Sharing life

Happy one year wedding anniversary to my brother Josh and his lovely wife Jenn!

Despite being sick, I had a lovely day yesterday. Our friend celebrated his 30th birthday, so we had cake, and listened to him reflect on his life. He was orphaned at a young age and then lived on the streets for years. Now he's got a steady job, but struggles with alcoholism. He was marvelling yesterday at making it to the age of 30, and wondering how his life would have turned out differently had he taken one wrong turn. I asked him what has sustained him throughout all his struggles and he said, "prayer" right away. "There was a man who used to come talk to us on the streets and bring us food. He would even sleep there with us through the night for safety, but he always insisted that we pray."

Then I got to hold a brand new baby! OK, here's a confession... we have a maid. She comes to our house one morning a week and cleans. When we first moved here, I insisted that we were not going to have a maid, because it just seems so bourgeois! But everyone here has maids (all the officers, all our neighbours, etc.) and they were saying that we were being really selfish by not hiring someone because so many people are unemployed. So, Esnath comes once a week to clean our little house. She cleaned all the floors on Thursday and then Friday night she had her baby (she's a remarkable woman!) The baby is SO cute! What a miracle to hold a little life that was not yet 24 hours old! And then in the evening we had some friends over for one of John's gourmet meals and some really nice conversation. I love sharing life with people.

We've posted some pics in the photo gallery of the Zimbabwe School of Youth Leadership orientation (some nice photos of the beast we killed!) and our trip a few weeks ago to the Chinhoyi caves. There are certainly some beautiful places in Zim.