My Life as an African Gypsy

We went to the small market this afternoon. I am a bit hesitant now, since having a rude experience a couple times ago. Normally, I am very friendly, and they too respond very nicely. Many smiles and laughing. Every now and then there is some confusion, but nothing that can’t be overcome and giggled about.

One day recently though, there were a couple of rude women. They wouldn’t give us the price we had paid before, which was annoying, but then when we paid what they were asking, they wouldn’t give us a plastic bag like they normally do. When we asked, she tucked the bags close next to her and said she didn’t have any, even though I could see them right there. I was frustrated; feeling like it was because I was white. I let it bother me for a bit.

Today though, it was better; we had such a nice time. The ladies we so friendly as we chatted about the crazy amount of rain we had. Even though I wasn’t buying much, they added a little for free. I was blessed. Now, every good experience I have I am thankful for. I will remark to Jon in the car, “They were so nice today!” with my big smile across my face.

Veggies and other food at the market are cheap! Examples:

4 or 5 small tomatoes – 50 cents
3 or 4 onions – 50 cents
2 big avocados – 50 cents
4 or 5 small green peppers – 50 cents
3 ears of corn – 1 dollar
5 sweet potatoes – 1 dollar
A big cabbage – 2 dollars
Bag of beans – 2 dollars
A fresh loaf of bread – 50 cents
10 small donut things with sugar – 50 cents

(Veggies I miss: lettuce, cucumbers, green beans)

At the super market we can find some other things we like such as:

10 large frozen chicken breasts – 8 dollars
6 apples – 3 dollars
Top deck candy bar – 2.5 dollars (totally worth it every now and again)
A soda is about 1 dollar

Beautiful material is really cheap as well. A wrap for about $1.50 or nice material for $5

There are things you will find that lean towards the expensive side, but nowhere near what we were bracing ourselves for. Praise God! We are both very content and feel like living here moderately is quite doable. One thing I will stock up on in South Africa or Mozambique is spices! Bouillon cubes (Mozambique had great beef curry ones), garlic salt, curry powder, cayenne pepper, etc. They don’t have much variety if any here. Boo!

(Pics sometime... they take forever to upload! Check www.jonandlayne.com for a few)

We just returned from our visit to Paulina and Beatrice’s sick mother. We met them in church two weeks ago, and they came by on Saturday to see if we would pray for their mother. Of course we would! Then we made arrangements that today, Monday, we would like to go to their house and pray with their mother in person.

We arrived at their home, which was impressively nice. Paulina and Beatrice welcomed us graciously and then we sat on the couches and prayed shortly before going to their mother’s room. Walking into their mother’s room, it was dark and there she sat with her legs straight out in front of her. They were thin. So thin. It is as if when you get sick here, you lose all fat on your body. She was wearing a lovely blue skirt, matching top and head-dress. When I commented on how stylish she looked there in bed, they told me she knew she was having visitors today. Precious.

We told her, through Paulina’s translation, how happy we were to be there with her.

She is about 73 years old, and has been a Christian since she was young. She was married at about 14 years old and at some point did three years of Bible training. She has known other American missionaries. Her husband died a few years ago, who also was trained in the Bible. Now she has remained sick for 5 years. She has been to many doctors and has had many treatments, but they don’t know what is wrong. Honestly, for here in Africa, 73 is a long and full life. I don’t think death is what is troublesome as much as the pain.

We encouraged Paulina for a little while, reminding her that Jesus too suffered, and knows suffering well. We explained that sometimes these bodies of ours fail, and we fix our eyes on the eternal life. For now we pray and ask to be strengthened by the Lord.

After talking with Paulina, her and her sister Beatrice sang a couple of hymns in Portuguese. I love hearing them harmonize; it is beautiful. Afterwards they explained that they were singing to bring the presence of the Lord, and also to sing in place of their mother, who cannot sing now. Then Jon and I sang “We Bow Down” in Setswana for them.

They sang a couple more songs, during which at one point their mother invited me to sit on the bed with her. How I love to be close and physically show my love, so I was overjoyed. We sat together, my hand on her leg, as she tried to sing along the words she could remember. It was one of those moments I store up in my heart.

