Cory- my friend, husband, ministry partner, and travel companion and more...

 Today we celebrate Cory.

Many of you have met him and know a bit of who he is but let me publicly thank the Lord for this wonderful man who's walked beside me in this life journey almost 30 years.

Most know that he's fascinated by plants, especially fruit trees.While he has yet to introduce me to a papaya I like some of the fruits I have really liked.  I never dreamed that there were so many different kinds of fruits in the world let alone how many I'd personally try in my life.

I've been so blessed to have a partner who is so very skilled at so many things. The first three years of our marriage my main task and focus was to survive residency. He not only worked, managed our finances, shopped, cooked, cleaned, did laundry, and would pick me up at work when too tired to drive safely. When Eli arrived  he became the stay-at-home dad.

After residency we moved to Haiti and started our missionary journey. There he continued to manage the house and children while the hospital took up a lot of my time. He also learned to work with teams, electrical, plumbing, and the hardest-how to stand up and talk to churches. At the end of our time on LaGonave he was doing some agriculture but also managing the mission station!

Thankfully at Fauche he was able to spend more of his time in the gardens and teaching about agriculture. He became the main driver of the family and his ability to back up in hard situations still amaze me...middle of Cap Haitian with large holes in the road!

Delice...I may have had the fun part of planning a house on paper and iPad but Cory stepped up and ordered supplies, lined up and dealt with the builders, bosses and crews. Together we worked on the house and the yard...an accomplishment I had never dreamed of and it was handled so well.

In Zambia, Cory has transitioned to a new place. He's learning new trees, new culture while working to plant and build up a demonstration site [garden and orchards]. 

Still stretching himself every week he stands up in front of class and with the help of a translator does his best to share the knowledge and skills that the Lord blessed him with to advance the Lord's Kingdom. 

Cory still works hard on communicating back to Haiti to the guys he's trained: LaGonave, Fauche, and Delice. He shares their prayer requests and works hard to support them the best we can. 

Our whole marriage he's handled the finances something I really don't like to deal with-money. He does not complain. He's organized and does it so well.

At the same time he's generous and careful with the resources we have. Cory can shop on-line and find the deals that bless us with items we both need and want while not wasting money. A great provider he is for all of us.

He allowed me so much time to spend and pour into our children's lives by dealing with many things that other people would have said were 'women's work'. HE still does a lot of the cooking and he hand washes our laundry weekly so I have time to home-school Fritz. 

While I may be a writer, he is the editor. So you'll have to forgive any of my spelling or grammar errors on this as I'm going to post without him reading it. That the Lord helped him helped me with the Konsey books,  years of blogs, news letters, updates, and thank you notes is amazing. 

I have learned a lot from my friend since we met back in high-school. He can be very funny, I love his laugh when watching something that hits his funny-bone just right or when I tickle him.

Perfect- nope very human. But our strengths work together to fill in weak spots. 

Cory supports my dreams and pulls me back when I get off track a bit. Together we are better than each apart. The Lord has blessed me with more than I ever dreamed and with much that I needed to be all I could be. 

Happy Birthday!! 

Patrick and Town

 While Cory will do a more extensive introduction of our new agricultural worker, Patrick, I wanted to praise the Lord that he arrived and has enthusiastically started work and learning new things from Cory.

His English is very good even with our non-British accent and he has already done translating for the agriculture class.

Our routine is stabilizing with the start of the Bible College term and less travel for us.

Students seeing grafts at the nursery and field tour

We did travel to Choma on Monday to say good-bye to friends moving back to the USA.

We were up and loaded at 7 a.m. I have a list that we run through before heading out which includes things like: internet router, lists, bags for shopping so we don't have to buy more, cooler, school work and books, plants to share....

It takes us just over 30 minutes on the dirt road to reach pavement, the main road between Lusaka [Zambia's capital] and Livingstone [tourist capital due to Victoria Falls]. 

We passed a few homesteads, kids walking to school, two ox carts, this time a few storks, lots of goats and cows.

Once on the main road it is just about one hour South to Choma, depending on if we get behind big slow trucks or not. 

There is one toll booth on this stretch of road that costs us about 75 cents.

We tried to fit in as many stops before lunch as we could. 

I counted them this trip and we made 15 stops before 1:30 p.m. which included: 

• multiple ATM machines only getting money out of two of them, ATM's busy from recent end-of-month payday
• Airtel for over an hour while Cory stood in line  and then tried to get our required internet registration updated for government regulations and be reconnected [A couple hours in Lusaka only had our phones registered apparently despite Airtel telling us the router was fine]; 
• open air market; 
• propane; 
• Zambeef for dairy, their freezers and hamburger were empty due to shortage of electricity; 
• hardware shop for door parts; 
• fast food place for meat pies; 
• agricultural store; 
• two Chinese hardware stores;
•  plant nursery to drop off promised apple bud-wood for grafting;
•  lunch pick-up for us and our friends; 
• and then to their house.

