One foot in each world

Roasted maize and Tim Hortons

It's not very comfortable. My right leg is in Zambia and my left leg is starting to reach across to Canada.

I've been managing my anxiety and I am in a much healthier place. I was able to use almost two months of stress leave which helped greatly. Then we had to make a decision: back to full time work or back to Abbotsford? We chose both, in a way.

Pretend it's not anxiety, a mental health issue, but that it is a physical illness. Say malaria. In the beginning of February I was so sick I had to travel to Lusaka to see a doctor (in this case it was a counselor... but stay with the analogy). After the initial period of stabilizing, we traveled back to Choma and I continued to see my doctor once a week. There were good days and bad days, but overall the rest and leave of absence helped my health to improve. There came a time where I took the maximum amount of leave time from work so had to make a choice: back to full time work or leave the job (return to Canada). I had another week to rest as we went on MCC Zambia retreat from March 20-25th at Siavionga on Lake Kariba. (I highly recommend staying at Lake Kariba Inns).

The view from our room through the sliding doors!

There were some animals around (and I don't mean Malachi!)

We visited the dam at Lake Kariba

Lake Kariba is 15 metres lower than usual. You can see it here when we took a boat tour on the lake. Lack of rains is causing load shedding (power outages of 8 hours + a day) as well as some poor crops in areas of Zambia.

The kapenta (small fish) boats headed out at sunset. Kapenta fish can only be caught at dark (and not during a full moon).

We had a sunset cruise and dinner on the boat.

The setting sun over Lake Kariba. (You can't see the lightning storm off to the left but we got a bit wet!)

It was a wonderful retreat. We had made our decision. Instead of flying out immediately after retreat I decided I wanted to finish well and was feeling improved enough to do so. Especially since Zambian schools (term one) finished on April 8th for a month break. Two weeks of full time field work and then two weeks of office work to wrap things up properly. We leave Lusaka, Zambia flying out on Wednesday, April 27 and arrive in Vancouver April 28th in the evening. Though I'm feeling better and managing we know it's the best choice for my overall health to go. I feel that if I went back after the term break, I would undo all the good work that has been done to get to this place of recovery. It was not an easy choice to make and there was much prayer, tears and conversations that went into it. Then there was a week or two of self-doubt. Now, there is peace. One thing I wrestled with is why God would call us back a mere 2 months earlier than we intended. But then I read something great that reminded me that I need to be obedient to God... not to the call he made to me 3 years ago, but I need to be obedient to God TODAY. And today, that means leaving a couple months early.

So, I visited all 8 of my schools in the two weeks following Easter to say goodbye. Andrew was able to go with me to my most rural village school, which was a good experience for him and a good support for me. It's been an emotional and challenging couple of weeks, but I'm proud I've managed. I had 1-2 panic attacks during the time but always after I had returned. I learned after the first couple trips that I needed to take time to recover from the school visits and not just jump into my office work or packing. I am so thankful for the fact that I could manage to say goodbye and give closure to the schools and myself. I took a cake to each school as a goodbye gift. I sure hope calories eaten out of obligation don't count because I've had almost 8 pieces of cake and almost that number of soft drinks these last 2 weeks!

Saying goodbye to Mr. and Mrs. Hachizibe under the monkey ball tree,  photo credit to Andrew

 Cutting the cake at Sikalongo

Saying goodbye to dear teacher friends, Mrs. Lubasi at Mboole

Today and the rest of this week I'll be found in my office (and doing one more week of home school in Zambia). You'll find me madly sorting, throwing things away, and packing in the evenings and weekends! I'm trying to work extra hard this week so I have less to do next week - besides packing, my really good friend Rachel is coming from the USA to visit us with her 5 year old daughter. I'll travel to Lusaka early on Sunday morning and get them from the airport. We'll spend a night in Lusaka before heading back together on the bus. Later that week we will all go to Livingstone for a couple nights to visit Victoria Falls. I will also get to cross off an item on my bucket list as it's a full moon... seeing the moon bow! We all travel to Lusaka on April 26th to spend one night again up there. Then we fly off about 5 hours before Rachel and her daughter do.

Prayer Requests:
-safety traveling as we will be doing quite a few trips here and there, as well as that long plane ride back to Canada!
-Kate: she has been having some big fears, lately about spiders, including intense nightmares.
-all of us in this transition time
-peace for knowing God's got everything under control for our needs when we get back (house, car, jobs, decisions about school for the kids.... those are the big ones).

Also: check out Andrew's blog here: http://www.eatabean.blogspot.com/