We are back online! (a quick update)

We are so thrilled to be back with you. We had some fairly regular problems with internet when we got to Zambia. This was followed by realizing that all of our U.S. phone numbers which we canceled intentionally were the second part of our two step varification on everything. WIX helped get us back online today. So sorry we were not able to update you sooner.

We have seen the end of rainy season, it rained for the first month when we were here.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/c6940b_d7560245d5c94ae2b888d382b3551737/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

I got used to some new kinds of driving... Driving is on the opposite side of the road in town. A few of the laws are a bit different. The country roads are rustic during rainy season.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/c6940b_d1a7aa7f5c1449c8afe198a4f480c087/720p/mp4/file.mp4

Our road in rainy season

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/c6940b_5b48755998ff4e90bca0c1157ee58f8d/720p/mp4/file.mp4

City Driving short

We got used to our new place. This was a cooking, cleaning, exploring, finding snakes and doing more intentional exploring, making some friends, having pets for the first time getting new sicknesses season. Learning to live in a new place is intense, but we are so thankful to God for sending us here. We are also thankful for our friends and coworkers at Kafakumba for their help. We are grateful to all you who have been praying for us as well!

There is more coming, but for now here are things you can pray for.

For Roman I would ask that his creativity and problem solving continues to expand. He is learning so much thus far and is building and trying a lot of new things.

For Olive, she is finding a lot of new friends and figuring out how to navigate a lot of new social situations. Grace for that would be a great prayer.

Charlie is having a blast learning Bemba, having pets, but has also seen a lot of new things. Animals dying for food, snakes killed, poverty. She is processing a lot. Praying for that would be good.

All of us are undergoing some immunity shifts: cold, flu, and fevers. I was glad to get out of Malaria fairly fast. God has been so kind in it all.

Mal and I are learning a lot about the culture and trying to lean in to the discomfort knowing normalcy is on the other side. Mal is learning to drive right now. Prayers for general adapting and for her learning would be great!

I am teaching 4-5 hours a day during pastors school. I am asking God to help me learn these languages and for understanding for where the pastors are coming from. (We do have translators, but it helps to grasp more of how those languages work) Thank you for the prayers and support. Feel free to email us if you have any questions or prayer requests at cmaustin@protonmail.com.

Blessings to you all, love from,

The Austins

We have Arrived!

As of the 26th of February we have arrived in Zambia. After 36 hours of travel, waiting, and praying we are here! Thank you all who have been praying for this. We have experienced this trip 8 months previous, but have learned a lot for this trip to go without much hardship. I wanted to express my absolute gratitude to be in Zambia and share the 3 lessons we have learned in the past year to get to this point.

1. Prayer is one of the lessons in these travel days. We contacted everyone we could think of who would pray: all of our connections all over the world. This paved the way for wonderful travel days. We were not looking for ideal circumstances, but for favor, intervention, and fun as we go. Several parts of our stop overs we were given love by the flight crew, by security, and by the airline staff.                                         At the baggage counter in Detroit all our bags were at or under weight. I worked hard to pack each bag, but 6 bags weighed at exactly 50 lbs. I was so happy. The man who tagged our bags was very kind and blessed us as he gave us our tickets for the flight from Detroit to Amsterdam, and Amsterdam to South Africa. These tickets we were given in Detroit worked perfectly fine for the first flight, but were useless in Amsterdam. They were unreadable and the seats had to be reassigned for our flight to South Africa. After waiting in a long line of ticketers to find out that my tickets do not work, while my children do their best to be still after 15 hours of travel was an interesting instance to practice the peace and love which we preach. Assurance that God was taking care of things came out. The KLM worker smiled at our predicament and reassigned us to wonderful seats, where the whole family was able to spread out for the Amsterdam to Johannesburg leg of the trip. Every step of the way we have seen God’s hand.

2. Going with the flow of the day is the second big lesson. We hit pockets of fatigue or nausea and did not panic. Just seeing it happen without reacting made a huge difference. We had an entire football club from Norway sat in front of us on the first flight. It was amazing to watch the day unfold without getting upset about it. The Club was made up of late teens and early twenties. Talking, singing, laughing on a very long flight. Rather than this being an irritation, it was an opportunity to see life. They were vibrant, and fun, and energetic. Without holding tension for them, our whole family slept through the flight.

3. Being thankful throughout the journey. Rather than waiting for everything to be finished, it has been a wonderful day of noticing all that is going on and being thankful. The kids are hilarious regularly, but I only notice when I am present with them. We had so much fun with these travel days, because we were not waiting for them to be over. Olive making friends with two boys in Detroit, Charlie telling a lady she loved her cat keychain and then explaining how great cats are, Roman being sweet to so many random people as we went, Mallory adapting to so many odd circumstances like a champion: all of these things were obvious in the present moment. I am blown away by how much present thanksgiving made every moment divine.

We will be sending updates regularly on here. Please let me know if you need them sent to you directly. We will make that happen as best we can. Email me if possible. We did find out that we will most likely be loosing our US numbers, but we will let you know what our African numbers are as soon as they exist. Thanks everyone for the love, support, and prayers. So happy to be able to upload this to you today from Zambia!!!

Waiting for the first flight!

Nearly There | Thank You!

Today we are two weeks away from flying! We have finished our immigration paperwork and are waiting for a reply. We are currently praying for the paperwork to be processed in time for our landing on the 26th of February. There were a lot of documents to upload and forms to fill out, but we are thankful for the Zambian government being willing to recieve workers right now, and we are excited to move! Our bags are packed and we are trying to see all the people in our lives before we head out. What a whirlwind!

One of the things standing out to me this week is how many connections to people have come through small conversations. It has been fun to let our friends and family know what we are doing, but that has led to seeing how many people we have in our lives right now. Of course, that makes leaving that much more bitter sweet, but it also has led to many moments of gratitude. We love our friends in Angola, Fort Wayne, Muncie, Indianapolis, Desoto, Union City, St. Louis, Colorado, Florida, New York, Ohio, and the list goes on. We have been keeping track of our friends over seas as well. The connections and love are real. Thank you if you are reading for being a part of helping send us to this next part of the journey! It is hard to describe what God has done to get us to this point. While the past few years have been very formative, we are looking forward to working and living into what we have learned.

I wanted to ask for prayer for a few things... These are the big 3

• Our immigration status so that we may come into Zambia on the 26th of Feb.

• The travel- we have about 36 hours of travel to get from Detroit to Ndola. It is a long time for everyone.

• To sell our car in the US- we have a 2018 Buick Enclave to sell in the next 14 days.

Here is our prayer for you right now

• For you and God to set patterns and intentions for your growth and development

• To experience the God who is in you with you and for you more fully and completely

• To see the kingdom, the community, and the home that you long for is within you.

These prayers might be general, but they are the cry of my heart. Our hope for those we live with in Zambia is for them to know the God who has always been with them, to know how to access that relationship, and live in it fully. It is what I want for you too. It is what we are cultivating in ourselves and the kids as well. It is difficult to leave, but impossible not to. It will be hard to be away, but we want to say yes to what God is asking. That inner voice is calling and we say yes. It is all we know. It is all we teach. It is who we are. It is our prayer for you in this coming year: when the inner voice calls, you will say yes.

Love and blessings to you all today. Thanks for reading!