Monday, February 9, 2009

That's wierd...my birthday's never been this warm before...

Thanks to everyone who wished me a Happy Birthday over here in Zambia! I wasn’t planning on making a big deal of it or acknowledging it…but my inbox was flooded with emails, and I even got a few phone calls. It was great to hear some familiar voices…especially yours mom. Not only that, but the guys over here celebrated it a little too, so it was great. So all in all, I had a pretty good birthday over here in Africa. The best part is that I got to turn 22 about 8 hours sooner than my twin brother, Dallas. Thanks again to everyone.
Sorry that it’s been a little while since my last post, the time flew this last week. Actually, I got a little sick too, so that slowed me down a little. But don’t worry, I’m feeling good again (really mom, don’t worry).
Some of you know that I had been hoping to start a friendship with a young man named Sunday. On one of my first few days in Serenje, Navice asked me to disciple him. My brother reminded me that I hadn’t really given any updates on our friendship since I first arrived, so here goes.
The first few weeks I didn’t have much time to get to know Sunday, but in the last month we’ve become very good friends. He’s our farm manager for the Hope Center, and he’s about a year older than I am. We meet many times a week for a Bible study time, but also just to hang out. Usually we discuss a verse that we assigned ourselves to read, then we talk about other God and faith topics. We also talk about life, and of course we’ve been getting to know each other more and more. Our friendship is really just getting better and better as the time goes on. Every time we get together we are more comfortable with each other and we have more fun. I think I’ve been able to be a great voice of truth to him and to help him with his spiritual growth too. It’s crazy how I know I’m going to miss many people I’ve come to know here when I go back to the States, just like I miss many of you now. I have a feeling Sunday and I will have a life long friendship, at least I hope so.
Other things are going well here. Construction is coming along well, we’re working very hard. I hung out with a bunch of the orphans the other day too. We played soccer, which they call football. I’ll summarize how that went…they’re amazing and I was gasping for air. It was tons of fun. I really enjoyed playing with them and loving on them…it was great. Thanks everyone for keeping up with me and for your prayers!
Prayer Requests: Navice is holding pastor training this week for about 35 pastors from the surrounding areas, pray for details to go smoothly, and that they would not only be able to learn a lot in a short amount of time, but that the outcome would go beyond knowledge and into action…I’ll be sharing with the pastors tomorrow morning too, what will I say? I guess we’ll see…the Bible Study with the workers, we do it Tuesday and Thursday mornings and we cover many topics and questions...my great friendship with Sunday…and last, my family who I miss and love…a lot!

1 comment:

  1. Jack-we love to read your updates...happy belated birthday from ALL the YOSTS. Christian is starting to count the days until you come back to Omaha-we all miss having your smiling face in our house. We continue to pray for you and everything that you are involved in.
    Timaree

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