When it was time to pray, we all prayed at the same in our own languages. It was beautiful to me, and I am sure a sweet fragrance unto the Lord. I was praying I began to say Jesus over and over. My eyes filled with tears as I remembered Emilia and our time together. It wasn’t a bad memory, just intense. I have grown to love ministry to the sick. We gave our last kisses and hugs and exited her room.

Entering the living room we saw that they had prepared lunch for us: boiled potatoes, rice, meat, and mango juice. What a blessing. The food was very good, as was the conversation. We enjoyed chatting and laughing as we tried to figure out words for certain things. Sometimes our Portuguese is still lacking in vocabulary!

After lunch I held a precious three month old chunky baby, as he slobbered all over and grabbed at my hair. We sang some more hymns in Portuguese before we left. They assured us that now we are family.

The Lord has been gracious to be during this waiting period, giving me an abundance of patience, and for the most part I have been at peace, enjoying the extra days in Namibia. We have had beautiful places to stay with the sweetest of families. Their hospitality has been such an encouragement to me. For those of you who are good at hospitality, know that it is a gift of the Spirit and a tool to be used!

I feel like the Lord has been speaking to me over the past week. Quietly. Stirring my heart and leaning me in certain directions. If you would pray with me for discernment in hearing His voice and for confirmation for the things I hear.

The next few months are very important for Jon and I and will determine much of our future plans. Our hearts want to be open to any which directions He leads us. All I know is that I need to be sure about any and everything, and I trust the Lord for that.

I do know God wants Jon and I right here, right now... and that is a good feeling.

As for now, I miss regular communication and the voices of my family. I am thankful for a wonderful, listening, compassionate husband to cling to. He is surely a gift from above!

Next update will hopefully be from Angola!

Driving into Windhoek I started looking up food places on our handy dandy GPS. Let us take a moment to marvel at wondrous technology… Alright we are back. One place in particular caught my eye: Sugar and Spice Pancake Parlour.

I was immediately was obsessed.

“Jon! We must go!”
“If I had a breakfast spot, I would name it just that!”
“How cute!”
“I love sugar! And I love spice!”

Sure enough, my dear hubby allowed me to indulge myself. This morning we plugged it into the GPS, and off we went! We found it, but guess what? The name had changed! What a shame.

We stayed anyway, and thankfully I believe the menu had remained the same. I got sugar and cinnamon pancakes and Jon got white chocolate and toasted nuts pancakes. Decadent, eh? I know you’re drooling. Turns out pancakes are more what we would call crepes, but good nonetheless.

As we sat at the table I took it all in, the garden, the nice tables, the pretty pancakes dusted with powdered sugar… I knew it would be the last for awhile. And it is okay.

Off we go into Angola, the land where ice cream can cost over $50. ;) Bring it on!

I am sitting here full, full of thankfulness to the Lord.

In light of this, I thought I would share a list of some of the things I am thankful for. Isn't it good to to reflect and be thankful. Maybe today you can take a moment and think of things you are thankful for as well. I'd love to read some if you care to comment and share!

In no particular order and purposefully a bit random:

• Our Angolan visas! (fresh on my mind)
• A family that loves and prays for me. Truly I am humbled by their efforts.
• Supporters who have joined me in this and encourage me to keep going.
• Financial support, which allows us to focus on people, loving and serving them.
• Perfume. Sometimes it is just nice to inhale something beautiful.
• Missionary friends. Seriously, they understand me and my life situation so well.
• Bible study! Thanks Beth Moore for making your videos down-loadable!
• Skype. I can hear and see my family for free. Too cool.
  
• Places to stay/short term "homes" along this journey of ours.
• The beauty of different cultures and language. Gives me a peek into the kingdom of heaven.
• My health.
  