After enjoying the meal and a bit of visiting , loaded up a large chair we bought from them, prayed and said our good-byes. 

The main reason we wanted to have all our errands complete before lunch is that we decided to re-home one of their cats and wanted to limit her time in the truck.

She did well in her cat carrier only meowing a few times for a little bit. 

We did stop a couple times along the way to buy fruit and vegetables because the main grocery store in Choma was closed due to putting in a new generator. 

We praise the Lord that during the ride back it was not just cloudy but we passed through a few drops of rain and saw harder rain in the distance. 

After a few days of temperatures in the high 90's the cooling air was very welcomed along with a short drizzle of rain. Not enough rain to do much more than clean the air of the hot dusty smell and rinse off the plants but it brings HOPE of an early rainy season. 

This morning the church district overseer had about 15 workers organized for a field day clearing tree sprouts in the mission fields to prepare for planting.

Old mango trees where mission started more than 100 years ago.

The workers were scattered among the fields so that all the fields would be at least partly prepared, showing they would be farmed by the church/mission this year.

Several of the people that have been using the fields for free for years showed up wanting the work to stop but they have had a couple years to prepare and have other land they can farm.

TerAvest family visit.

Photo after opening chapel

 Sorry for the silence but we were busy with a rapid 10 day trip from my [Kris'] mom, brother, and sister-in-law.

I'll do a rapid run thought and maybe in the future put in some additional details and pictures.

We traveled to Lusaka on Saturday the 7th and traded vechicals with Bishop Judan so that the six of us could travel together.

Sunday morning we picked them up at the airport with all their luggage! 

Rested at the hotel, visited, had a late lunch and early bed. 

Monday following the full English breakfast included with our rooms, we headed the 5 hour drive to Jembo.

Tuesday events included: Opening chapel at the Bible college, a reception with the Bible students in the afternoon; and a bit of Fritz's soccer game, and packing for Livingstone.

Wednesday: Traveled to Livingstone, enjoyed Olga's pizza, some shopping, and milkshakes at the Victoria Falls Waterfront hotel.

Thursday and Friday: Mom treated all of us to a two day safari to Chobe national park with an overnight in the park. While hot and bumpy at times, we enjoyed seeing 25 different kinds of animals and over 45 kinds of birds.

Saturday: Because Todd and Beth only needed to see a rhino to complete the 'big five' we added on a short safari ride in the Livingstone park and saw 9 of Zambia's 11 white rhinos and a couple new antelope.

Sunday: Church at Jembo. Mom and I enjoyed the singing from the comfort of the truck in the air-conditioning. 

Monday: Laundry and packing. A typical Zambian meal prepared by one of the leader's wife and shared with the Bible school leaders and two of the wives.

Tuesday: Back to Lusaka.  A late lunch with the staff of the Zambia Wesleyan Church office. 

Wednesday: Full English breakfast before heading to the airport for their return trip. We then did some shopping including a couple plant nurseries.

Thursday: A couple hours to re-register for our phone and internet provider so we don't lose service. Then headed out to try to see a fruit tree farm & nursery about an hour east from town. While we found the nursery no one could give us directions to the farm sadly. We arrived home after dark right before bed time.

Eli and cousin Taylor picked up the three travelers in Detroit around mid-night our time [6pm Michigan] on Thursday. Thankful for their visit and the love of family. 

Thankful that everyone remained healthy and for the most part we had fans, power, and water. 

Thankful we could be together for the following anniversaries: Dad's passing; my folk's wedding [also Dad's birthday], and both my mother's parent's deaths.  

Sharing memories with those who also loved them was very comforting and important for each of us. 

Victoria "Walls"

Church national office visit

Hungary Trip Part 2

Budapest train station

One amazing experience was standing on the 8th floor hotel balcony on August 20th, Foundation Day of Hungary. The oldest and one of the most important days celebrated in Hungary, we enjoyed watching the fireworks over the river.  WOW! 

And although we may have missed out on a few of the low ones behind tree tops, we did not need to fight traffic before heading to bed. 

The food at the hotel was great! Not spicy so good for me. We were able to try many different dishes at breakfasts and suppers. There was so much good food that we generally did not eat lunch. 

We also tried the thermal baths connected to the hotel. 

I think that Fritz was the only one of us to try all: steam room, sauna, and small cool pool next to it, different warm to hot pools, the hot steamy aroma room, and a place to walk on rounded river stones with cool water up to your ankles. 

Saturday morning I was the only one to see Eli off for his return trip as he had to catch a 3:15 a.m. shuttle to the airport but he had other GP folks to chat with during the ride.

