Water for West Africa

Many of you probably know that our fourth child was born in West Africa. What you might not know is that God's call on our life to this area of the world has been more far reaching than that. God literally planted a love for West Africa in our hearts and gave us a living breathing daily reminder. At the same time he called us to make a commitment to visit there yearly and to advocate for the work being done there.

So far we've been able to partner with the work there by selling cupcakes to benefit a youth center being built and selling jewelry to help the Babies Without Milk Program.

I am so excited to tell you about our next project because it partners the people we love on this side of the ocean (you and our family at Calvary Baptist Church) with the people we love on the other side of the ocean and the work they are doing there through a well digging initiative.

Meet the Gebhard family.

I was able to have their youngest daughter in the VBS I planned on my very first trip. And Jeremy got to meet their older kids when he went to work with the youth last year.

They work among a people group in West Africa in David's birth country. Their primary work is that of Bible translation. One of the community development projects they are a part of is digging wells to provide clean water. 

Marc believes that clean water is important, not only because it keeps people from being sick, but also because, “Sharing clean water opens great doors to sharing living water.”

Check out these photos of past well projects:

In a tiny village of 300 or so a well crew works to turn augur bit as they work on a new well and pump for a village that never had any clean water source in their village before.

Another well project in process in for a literacy center in the forest region.

Going into night mode with the well drilling work.

This village that has had to contend with a 20 minute walk to a spring that goes dry in dry season for generations is about to have a pump in the middle of their village.

In a tiny village of 300 or so a well crew works to turn augur bit as they work on a new well and pump for a village that never had any clean water source in their village before.

Children from the village where a well was dug.

Dealing with African soil.

Don't those pictures just make you want to join in?!

Here at home I have the privilege of being part of the Family Quest lesson writing team at our church. This semester we have been studying the woman at the well. Each unit we challenge our families to engage in a service project. As part of learning about the woman at the well we challenged families to ONLY drink water for one week and to make a donation towards building wells in West Africa. You could give $.25 for each glass of clean water you enjoyed, or be even more generous!

Our family of course went all in on this because West Africa is where our heart is. We allowed our kids to drink milk at school but otherwise as a family we drank water. This challenge came at the perfect time for us. We normally don't have a lot of fun drinks at our house.  However, with it being after Christmas our fridge was stocked with Cranberry Sierra Mist (my favorite) and Kool-aid bottles the kids had gotten as a gift. It was fun to watch our kids remind us, "Only water!" when friends spent the night. We didn't have a spotless record but for the most part we stuck to our sacrifice. We enjoyed having our "treat" drinks for breakfast the day we broke our fast.

Fasting with our kids has been a huge learning experience for us as a family and one I wouldn't trade. Our kids (who whine and complain like all kids) are much more willing to sacrifice then I would have thought. I love their reminders of our commitment and I love that as we practice this discipline sacrifice won't seem so foreign to them as they grow into making their own commitments to the Lord.

Breaking our fast at breakfast.

I can't end this post without extending the opportunity to you to join in! 

Our church has set our goal of raising $7,500 towards building more wells. We'd love to have you help us. You can take the one week water only challenge (No coffee? Are you brave?!) or you can simply make a donation. 

As a Calvary Baptish Church member simply put a check in the offering plate with Wells for West Africa in the memo line. 

For far away friends who are interested in contributing to the Gebhard's Village Wells fund, you may send a donation made out to Pioneer Bible Translators (make sure to write village wells on the memo line) to:

PBT-Gebhard

P.O. Box 10184

Terre Haute, IN 47801

or simply click here to donate online. On the drop down menu choose Projects. Then choose Gebhard  Village Well Drilling

If you'd like to teach your kiddos more about the need for clean water this is a great video. While this video is not linked specifically to this project its a great tool for understanding the need for clean water in Africa.

If you'd like to read a first hand account of why Marc thinks the need for clean water is greater now than ever before due to the current health crisis in West Africa you can read his post "Water to Wash."

Trusting the Lord to amaze us as we labor together for his work in West Africa!

Owen Rowland-A Legacy of Faith

As I’ve sat with family and friends over the last few days and reminisced I know that my Popo will be remembered well. In a long life lived well there are all sorts of memories.

You might remember Chink as a dependable mailman.
When he delivered the mail for over 40 years the mail was delivered right. Even in snowstorms there were very few days the mail didn’t go out.Those on his route appreciated him by leaving special treats in their mailboxes for him at Christmas time.

