With a confused heart

Hello my friends and supporters of all kinds.  The last couple of weeks have been difficult at the school I "volunteer" at.  The deal was I volunteer and the kids get scholarships. Well, last week I was called in and told there had been changes to SARS (South African Revenue Service) ie...tax man. And it's no longer legal for me to volunteer and my kids still remain getting scholarships. So we waited and waited and waited.

Today, I met with on the head HR guys at our school corporation and our head bursar. And, tomorrow is my last day at Waterstone College. It is with a heavy heart because I will miss all the relationships I have built over the last 4.5 years and miss the kids. One the other side, I am quite excited to see what the Lord has planned for the next stage of my missionary life.  The kids will continue to get scholarships this year and Matthew was offered one for his final year next year. Grace will need to apply or we are considering homeschooling.  Please be in prayer as we transition.

Romans 6:33-34 What you should want most is God's kingdom and doing what He wants you to do. Then he will give you all these other things you need. So don't worry about tomorrow. Each day has enough trouble of its own. 

Love 

New Addition

 J-Life Africa would like to announce the latest arrival! Kiandra is the newest addition to Chico and Gloria. Chico is the country leader of Mozambique. This is their first baby. Congratulations!!

May the Lord bless you and keep you!

Moz Part 3...THE FOOD

We went on holiday with our dear friends, the Stonier's, Jason, Claire, Daniel and Ruben. Jason declares that his holiday is made or broken from the food. Well, mine and his holiday was made. We had fresh homemade Portuguese rolls from the market everyday that we either had for lunch as a sandwich or for with our dinner,

Most lunches we either ate at Liquid Dive Adventures little cafe where they made soup, salad or toasted sandwiches. And they were oh so yummy. Or we ate out and had our "bigger" meal of the day.

Two nights we had HUGE shrimp or prawns as they call them straight from the fish man. One night we had yellow fin tuna steaks that we watched come in on the boat and the fishermen cut up and make into steaks right there on the beach. We also ate at Casa Barry a couple of times which included fresh barracuda and mackerel fish.  Oh so delicious.

Another interesting thing out of Mozambique is that they are one of the largest growers of cashew nuts. You could get them each morning in the market or driving down the road tied up to the tree. Either way, they were delicious. 

Each day we would go to the market and get our bread and vegetables we would need to use to cook that evening or eat with our lunch. It was quite the experience to bargain and take your own scale because there were often differences in theirs and yours. Not that I am saying they were cheating us, but most often their scales were in their favor. 

We had a wonderful time and eating is a huge part of anyone holiday to another country. We love exposing ourselves and our kids to different cultures as well as different foods. I still have one that is a little pickier than the other who will try anything at least once. But none the less, we try. 

Moz Part 2

The water....oh the water

We spent most of our time in Moz (Mozambique) at the beach. The water was so amazing. It was clear as far out as we walked which was up to our shoulders. I could see my toes at that height. We took an ocean safari in which we had a chance to see whale sharks, turtles, mantas,and dolphins. We saw dolphins and also got to snorkel in 2 different places. There are no water or boat pictures because your not allowed to take your camera unless it's waterproof, which mine is not. Just getting on the boat was a feat in itself. We had to push the boat from the shore out to the ocean then climb in boat. We found Liquid Dive Adventures (www.liquiddiveadventures.com) Picture below of the boat is from their website. 

Tofo is one of the major diving places in Mozambique and in all of Africa. We went snorkeling and it was amazing. Our friends have their diving certificate so they spent one morning on a dive. Liquid Dive also has a vegetarian restaurant,but more on that in Part 3. The kids also spent one morning taking surfing lessons. 

The kids had a blast! I loved taking pictures of them and watching them. This was their second try at surfing. They surfed in Cape Town, South Africa in December of 2008. They both got up on their boards several times. Success! 

As you can see above, the beach and ocean look like a magazine picture. It was an amazing way to spend the holiday....at the beach. 

Proud mom moment

The Cast

                              The Backstage Crew

                      Matthew
 


For the 9 weeks my kids have been practicing for Major Production which this year was "Rock and Roll through the Ages".  Matthew was the bassist and Grace was in charge of back stage. They practiced from 4-7pm three days a week. Which meant that we left home at 6:30am and got home at 7:45pm. You ask why in the world would I say they could do this? At some point I wondered myself, but then I would see them working hard at things they loved such as Grace painting the back drops or Matthew working on a new song. I am such a proud mom of all the hard work they did to make such a great show.  I am a firm believer in encouraging my kids to do what they love and to be good what they love. They can't get better without practice and hard work and DOING the thing they love. So, that means mom waiting (and helping out with the show by default) many hours and them practicing many hours, but their gifts from the Lord of painting and organizing and playing the bass have been work out and used for HIS glory. That is the point of our gifts, right? To be worked and practiced and used for HIS glory. Otherwise, the gift means very little.

