Our First Year At A Glance

Dear friends and family!
What a year it has been and we just want to share in this e-mail some things that we have experienced looking back over our first year here in Lusaka, Zambia.
God has been so faithful to us over these many months of change. We have experienced four moves within the first 8 months and are finally settled for the next year (or so we think!!) We have missed our family and friends more than we ever thought, but God has given us a more extended family and group of friends here in Zambia. God has brought us both locals and other fellow missionaries that we have grown to love and bond with here as we have settled into this new third culture world. We have become a part of a local congregation and have experienced the extension of the body of Christ here in Africa. It is so beautiful to worship with the Zambians here! Even when you can’t understand the words to some of the songs, God ministers to your heart just through His Spirit and the music itself. Knowing that we all serve and love the same God and seeing the expansion of His body of believers is just awesome.
Not only are we expecting our fourth child here in a couple of weeks but we have also grown to love the children at Emmanuel Family Home in the compound of Kanyama. They have become like our own children and God has given us a deep love and concern for these kids. Our own three kids are also quite attached to them and God has opened their hearts for those that don’t have mommies and daddies.
It is amazing to see the changes in the kids and their love for the Zambians. Macie received some money for her birthday in January and the first thing she said is “now I can give this money to Joyce to help build her roof.” Luke and I started crying as we saw in Macie a new sensitivity that God has given her for those truly in need. Emma shows her love more quietly, by loving on those babies and praying for them daily. Payton, being the more vocal one, loves singing his favorite Zambian songs and preaches to the girls while they play church. He loves wearing his preacher clothes and while preaching he continuously waves his one arm as he holds his Bible in the other. They love Pauline our house help and every morning greet her with big hugs and hellos. Our guard, Movetty has a special bond with Payton as they have dug in the dirt over many hours together. Movetty and Pauline have become like family to us and we have learned so much from them culturally. We are so blessed to have them as a part of our family.
Our dog spud is quite attached to the kids and loves their attention, while are two turtles would love to get not so much attention!!!!
Not only is our family growing but our vocabulary is also. We are slowly learning the local language Chinyanja and have found it fun but difficult. Luke is very good at greetings and enjoys making people laugh as he yells out the car window. The kids have learned the names to many animals and songs and love showing off to visitors. We are beginning more language study every Friday and hope to grasp more this year. It is not a necessity here in Zambia, because English is the most used language here, and all the signs everywhere are in English. So while it is not essential, learning the language will bring us closer to the Zambians and is a great example to them that we are trying to adapt to the culture, not just merely exist.
Living in another country we have learned to adapt to many different things. The first would be the food. We have eaten all sorts of different things from caterpillars to dried fish (kapenta), and then some not so crazy stuff like mangos, lots of cabbage, new types of meat, juice, bananas right off the tree, smelly cheese and ice cream (its not quite like Blue Bell for those of you in the south or Culvers for those in the Mid-West!!) We have enjoyed this process over the last year, but always love those packages in the mail that have skittles, muffin mixes, ranch dressing packets, taco seasoning, starbursts or other treats. Thanks to all those who have sent goodies to bless us!!!!
Another thing we have had to adapt to is the weather. We have grown to love the hot Zambian sun and have really realized it now that we are in the rainy season! But with the rains come beautiful flowers and everything is so green and vibrant. The rains have brought the cooler weather, which is a blessing for me and my growing belly!!!! Also, we have gotten used to using the Zambian Kwacha instead of our American currency and find it easy to convert back to dollars. There are no coins and so you can imagine how many bills we must carry around when shopping. The kids have loved learning and playing with the Zambian bills.
The outlets in our house have also been an area that we have had to adapt to. Every outlet needs at least one converter and things have to be moved frequently around the house to get charged. Our toothbrush and razor chargers are on Luke’s desk, kitchen utensils have to be moved and re-plugged daily and the bathrooms don’t even have outlets! I never thought that I would get used to this “inconvenience” but I guess you make due and God allows you to relax with such annoyances. I have found this true in many areas such as power outages, no water pressure, noisy neighbors, ants coming out of every crack, spiders on the walls, lack of Internet access, and Zambian drivers!!!!
The kids have also adapted to sitting through a 2-3 hour church service, and we thought that the day would never come, but it has THANK GOD! God has seen us through so many new and interesting situations and we are so thankful for all that He has taught us this year.
It is still very hard to drive down the streets of Lusaka and see the poverty first hand. The children half dressed playing on the dirty wet streets and men sweating while pushing overflowing wheelbarrows through town with goods to sell in the market. Women carrying their baby on the back, a pile of sticks on their head and lugging buckets of water home to their families. We have nothing to complain about and we are quickly reminded of that as we see our fellow brothers daily struggle. We will never get used to seeing this poverty and we pray daily that God keeps out hearts sensitive to the needs of those around us.
We have been blown away by all of the love, prayers and financial support that you each have given us this year. We could not have done it without you all and the Lord’s guidance. We truly appreciate your e-mails of encouragement and news, letters, packages, Christmas cards, and phone calls. As we have said in many previous e-mails, we are all members in the body of Christ and we are so blessed to be the hands and feet of what God is doing here in Zambia. Thanks to our Heavenly Father and family and friends like all of you!!!!!! Thank you for your continued support for 2008 and we look forward to catching up with you all on our furlough the beginning months of 2009!!!!!!!We look forward to all that God is going to do this New Year and all the adventures ahead of us. We will continue to keep you all posted on the details!!

With Much Love, Elise for all the Whitfield’s!!!Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him and He will make your path straight”