• God's creation. Particularly the lightning outside right now.
• Ice cream and coffee. I love this combo and have indulged myself this week. =)
• God's faithfulness to me. Wow. I could sit here for awhile...
• Prayer. Both people's prayers for us, but also for my ability to approach the God of the universe and actually ask for something. Amazing.
• For electricity and blow dryers.
• My recent experience with Emilia. It is still so close to my heart, and honestly has changed me forever. I was so honored to share in that.
• For hope. (My eyes are tearing up...) I have so much hope because of Jesus. Not just hope for the eternal, which is fabulous, but hope for people here on earth to see Jesus, to know Jesus, to be Jesus.
  
• For toe nail polish. Allows me a bit of girlish glee.
• Last but definitely not least, for my husband. For his love, his gentleness, his faithfulness, his service, his love for the Lord and His people, his heart of worship, his passionate prayers, his romantic ways, and oh how I could go on...
  

And those are just some.

Thank you, Father. I purposefully recognize that every good and perfect gift comes from above.

Lord willing we get our visas tomorrow, Jon and I will starting our journey to Angola on Saturday. This will be our second time into the country the Lord has directed us to, and I am full of a thousand emotions.

I was chatting with Jon the other day as we were in the car driving to Botswana. I told him about my thoughts about how we might be visiting the city we are finally going to settle in, the house we may call our own, the village we may devote our lives to... How exciting! I have a feeling that as we drive into the town, I am going to be a little beside myself.

Right beside this growing excitement is a bit of unsureness. Life and luxury as I know it may be quickly coming to a halt. We have been extremely blessed over the past months to live quite comfortably. Sure there have been minor adjustments, but I have still had a normal hot shower, a washing machine, a stove, etc.

Now, I am not sure what it will be like after Saturday. I may be hand-washing all of our clothes, which honestly seems the most challenging. =/ I may have to figure out a good system to wash this thick long hair of mine without very much water. I most likely will have to adjust to non-flushing toilets.

I know I can do all of this, and if you've ever chatted with me about life in Africa, I normally go on and on about how you can adjust to anything. You get a system and you're fine... it's just that whole figuring out the system and that adjustment phase.

And beside that unsureness is a little bit of dread. I vividly remember driving through Angola. The roads are potentially the worst in world. The left over pieces of asphalt make it impossible to keep any sort of regular speed. The awkward bouncing is kind of funny at first, but the it becomes a bit painful and definitely uncomfortable.

But covering all my jumbled mix of emotions is a blanket of peace. I can rest in seeing the hand of God on every step we've taken. Every place that we have been, I have been astounded by the provision of the Lord and His people. And He will do it again. That is the faithfulness of my God. He goes with me. Hallelujah.

We were sitting on the couch last night and Jon commented that I hadn't posted in a couple of days. I whined, "I can't! I don't have anything inspirational to say! All I do is play games and drink coffee right now!" While that was a little bit of an exaggeration, we laughed and he said he understood.

You see, coming off the heels of my recent experience with Emilia, nothing seems to compare.

And when it comes to the blog, I was so excited to hear that people were motivated and moved to action that I felt pressure to 'keep it up'. (as if it had anything to do with me) I was chatting with the Lord about Jon and my current state of waiting here in South Africa, and I caught myself thinking, "But Lord, they need me. Look at the responses! People want to serve! They need my stories!"

Go ahead and laugh; I'll be laughing right beside you. Don't tell me you don't have these ridiculously selfish thoughts from time to time. Thankfully though, the Holy Spirit is there to quickly put us into our place, and this is what He said to me this time:

You see my life is the Lord's, and it is up to Him to move and use me at His will.

The Lord got to me a place where I had to say that if I am never used by Him again, it is okay. If this was it, my moment, that's okay. Don't get me wrong, it would be extremely difficult, but that would be up to the Lord. My life, my days are His and His alone.

Thankfully, I believe Jon and I are just getting started and that the Lord will be gracious enough to use our lives some more. For that time I wait. Hallelujah.

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A little less selfishly... I find myself missing a certain intimacy and dependence upon the Lord that came hand in hand with pain and suffering. Maybe it is because I wasn't the one really suffering, but I kind of think that may be how God works. I've always said that I believe people who suffer know God in a way I cannot, and now it seems all the more true.