Merry Christmas!
- faithbush93
- Dec 24, 2024
- 6 min read
It is already late in the afternoon on Christmas eve here in Zambia, and we are finally sending out this Christmas update. Thank you all so much for your prayers and support!
Family Life in Zambia
Family life in Zambia continues to be challenging, interesting, and enjoyable. We have just gone through the birthday season for our family, which means that Korinne is 7, Dietrich is 5, Esther is 3, and Beatrice is 1! We also just celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary!!! Thank you to all of you who have supported our family over the years.
One of the primary challenges for the family continues to be the isolating effect of living behind a wall fence. The wall fence, which is nice for security and privacy, can also make us feel very cut off from what's going on outside. It is especially challenging for the children who were used to playing with other kids in the neighborhood at our home in Idaho.That being said, we host lots of people in our home including a homeschool co-op, a cooking club with some ladies from the broader ACU community, our usual student nights, as well as informal meetings with students and faculty from ACU!
We have had a variety of minor medical incidents in the last couple of months. Korinne fell and hit her chin on a brick wall. Thankfully she did not fracture her jaw (our initial fear), but she did damage her gum and may need some surgery in the future as her lower gum is now recessed. Please pray for Korinne as we try to figure out what the best course forward is. The same week that Korinne fell, Isaac was bit by a dog which had come into our yard through the open gate and got in a fight with our dog. Isaac was trying to break up the fight when he was bit by the stray dog. The bite itself was minor, but rabies is more prevalent in Zambia than in the US, and so Isaac went to get his rabies shots. We do not know if the dog that bit him carried rabies, but we wanted to play it safe. The first shot was administered incorrectly so the treatment schedule got a bit off track, but we are continuing with the treatments as possible. Another uniquely Zambian incident happened this week when Beatrice got putzi flies. Putzi flies lay their eggs in wet cloth, then when the wet cloth comes in contact with your skin the eggs hatch and the larva burrows into your skin. The larva then has to be squeezed out of the skin, which is fairly painful and so Beatrice did not enjoy the experience. We're glad she's young enough not to remember it! It was pretty traumatizing. We are guessing she got the putzi flies while wearing a towel after coming out of the pool. Hopefully we never have to deal with that again, but with not being able to use our dryer or run the iron due to the power issues here, the chances of it happening to one of us again are pretty high.
On a happier note, during the first part of December a friend from our college years (Emma Cheyne) came out and visited us here in Zambia! It was wonderful to get to spend time with her, and while she was in Zambia we did a little bit of exploring on the Lower Zambezi where we saw countless impala (including one in the middle of giving birth!), waterbuck, bush buck, loads of hippos, about 50 elephants, and even one lioness. It is always wonderful to have visitors from the US!
This is our second Christmas in Zambia and we miss having family around, but it offers unique opportunities to fellowship with our friends here. We will be hosting about 8 students for Christmas, all of whom do not have family in the area. Last weekend we hosted a caroling and cookies party at our house. It was a wonderful time to join with Christians from the homeschool coop, ACU, and church to make a joyful noise!
The rainy season was supposed to start in October, but the rains have been light and sporadic. The majority of the crops look to be suffering from the drought. In addition to the effect this has on the food supply, Zambia is very reliant on hydroelectric power and the continuation of the drought will mean that Zambia continues having power issues. Please continue to pray that God will send rain to Zambia.
Update on the work at ACU.
ACU is on holiday break and Isaac has completed his teaching for the year, which allows for a more flexible schedule. During term two, Isaac was mentoring students in their final thesis projects and assisting a visiting lecturer from the UK in teaching a class on the foundations of science. Only two of the students were able to complete their thesis projects, but Isaac was very happy with the projects that were completed. The projects were focused on assessing the soil health in the polytunnels at the ACU farm. The student projects were specifically looking at soil pH and electrical conductivity in the polytunnels. As well as being essential for the completion of the student programs, these research projects have also served to help the farm. The foundations of science course is a course that looks at the history and philosophy of science and it was extremely enjoyable to assist in teaching this course with Chris Wiles. Chris is an excellent teacher and Isaac learned a lot from his approach in the course. Isaac will most likely be teaching this course during term 3 of 2025.
In addition to the thesis projects, Isaac continues to mentor students in agricultural skills through working with local farmers and agronomists as well as farm visits. We have also been working on improving the ACU farm for teaching purposes by developing experimental plots for the students as well as setting up soil pits to teach on soil formation and classification. Isaac is enjoying learning about soils in Zambia, which are quite different from the soils of the inland Pacific Northwest.
Field trip to the ACU farm
One of the biggest impacts we have here at ACU continues to be Christian hospitality, mentoring, and fellowshipping with the students. As much as possible, we try to involve the whole family in campus life with students frequently visiting our house and our family going to campus for events like the talent show. Having our family around campus has led to some very interesting conversations with the students. One student upon seeing the Children run to Isaac remarked how different it is to see children run to their father. This is something that would never happen in the home and community that he grew up in. For this student (and many Zambians) fathers are distant and somewhat unapproachable. This is very apparent in many local churches where praying to the Father in the name of Jesus Christ is discouraged. In these churches you are expected to ‘access’ the Father through a ‘Man of God’ who behaves as a sort of intercessor. It is quite common to find this and other features of African traditional religions in churches.
There have also been some major personnel changes at ACU. Two of our faculty from the US (Dr. Baucham and Dr. Kilian) have moved back to the US. Their move to the US will be a serious challenge to our work here at ACU. Both Dr. Baucham and Dr. Kilian were strong drivers of the Mission and Vision of ACU. We will greatly miss them and their abilities here in Zambia, but we trust that they will effectively serve wherever God calls them to next. Please pray for us as we consider our future. We have one more academic year here in Zambia before our first furlough home. At the end of next school year we will be considering whether or not we will continue in the work at ACU. Pray for wisdom and clarity for where and how we might serve best.
We wish you all a Merry Christmas and may God Bless you all!
The Madsens
P.S. We'd love to receive Christmas/New Year's cards from our friends and family! You can either send us one virtually, or (even better!) you can send one to Faith's parents who will be coming to visit in early January and can bring them to us! (Message us for their mailing address).
Prayer items:
Pray for ACU, especially with the loss of key faculty.
Pray for our work at ACU that we would have clarity about the best way to serve.
Pray for our family that we would be able to continue to grow in our Christian community here.
Pray for continued good health.
Pray that God would send rain to Zambia.
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