Activity Flurry

It has been a busy time chez Lind these past few weeks.  While I personally have not been swamped in busy-ness, we have had lots of overlapping projects, both personally and through MAF that have kept us occupied and contentedly humming along.

First off, let me just say that if you are not receiving our weekly, very brief, prayer updates, you should definitely sign up.  These are emailed out once per week, about three sentences long, to give you an idea of how to specifically pray for us that week.  Best part?  They are written entirely by Matthew, which gives you his unique perspective (since I usually write the blogs and we tag-team our prayer letters).  Each week he has been highlighting his work and business at the MAF office and how to pray over the processes that take place there.  If you’re not receiving them (or ignoring them because your inbox is too full – I get that!), please let us know and we can make sure you’re on the list with a correct email address.

In other news, we have had the pleasure of having house guests on and off.  We welcomed a pilot from our MAF program in the East who was helping with a cross-country flight and needed a place to sleep for a night.  It’s fun to have visitors from the other side of the country (nearly 1000 miles away)!  Currently, we are hosting a couple who are checking on their foundation to help build sustainable programs in some of the poorest sectors in Kinshasa.  The Love More Foundation is awesome and we love getting the opportunity to hear about the work they’re doing first-hand.

We’ve also had a very talented couple-team with MAF in town for the past several weeks who are traveling to all of the MAF programs around the world, gathering videos and photos to be able to share with all of MAF’s supporters.  You can look forward to seeing some of their work from their time here in the future, including some great previews if you follow MAF on Facebook.

MAF-Kinshasa’s big non-airplane project at the moment is a communication tower.  I am only personally involved in that it is being built in my backyard.  Three years ago, during our first year in Kinshasa, Matthew built a tower that sits on the top of the MAF-owned house, where our communiations are headquartered (out of a small building in the back we affectionately call the “IT Shack”).  About a year ago a big storm took out a palm tree, which hit a guy wire on its way down, and though the tower is still standing and is mostly stable, this has since required a new, taller tower.

Matthew was able to be back just in time to get started and, working with our awesome IT team, was part of the process of choosing the best method.  In the end, the best option was to hire a company who has professionally built communications towers throughout Kinshasa for the past 15 years.  This free-standing tower (not on the roof) will be a great asset to our IT ministry here in the city.  I have been posting a few photos if you’re interested in following along from my back window.

At home, the kids are [mostly] enjoying the home schooling process and we are finding our groove quite easily.  Axel likes to be involved, whatever that looks like on any given day.  We are also really enjoying our animals (this is the excitement you might be missing if you’re not catching the Instagram feed on the right hand side of our website) – we recently enjoyed eight new baby chickens, with 12 more eggs being sat on by another mama hen due to hatch next weekend.  We are now able to collect the rest of the eggs for eating and will enjoying figuring out which babies will be egg-layers, and which ones will be dinner over the next several months.  We also have a goat for lawn maintenance, a bunny for fun (for now) and a pair of guinea fowl for pest control.  It is rarely boring around the yard!

And, of course, baby Lind #4 is no longer causing me to be in the fetal position on the tile floor while the other kids dance around me (this is how I handled my first pregnancy with nausea…it was not fun).  I am 15 weeks along and will head out for a prenatal check up in Vanga around week 20.  Like our previous pregnancies, we hope to stay wondering what gender the baby will be, but it will be good to see how baby’s growth is doing.  Thank you for your prayers for a safe and healthy pregnancy!

Lastly, I encourage you to remember that we are still hoping to purchase a vehicle for our ministry here in Kinshasa!  We have been surviving by borrowing both MAF company cars and friends’ vehicles, but the freedom to have one for our family and ministry would accomplish so much.  Thank you so much for your continued support toward our ministry – and for staying connected with us!