You might remember Chink as a man of hobbies.
He loved to hunt. He loved to bowl. He loved to fish. Way back in the day even hand fishing in Bear Creak. And then fish fries with Dorothy’s potato salad. Later in his life he loved to trap shoot. And he was good at it! Momo remembers he won at least 3 guns. He also loved sports. Sports were on the tv often. He enjoyed going to see his family’s sporting events throughout the years. He also loved to play cards. Over the years many hands of “pitch” were played but inevitably Popo and Wayne would shoot the moon on Momo and Dot and end up winning.

Chances are you might remember a funny story about Chink.
One of his favorites to tell was about Momo was when the tractor was on fire. He was hollering and she thought he said, “Hit the dirt!” So there she was on the ground. But he had been yelling, “Throw dirt!” But Momo has her own story to laugh at Popo. She remembers the time he went to the cemetery as a pall bearer in the rain and grabbed her rain jacket instead of his. Apparently he was quite the site!

You might remember Chink as the only “Popo” you knew.
As a grandfather he left many memories for his grandchildren. Spending the night at Popo and Momo’s house was the best. Getting to help deliver the mail, slow bike rides in the country, helping reload shells in the basement, going on the river in the boat to fish, teaching the boys how to hunt and handle a gun right, doing chores together, watching Tom & Jerry after school, and eating popcorn.

You might remember Chink as a man of service.
He was faithful to serve his church. If the doors were open he and his family were there. Years ago in the old church basement helping make 100’s of gallons of ice cream to raise funds for the church. Over the years he served as a deacon, an elder, chairman of the board, and even the Sunday School secretary. (Or as us kids remember it, the bell ringer.) Many communion table prayers always began with, “Gracious heavenly father.”

When I remember him I think of gum on his glass, I think of getting quiet when the phone rang, I think of a dog in his lap, and his silver Bible case with the cross. I think about the daily mealtime prayer, “God again we bow our head and thank you for our daily bread. Amen.” And I can’t remember Popo & Momo’s house without Popo’s chair. It was an establishment. With his mail, cattle magazines, the tv remote, and a stash of cookies he often shared.

He left a lifetime of wonderful memories.

But that is not the most precious thing he left us. He left us a legacy.

Webster defines legacy as something handed down from an ancestor. What has Owen Rowland handed down to us?

I would say more than anything he has handed down his faith in Jesus Christ.

I will never forget the first Christmas Eve my husband Jeremy spent with me. We were engaged and we’d been talking a lot about our future marriage and what legacy we wanted to start for our future family. When we got in the car he looked at me and said, “That is what I want our legacy to be.” I want to be Pop-o and Mom-o. Someday I want to be serving communion to our entire family. I want to be surrounded by children and grandchildren who know and love the Lord.

Chink was a man who loved the Lord and lived what he believed. He was the same on Sunday as he was the rest of the week. He faithfully read his Bible, served his church, and taught Biblical principles in his home.

This past Christmas Eve God gave us a special gift. Popo was once again able to attend Christmas Eve service. He was able to greet old friends and see many of his church family he had been missing.  And my daughter Grace (Popo’s great granddaughter) was able to take communion with our family for the first time as a new Christian.

To me communion on Christmas Eve will always be a picture of Popo’s legacy. His faith lived out in us his family. When we asked Mom-o what the one thing she and Pop-o wanted for their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren it was that we know the Lord.

The lyrics from this song entitled, “Legacy” seem so fitting.

I don't have to look too far or too long awhile
To make a lengthly list of all that I enjoy
It's an accumulating trinket and a treasure pile
Where moth and rust, thieves and such will soon enough destroy

I want to leave a legacy, how will they remember me?
Did I choose to love? Did I point to you enough
To make a mark on things? I want to leave an offering
A child of mercy and grace who blessed your name
Unapologetically and leave that kind of legacy

Not well traveled, not well read
Not well-to-do or well bred
I just want to hear instead
"Well done good and faithful one"

Popo was a man who loved, who pointed to Christ, and who unapologetically left a legacy of faith.  I have no doubt he has heard those precious words, “Well done good and faithful one.”

May it someday be said of us as well.

A Little Dust on the Bottle

Friday was the one year anniversary of us landing in St. Louis and having the airport moment we'd all been waiting for. Finally, the long awaited photo of our family of 6 on one continent. 

Together. 

A beautiful thing. 

Look at our cuteness.

What you can't see is the absolute chaos that was ensuing behind the scenes. And literally on my children's heads.

