Are You Excited Yet?

About all we can talk about these days is Zambia! We talked about raising funds, collecting items for the students and the school, arrangements that need to be made, what we need to take with us and how will we get everything in the baggage allowances!

And when we run into our friends they ask us: “are you getting excited yet?” Our usual answer is “we don’t have time to get excited, but we will be soon!” That’s really not true though; no matter what are doing or deciding it’s all a part of the adventure and the excitement.

Here are some of the things that the Z TEAM has been doing this week:

Sewing a puppet stage: Kathy has sewn the curtains and once we arrive in Zambia we will go

Puppet stage curtains are all done and ready to be assembled.

to Choma to buy PVC pipe to create the framework. A huge thank you to our anonymous giver for supporting this effort!

Puppets: Thanks to Jad and Julie Roeske we have five Muppet-style puppets to deliver. We are adding some missing eyes and rods, in some cases updating their wardrobe a bit. We have a feeling that when these characters make an appearance this activity will gain many new puppeteers!

Sorting and packing uniforms: Thanks to Carragh Knudsen, Betty Adsit and Crestview Academy we have 2+ duffel bags full of trousers (that’s what they call them in Zambia; “pants” refers to undergarments), shirts, skirts and jumpers, and sweaters for the students.

Collecting items for the school: thanks to Nancy Robinson and the Inn Towne Food Pantry we have cases of erasers, toys, granola bars, toothpaste, gum and lotion. Many of you have given us books, notebooks, pencils and classroom resources; these will all be a huge blessing, too.

Sorting and packing jewelry: thanks to many of you, but especially Jill Borgwardt-Wendtland and Tara Smith, we have lots of jewelry gifts for teachers and staff.

Uniforms in all sizes will get lots of wear!

Scrapping: This was a crazy idea we stumbled on! We’ve gladly received broken jewelry and silver items which we were able to sell to a scrapper and put towards our travel expenses. It wasn’t a lot but every little bit helps.

Thrift Sale: In just a week we will be holding a thrift sale to benefit our work in Macha. We have been unpacking, sorting and organizing the many donated items that friends have cleaned out of their garages and closets or leftovers from their thrift sales. Come check us out next weekend (June 28-29), on the corner of Crescent and Ferry Streets on Eau Claire’s west side. We’re still receiving items; if you’d like to donate call LeeAnn (715-379-3101) to make arrangements for pick up or drop off.

"We're going to MICS! We're going to MICS!"

Lesson preparations: We been made aware that there are some issues that need to be addressed with the children; so LeeAnn and Kathy are knocking heads to develop materials.  Not only will we be working with some individual students but it’s a possibility that we may present some short lessons to the classes on recognizing emotions and expressing them appropriately.

Making arrangements:   From how to get to and from the airport, to finding enough duffel bags or suitcases, to tracking airplane parts (we often bring needed parts to Zambia for our bush plane pilots), getting haircuts in a timely manner, making sure that the bills are paid while gone, the dog is cared for and the tomato plants will be watered, we have a lot to figure out.

We won’t bore you with the rest of the list! But you can see that with all this going on we

Look for these signs!

haven’t really thought about how excited we are. We know that when we can stop long enough to think about it, we’ll be pretty pumped!

In the meantime, the Z TEAM is meeting, talking and praying together as much as we can. You can join us in keeping us “prayed up!” See the sidebar for specifics. We appreciate your prayers for us. Those prayers go before us and lead us where God is calling us to join Him.

With anticipation for what He is up to now, and going to do!

Kathy & Greg

LeeAnn, Mike and Dennis