Halls

Halls
July 2015

Friday, August 22, 2008




Arrival in Zambia

Yesterday was exactly one month since Lyle’s motorbike accident. And it has been quite an eventful month; that is for sure! At the request of some of you, I will try to recap some of the events of these past weeks. I will begin with the happy ending (the current ending, that is) which is that neither Lyle nor the boy, Elia, will have any permanent damage, and there will be no court case – which for Africa is a big deal. God is so GOOD!!!
I am glad I can just sit and type this on the computer. I wouldn’t be able to tell anyone in person, because I have completely lost my voice due to a cold. It is funny how it affects the whole family, and it has been much quieter in our house. I don’t think I’m usually the one who makes all the noise, but whispering seems to be contagious. When I whisper to the kids, they automatically whisper back! Anyway, here we go:

Departure from Iringa
After the accident, we were able to postpone our move to Zambia 4 full days… Even so, the departure day ended up being no less than chaotic. Lyle went to the police station to let them know we were going and to tell them how they could get a hold of us if need arose. Well, they insisted on finding the boy and said the parents had to give permission for Lyle to leave. They went to his village for a futile search, since Elia was still in the hospital which is basically right next door to the police station! Eventually they found him and talked to his parents, who reluctantly allowed Lyle to travel. After writing up a letter back at the police station with the father, a witness and the police officer, Lyle jumped in a taxi and rushed to the bus stand.
Meanwhile “back at the ranch”, I was trying focus on the task at hand which was to get our things packed and the children ready to travel. Fortunately our dear friends came and helped get everything packed, otherwise I think I would have cracked at the seams from the stress and concern for Lyle. They brought us to the bus stand at 2 pm, where luckily, the bus was delayed. I have never been so glad to be delayed! When the bus did arrive, we tried to persuade them to wait a little bit longer, hoping that Lyle could make it there in time to travel with us. Our good friend Jameck Shilingi was traveling with us to help out with kids and luggage, since Lyle was incapacitated (of little use..) due to his injuries. Finally, at 3 o’clock the bus driver decided he could wait no longer, so we said our tearful good-byes to the Lloyd-Jones family and the bus drove out to the main road, where it was blocked by a crazy taxi driver who pulled in front of it. Out of the taxi came Lyle! So he made it.

Crossing over to Zambia
The 4 hour bus ride to Mbeya went fine, allowed us to kind of catch our breath. It was dark by the time we got to Mbeya, and we waited about half an hour on the side of the road before we were able to catch a taxi to the guest house we thought we had booked. Turned out there was no room at the inn, so by the time we found another place, got some food and put the kids to bed it was almost midnight. The train to Zambia was scheduled to leave the next day at noon. Well, another delay, so noon came and went without a train in sight; they said come back at 10 pm! We were kindly allowed to stay at the hotel to wait all day, then at 9.45 we clearly heard the train whistle several times. Not knowing if this might be a departure signal, we scrambled into the waiting taxi and hurried to the train station, and found the train just arriving! Phew! We eventually got our family settled into a 6 bunk compartment, with our friend in the very next compartment. The train departed around midnight and by 9 o’clock the next evening the train stopped at the final station. Our friends were there to pick us up along with all our bags and suitcases to bring us to our new home in Kabwe.

The very next day, a missions conference started at Pro Christo, our new place of work. It was a busy 4 days with 6 daily speakers plus workshops and missions presentations, but very rewarding to be part of it and to see the passion among these 5-700 people, mostly Africans, for reaching the world with the gospel. We did not see our kids much, they were busy making new friends in the children’s program at the conference. We were received with much love and care. These people have prayed a lot for us to be able to make it to Zambia.

Acacia’s arm and Lyle’s
A couple of days later, Acacia was rollerblading at some friends’ house. She fell and hurt her arm, which turned out to actually be broken, but just a small greenstick fracture, so her cast will come off in a couple of days. She was quite exited about getting a cast on just like Daddy’s!
Lyle’s healing is progressing but slowly it seems - at least to him it seems lengthy. That possibly has something to do with our house waiting to get worked on and the frustration he feels about not being able to do any work with either of his hands yet.

Life in Kabwe
We are renting a house from a missionary family who are on home leave. It is only two houses down from our house which is now in the process of being renovated. I think most of the tearing down is done, so the rebuilding can begin. Right now the office and master bedroom does not even have a roof because we need to make the walls higher. Luckily, it is still dry season here! We’ll make an effort to take some before-and-after pictures to show later.
We have signed Rachel, Acacia and Mikaela up to go to Jacaranda Trust School, which is located within walking distance from our house. It will of course all be in English, so we have made English school at home for a couple of hours a day just to get their minds prepared for the school term which starts in September. They will also have to get used to wearing uniforms, both for school and for sports classes! We’ll send pictures when the time comes. They like being here, but also miss their friends from Iringa. Even so, Mikaela recently said: “I never want to move back to Tanzania, just go there sometimes to visit my friends.”

Matters in Tanzania
While we have been trying to get settled in here in Kabwe, we have friends who are trying very hard to help us get things worked out back in Tanzania in regards to the accident and also concerning the relocation of our containers. For a while it seemed like the best thing was for Lyle to stay here, otherwise rumor had it he might be put in prison if he came back. Then we heard that if Lyle didn’t come back, then someone else might go to jail on his behalf until he showed up. It was very hard to know what would be the wisest thing to do. Just yesterday we got the news that the issue with Elia’s parents has been settled. We have tried to help them out with their medical expenses, bicycle repairs, etc. The other good news we got was that even the police file is now closed. As you can imagine, we are very relieved. All this could not have happened were it not for our dear friends in Iringa, to whom we are immensely grateful.

Containers
This is a never-ending-story all on its own, but we’ll spare you all the frustrating details. It has been far from easy to say the least, but the process of moving our containers, which we packed in Denmark and USA in 2005, now seems to be moving forward slowly.

Thanks for all your prayers, please don’t stop!

Love from Jette and the family

PS.
We do not have internet at the house so we are not able to check emails every day.