Settling

Shew wee! What a crazy few weeks. We apologize that we haven't been able to update this more often. Between our whole team having to share 2 computers and the power being on only a few hours a day, it's a little harder to get on the internet.
Anyways, I (Heidi) will write from my perspective, and later Ian will write from his. We have had pretty different schedules, so it's better if we each tell our own story. I was asked the other day to describe my time in Zimbabwe so far in one word. The word I chose was "settling." It's crazy how different this time has been compared my previous missions trips. Moving to a new country as a mother and wife makes being a missionary much different...not bad, just an adjustment. My days have mostly been filled with taking care of Mikayah, unpacking boxes, cooking, and checking email. It's amazing how much time each of those things take. Thankfully, I am done unpacking boxes now and getting our house in order, so I am setting up a more organized schedule to learn Shona (with a Shona lady who has graciously offered to help me learn the language), visit the orphanage, and visit the classrooms. I greatly desire to interact with the Shona people and build relationships with them. My mission trip mind set wants this to happen in a week or 2, but I am facing the fact that true relationships just take time...lots of it....
        The other day I did have the opportunity to go the orphanage and play a game with the kids. I tried to teach them rainbow tag. They didn't quite understand my instructions, so it made the game a little difficult, but they still had fun. Mikayah was a little overwhelmed with how many little kids wanted to touch him and pick him up (it didn't help that it was also his nap time). But it was such a cute thing to see a little three year old Shona girl try to pick up Mikayah, who was almost her same size.
        This week we have also had the opportunity to go to Harare (the capital city) twice. It is about two and half hours away, so we try not to go very often, but these trips were necesarry. I got a thirty day visa again, and hopefully will apply for residency next month. I also was able to visit a doctor to discuss my pregnancy. In Zimbabwe, you first have to visit a general practitioner, and then they refer you to an obgyn. So he wrote me a reference letter, and all went well!..It is crazy to see the differences between Harare and Doma. It's like they're two different countries. Harare has been greatly influenced by western culute, some for the good (like the food!!) and some for the not so good (indecent clothing). It was good to see how much is available in the city. Much more that I expected they'd have...There are also a lot of poor people in Harare. At several stop lights, we had people begging at our car windows for money or food. The first time we didn't have anything and I felt so terrible to say that, but the second time we bought some mangos...We accidentally threw two at a blind beggar when the stop light turned green. Oops!...Next time we go to Harare we hope to buy Shona Bibles. Hardly any people here in Doma have Bibles and it would be so good to bless them with that!
        So that's a little picture of what has been going on in my life the last few weeks. There is so much more I could say, but like I said, we are limited on our time on the computer. We hope to put up pictures on the computer soon, but it takes hours to upload the pictures...and we have to put them on a flash drive first since we cannot use our own computers yet...But such is life in Zimbabwe! Adjustments and flexibility!
        Until next time! Thank you again for all of your support and prayers! Much love!