We arrived home on Thursday night. We drove through to get McDonalds to celebrate being united with our bio kids. Hoping David would eat a bit of that or the grapes they had brought along. We thought things were going well. We handed him bites of chicken nuggets and french fries and to our shock he was eating them! Then we got home and found EVERY SINGLE BITE stuffed underneath him in his carseat. Oh well.

Before we left for Africa we were afraid that our oldest child had lice. This is kind of my arch nemesis of paranoia because we had them (all of us!) when I was pregnant with my third and it was a nightmare. But after the school nurse and my experienced eyes couldn't find anything despite her consistent scratching we concluded she was having issues with dry skin on her neck. 

As we piled high our luggage in our kitchen and tried to shuffle off everyone to bed while fighting through being up for most of 48 hours I glanced and thought I saw something in said child's hair. And then God spoke to me in the closest thing I've ever heard to an audible voice, "Go to bed." (Kind of wish the audible voice moment was a bit more spiritual, but you get what you get and you don't throw a fit, right?)

So we went to bed on the floor of our boys' room. Because we had run out of time and hadn't figured out a mattress to sleep on. We got up the next day sent our girls to school and stared at each other in this weird, "I'm in a dream" feeling as our boys tried to play together. 

That night as we watched a movie my second daughter told me she had caught her sister's itchy neck. 

And I knew. 

My inspection confirmed that both my girls had a massive infestation of head lice. So I got to call our blessed family who had kept our precious ones while we had been gone (3 different houses worth) and tell them they might have head lice. And we went to bed.

We woke up early the next morning to begin the process of trying to delice our girls' hair before we made our "big appearance" at our homecoming party. I was in the bathroom as they screamed and fussed up until 10 minutes before we HAD to leave because we were late to our own party. It was a horror movie come to life in our own home. (okay maybe a bit dramatic but it was not pretty)

This was the beginning of a month and a half battle to completely eradicate head lice from our home.

And speaking of our "home" it felt more like a disaster zone as well. The day before we left our sink  started raining water into our finished basement. We came home to a big chunk of the wall/ceiling missing. 

We were also in denial about the fact that carpet in our bedroom was very damp (aka practically squishing). We figured out it was all connected which resulted in not having a working sink for at least a month, our bedroom/finished living room being mostly gutted, and having to put a big chunk of our stuff in a storage unit. 

We were sleeping on the floor of our boys' room (now on a borrowed mattress!) We had no closet and were still living out of our "Africa" totes. The bottom half of our house was a red hot mess of disaster. And we had a child who wouldn't eat anything and couldn't communicate who also helped our toilet be out of order for most of a week.  Basically life was storybook perfect. ;)

I got a short reprieve from cocooning to run to WalMart for another head lice treatment and groceries. 

(Because did I mention our Aldi where we do 97% of our shopping was closed...for a month?)

I saw this on clearance. 

I bought it and brought it home. I declared that it was our victory drink. I was declaring God WOULD have the victory. That I had faith despite these somewhat challenging circumstances we would survive. Ever try to act your way into a feeling?

Eventually we would have a bedroom again. Eventually I would be able to do dishes and we wouldn't have to eat off paper plates. Eventually we would have carpet and drywall again. Eventually I wouldn't lay awake at night obsessing about wether I had head lice. Eventually our child would speak English and American food. Eventually we could shop at our precious Aldi again. 

It would happen. And when it did we would celebrate. I stuck that drink on top of our fridge. 

Where it gathered dust for way longer than I had planned. 

Jeremy ended up having to run all new pipes to our sink, but eventually our sink and even our dishwasher started working again. While Jeremy was gone to Africa in April we finally fixed those holes in our drywall and while I was in Texas in June he repainted our walls. In September we moved back to our own bedroom. In November we finally broke into our storage unit (after we lost the key) and brought home all our stuff. 

In December we put it mostly all away.

And On January 1st we spent the night in a hotel to celebrate our son's "Gotcha" day!

He speaks English like a champ and loves him some American food!

We ate pizza...

(that got lost, was an hour and half late, and was the wrong order- but we ate in anyway!)

and drank this.

If you had told me it would take a year to bring back the sanity I would have died. But we survived by the grace of God, and even had moments through it all where we thrived. 

Or at least laughed at the irony of it all.

There might be a little dust on the bottle

But don't let it fool ya about what's inside

There might be a little dust on the bottle

It's one of those things that gets sweeter with time

Isn't it true that the victories that are real struggle, the ones we really have to fight for our the ones that are the sweetest? 

**To all my adoptive mama friends if I could I would send you each a sparkling bottle of something for you to keep your eye on that first year home. God will have the victory-it just might take a little dust on the bottle! ;)