing on you without you realizing it and you get worn out.
Lent is a time many people seek to identify with Jesus’ 40 days in the desert. It was a trying time for him, but His true colors, so to speak, showed through as he remained faithful to God and remained true to His calling. Going without water for 26 days turned out to be a desert experience for me, plunging me deeper into self-reflection and reliance on God. It is often in these times of challenge that I find the most satisfying refreshment and rejuvenation in Scripture, prayer and journaling. It was also when Jonathan and I (and even the kids, it seemed) experienced our “6 month slump” in culture adjustment. That’s when all the challenges that haven’t seemed all that bad up until that point join forces and discourage, slow you down and sometimes even depress. Not a real fun time, but at least “slump” implies that you came from a higher place and return to it, right? And we do feel that we’ve come out of that slump for the most part. It’s just really interesting that all these things were part of our Lenten journey this year.
Holy Week
As we turned to Holy Week, I wanted to make it special for the kids and meaningful for our whole family. Yes, the kids are young (4 and 1 1/2), but that just means that we’ll either start building some great family spiritual life memories, or I’ll figure out some ideas that don’t work and can do even better ones when they’ll remember it even more! 🙂
On Palm Sunday, we cut palms from our own property to take to church (how cool is that?!). I was teaching Sunday School for the kids that day, so it was a lot of fun to reenact Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem with the crowd laying clothes and palm branches as a carpet for Jesus the King to ride on! The children sang “Hosanna, hosanna, praise the King!”
On Maundy Thursday night we set up the living room to reenact foot washing at the Last Supper. The coffee table is the right height for the kids’ lawn chairs and Jonathan and I “reclined at the table” on the couch cushions. We had tortillas that night, which I thought made for good unleavened bread and cherry plum SOBO (SOuthern BOttling Co.) soda for our “wine.” The kids were immediate fans of this activity once they got to have soda! First we washed the kids’ feet and then Micah asked to wash Daddy’s feet, which was really special.
I did Rachel’s twice because she just wanted to play in the water longer.
While Jonathan washed my feet, the kids wrestled on the cushions…do you think the disciples ever wrestled? Probably not THAT night!
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| Don’t worry, she can hold her own! |
On Good Friday we didn’t do a Tenebrae service at home, but I greatly missed having one. It was really neat to hear Micah remembering our foot washing “service” in the days and weeks following. Acting things out really helps a kid think through the events and what they mean. It also provides a great opportunity for us as parents to talk about it with our kids!
On Holy Saturday, it was always a tradition in my family to dye Easter eggs. Our eggs are brown here, so I wasn’t sure how they would dye (now people tell me they’re even better than white eggs!), so I thought we’d get creative with avocados.
Our avocado tree has produced hundreds of avos throughout Lent, most of which we sold to our house helper to then resell in the market for her family. I decided that taking a dozen avocados to paint for Easter was a good, contextual (for where we live) idea. 
This way, we could have something for an egg hunt on Easter. After all, no one seems to have heard of plastic Easter eggs around here (except Americans), so obviously they don’t sell them here. Micah and Rachel really enjoyed painting their “eggs” and hunting for them throughout the yard on Sunday. We also used sidewalk chalk to decorate a rock in our backyard that resembles an egg :-).
Easter Sunday
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| Our Easter centerpiece No one is on the cross… No one is in the grave… Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Three candles symbolize the Father, Son and Holy Spirit |
On Easter Sunday (and the days leading up to it), we had quite a lot of lengthy power outages. This made preparing Easter meal a bit tricky. Let’s just say I’m really thankful for our propane stove…and if you ever wondered what happens to jello if you mix it up and don’t put it in the fridge until 7 hours later, it still gels!!! Who knew?!?!?
Jonathan preached at Maone BIC church on Easter Sunday. I found myself mourning the loss of having Micah and Rachel hear songs they know where we usually go (in English) and Micah getting to go to Sunday School to have the Easter story and craft, but at the same time, it was special being in a totally different place for this high, holy day of the Christian year – worshiping and rejoicing with our Malawian brothers and sisters in Christ! It made it easier not to be at home with all the familiar things and people I expect at Easter because I didn’t even expect much to be familiar. The kids did well in the service until partway through the sermon, so I took them outside (where at least half the other moms and children were) and read Arch Bible storybooks to them. The Malawian kids seemed to like them, and even though they probably couldn’t hear me reading in a hushed voice, we left room for them to see the pictures and they leafed through the books we weren’t currently reading. Having books is pretty rare for a lot of Malawian families. I was happy to have some small books with neat pictures of Bible stories to be able to “share” with them for the day.
We got a care package from the Grantham Church a few days before Easter (sent just after Christmas!) which included Easter stickers, so I took them along and gave them out to the kids after church. They loved them, but they all put them on their skin (hand, forehead) rather than their clothes! Very interesting…
I missed my family a lot on Easter and wish we could have just popped over to their place for dinner. In some ways it’s nice to be here to really shape our family traditions as the kids grow up in ways we may not have taken the time to do when involved in a church full of programs (Yay duck). But at the same time, I do really miss some of those programs as well (Yuck duck). I grieve the loss of having family close by, especially on holidays (Yuck duck), but I’m also so thankful for this time where I can see our kids growing and asking questions they wouldn’t be asking in PA, most likely (Yay duck). The “yay” and “yuck” ducks are so strong some days, I’m glad they taught us about holding both of them at the same time and allowing them to be what they are. It’s so painful at times, though.
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| Our avocado “egg” hunt |
Thanks for sharing your Lenten journey, for sharing all that's been going on. It helps me to know better how to pray for you.
This is fantastic!! I am sitting here enjoying it with Simon. Makes me love you and miss you. Thanks for sharing! We are sending hugs to you!
Beautiful! Thank-you for including the pictures. To God be the glory! In Christ, Tom
Your thoughtfulness as you create traditions for your family and kids is so great! It helps me to think through what we can be doing as a family now with Landon. What a Lenten season you will never forget. Praying for you and thankful for your work in Malawi! 🙂
Becky! So good to hear from you, although I'm sorry that Lent was such a "desert" experience for you in a lot of different ways. Glad that Easter has been a renewing time and a chance to create new traditions – you are so good at that, and so good at articulating things! Praying that you move upward from the "slump" and find encouragement in the midst of those "yuck" days 🙂
Enjoyed reading this in "expanded form" …a few things (always odd, coming from me) stand out: I realized as you described "slump" that for some reason my mental picture has been more of "bump"…why have I been picturing a slump as a hill? Maybe b/c it's an uphill struggle? I'm not sure – but thanks for that clarification…now I'll picture the proper slump. And Rachel – my goodness…what a grow(ing)/(n) up little girl she's becoming…I feel like I don't even know this girl! Thanks for the update. I'll look forward to more now that you're out of the desert.
As we were experiencing our version of 6-month slump, we missed your blog updates, but it's good to read of your Lenten journey all at once. And such great pictures! Just so you know, you will have a good supply of plastic eggs for next year!
Your blog is always so uplifting! Are you missionaries in Africa or to your blog friends in the US???????? Love and prayers for you all!