We left after grabbing a fast breakfast, reversing our train rides back to Vienna, Austria. We stored our 3 bigger carry-ons at the airport and caught a train to the city center. 

We are very thankful for the kind folks who helped us figure out how the trains work...unlike some of our teammates we did not get a shoulder shrug when asking for help.

As our flight did not leave until Saturday night we visited St. Stephen's Cathedral and even went on the catacomb tour [no photo's allowed].  

After so much walking we chose not to walk up the cathedral tower. 

A bit of lunch, shopping, and people watching before we returned to the airport.

As we know SPAR supermarkets from Africa, we were surprised to find the stores in Europe.

However, once you learn that it originated in the Netherlands it makes sense that it is found in South and southern Africa due to the Dutch influence. 

Lusaka, downtown in the distance

We overnighted in Lusaka on Sunday night, did some shopping Monday morning and headed back to Jembo ready to sleep in our own beds. 

We took lots of pictures but if you are wondering where the photos of the conference are we really didn't take many, as some of our teammates live and work in higher security countries so photos are not a good idea. 

Since returning in history Fritz and I read about Vienna, Hungary, and the Habsburgs.

Now we are preparing for a visit from my [Kris'] mom, brother-Todd and sister-in-law Beth.

More family time and adventures to come. 

The trees and gardens did OK during our absence but things do appear dryer and dustier.

Water for watering is also limited again but we are thankful for electricity only being off a few hours per day or less.

We hear some areas are down to 4 hours of electricity per day.

Cory purchased 5 different types of mango trees while we were in Lusaka and at least four are new in Zambia and highly esteemed varieties in India.

The Jacaranda trees are starting to bloom which for us is one of the first signs of spring and hopes of the rainy season to come. 

We arrived back to find a sunbird nest built on our front porch laundry line. 

Will see if they stay with the increase of activity or not. 

Conference in Hungary...Part 1

 We headed to Lusaka early on Tuesday, August 13th to fly to Vienna, Austria via Dubai. 

This was our first time through Dubai and we didn't have very long to explore the airport other than Cory buying 5 new kinds of dates he had never tasted.

Our first time on a 'double decker' plane! 

Economy seating filled the lower level but we did get to see the stairs that the other passengers use to go to the top level.

While planning the travel we found flights to Vienna plus a train ride cost less than a flight to Budapest so we chose the longer route to see more sights. 

My birthday was celebrated  in 3 countries, 3 capital cities, 2 continents, 2 time zones, in airports, train stations, planes, trains, bus, walking, and sleeping a bit. 

We left the Vienna airport to figure out the train to the main train station where we enjoyed a few snacks while waiting for our 2.5 hour train ride to Budapest, Hungary. 

While Fritz napped the whole ride, Cory and I were surprised to learn that the land looked like Michigan, fairly flat with many small fields and one area with lots of wind turbines.

Once in Hungary it took our tired minds a while to figure out how to purchase subway tickets to where our Airbnb was located but with great relief we suceeded, walked a bit, and sank into our beds.

We traveled a couple of days early so we visited St. Stephen's Basilica and the National Museum of Hungary, both on the Pest side of the Danube River. 

So many buildings with artistic shapes, textures, faces, or statutes and fancy doors..even along small alleys ! 

Lots to see. 

Photos are not compressed so clicking on them should zoom to a much larger version.

Saturday morning we headed to the hotel where we met up with Eli who came to help out with the program for the missionary kids. 

The hotel was on Margarette Island in the middle of the river.

With him, we explored a bit on the Buda side of the river: Fisherman's Bastion, the Hospital in the Rock, and Buda Castle grounds. 

We found some food and headed back to our place. Eli overnighted at the hotel and we joined him Sunday morning.

Eli and Fritz roomed together and explored a bit on Sunday as did Cory. I had a nap and then talked with other GP folks arriving for the conference.

Monday the conference started with meetings in the mornings and after supper time.

The afternoon's were free time unless individual meetings were set up.

Additional site seeing that included the four of us: a boat ride on the Danube River; a visit to the Cave Church, hike up to the Citadella [closed for renovations], trying a Hungarian fry bread called Lángos.

Cory and I also visited Great Market Hall where Cory found a new fruit for us to try...snake fruit. 

On the free day Fritz enjoyed the company of the teens, their leaders, and friends from Nicaragua. Eli, Cory and I were joined on our first stop by friends as we visited the Dohany Street Synagogue, the largest in Europe.

Then we split up and headed to one of Eli's choices The Trash Art Museum that had a great chameleon sculpture. 

Then we walked across town visit the Hungarian Agricultural Museum. 

This is housed in a building that is like a castle!

Then we walked to Hero's Square as it was relatively close.