Anyway, thanks for indulging this proud mom. May you let your little ones practice and work their gifts to HIS glory.

Missionary Monday

ok, so the new series is here and i am going to feature one of our J-Life Country leaders or a Regional director. I am going to start with a Regional Director and then the countries surrounding him and then move on to another region.

 

This is Mgliwe (mmm-glee-way) Simdinatome from Togo. Which is located in West Africa. You can see it's a very small country located between Ghana and Benin. It is a French speaking country.

Mgliwe's wife's name is Rhoder. His kids name's are Fidele (6), Hilaire (4) and Percee (2). Mgliwe came to know about J-Life at a Lausanne Conference held in Cape Town. Miah and Michelle Collins were working with J-Life at the time and they were in attendance. Michelle was assigned to the interpretation for the French speaking people. They needed another interpreter or something to that effect and Michelle met Mgliwe. They began to talk about what they did and Mgliwe shared his passion to to make youth disciples in French speaking Africa. This, of course, is what J-Life does. This is our mission. So the next January, Mgliwe came to be apart of our training. He then began to build a team in Togo and teach them what he had learned. Mgliwe works very hard and is passionate about the gospel being made known and making Christ-following disciples who will make disciples and so forth. Many of our team members from the French speaking countries in that region have come to work with us through Mgliwe and his influence. Mgliwe has now trained Ben, who will one day transition into being Togo Country Leader. Mgliwe is the Regional director for French speaking West Africa. 

• Please pray for Mgliwe to have wisdom and strength to manage his time with his work and family. As you can see, he has 3 wonderful little ones who need his attention. 
• Pray for his ministry and his leadership in the ministry.   
• Pray for his wife as she helps with the ministry.
• Pray for continued favor in the expansion of the ministry.

Kids Questions

Recently a friend's son had to ask a missionary kid some questions. I thought they would be great to share the answer here:

1.   Do I travel much?  We have gone one several family trips to various places. Mostly places in South Africa. We have been to Durban, Kruger National park, Pilanesburg Park, and Cape Town.  In Oct of 2014 we travelled by car to Ndola, Zambia. It took three days to drive. We drove up through Botswana and across the Zambian border at Victoria Falls where Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana meet.  This was an amazing trip to be able to see several countries all at once.  We have also been to Swaziland twice. Swaziland is the country that borders South Africa and Mozambique.  This March, my father needs to see some of our J-Life ministry guys up in Kenya and we are planning to go with. We will fly because it is too far by car.
2.    Do I help my parents?  Do I help them with ministry? Not in a direct way. We are with them a lot when they are working, but as far as day to day things, we are at school. We do lots of ministry things such as a feeding program that goes on every Wednesday. We help each holiday. There are also several church plants that our ministry and our church here help with, so we help with that when we can.
3.   Do I have many friends?  Yes. I go to a school that the high school is about 600 in number. My grade has about 120 kids in it. We are the only Americans in the school, but we don’t feel out of place. We have been in South Africa for 7 and ¾ years. We have been at this school for 5 years. My best friends are Caleb and Jesse. We have common interest such as gaming, science, art and several sports.
4.    Where do your parents work mainly?  My father works from his home office about 3 days a week and from our International Headquarters about 2 days a week which is on a farm about 25 minutes away from where we live in Heidelberg. There is a campsite at the headquarters that is used to help make money for the ministry as well as used as an outreach tool for Jesus. My dad, David, travels mainly in July, August, sept and October.  J-Life is in over 20 African countries (there are 54 total). So, he travels to see the country leaders during that time. Usually only 3-4 countries each year. My mom, Liz, volunteers at our school, Waterstone College,  and in trade we get full scholarships to the school. She works as the science lab assistant. Our school fees would be about $1200 a month otherwise and we could not afford to be at such an amazing school. We (my parents) raise all their own funds so her “working” at the school helps out a lot.
5.    What are my parents’ names? David and Liz Even
6.    My name is Matthew Even and I am in 11^th grade. My sister is named Grace and she is in the 9^th grade. We have an older brother, Andrew who works for Walmart and lives in the Bentonville area. His wife’s name is Elizabeth.

 
A website maybe to help you:  http://test.jlife.org.za/ (still under construction)
  
School website: http://www.curro.co.za/schools/gauteng/waterstone-college.aspx