July + August Update

Today marks 2 years since we first landed in Zambia! 

This last year has been so full of blessings and difficulties, and God continues to be faithful throughout it all! In some ways, this year has been much easier than our first year here as we’ve become much more settled, built deeper relationships, and gotten to know the culture here better (although no matter how well we think we know the culture, there are always new surprises!) We are so thankful for all the ways God has blessed us and answered our prayers during our time here. We are so thankful for all of your prayers and encouragement during our time here! 

July began with a visit from our dear friend Michelle Tanner. She stayed with us for about 3 weeks and we had such a wonderful time with her! We got to show her a bit of what life’s like here in Lusaka (including, unfortunately, a bout of stomach bug), and even got to do some adventuring in Kafue National Park-the largest park in Zambia! 

At ACU we are now in the fourth week of term 3. Isaac is teaching Environmental Science and Foundations of Science (Philosophy and History of Science). There are 67 students in Environmental Science and only 6 students in Foundations of Science. Isaac has been enjoying the Environmental Science course most of all, as preparing and delivering the course has given him time to think about applying the Christian ethic of stewardship in Zambia. The course is divided into three sections focused on ethics, scientific frameworks, and particular environmental issues. Zambia faces many challenging environmental issues including pollution from mine spills, burning trash, and the ever present plastic waste scattered along roadsides. To grow the students' awareness of the beauty and intricacy of creation, Isaac has assigned the students to fill three pages of a notebook on observations of the natural world each week. This also means that Isaac reads a lot of observation notebooks every week. Please pray for this class, that the students would grow in their appreciation of creation, their wisdom in stewarding the resources God has given them, and their love of who God is through the study of His creation.  

Wednesday Chapel service at ACU

Other than teaching, we continue our normal activities of hosting students in our home for fellowship, singing, and food. Individual conversations with the students range from topics as trivial as: how to bake chocolate chip cookies, favorite movies, and the differences in food prices between Zambia and the U.S., to deeper matters like: what qualities to look for in a future spouse, cessationism, raising children, whether or not it’s important for Christians to learn music, should women or men to be served first at a meal (In Zambian culture men go first), etc. We love our time with the students and there is a vibrancy and life that is always found with university students. We have built some wonderful friendships here, but as you would expect there are days when it is emotionally expensive. 

Hosting students nights at our house is one of the highlights of our week!

August 25th-29th was the Annual Reformed Family Conference hosted by the Reformed Baptist churches in Lusaka and ACU. The guest speaker, Jeff Smith from Florida, and the local pastors who spoke, all did a wonderful job speaking on God’s design for mankind in a world gone mad. We had the pleasure of meeting several pastors and families who had traveled from all over Africa for the conference. Korinne and Esther had a blast at the children’s conference and woke up early every morning ready to go. Dietrich, the introvert of the family, preferred to sit with the adults in the main conference and draw pictures, although he did join the kids on the last day and had a great time. 

On the housing front, our landlord is no longer planning on selling our house, which is a huge answer to prayers! Our rent has gone up substantially, but overall it is still less costly than moving as rentals in our area of town are expensive. We were looking for something in this area because being close to the university allows students to walk to our home. Thank you all so much for praying for us about this!! We are so grateful and relieved that we won’t have to move in the foreseeable future. 

 Faith and the kids continue to plug away at homeschooling. Both Korinne and Dietrich are making good progress in their reading and math, and all of the kids love read-alouds and audiobooks. Esther is the most enthusiastic about school right now and gets very excited to practice her letters and counting every day. Our homeschool co-op has been pretty hit-or-miss over the last few months as everyone has been dealing with sickness and other things, so we haven’t been able to meet very regularly. The kids have been doing soccer practice for several months now and they had their first game against another team in July. Our team lost, but the kids had such a fun time and have been asking when the next game is. 

All of us are getting more and more excited about our upcoming furlough back to the U.S.! We are still trying to pin down our exact dates and purchase our flights. We will try to share our travel plans once we have everything more solidly pinned down, and we hope to see as many of you as we can while we’re back home! 

Thank you all so much for your prayers and support! 

God bless, 

The Madsens 

Prayer Requests

• Thanksgiving: praise the Lord that we are able to stay in our house here! 

• Pray that we will continue to be faithful in our duties here during our last couple of months before heading home on furlough.

• Pray for wisdom as we try to finalize our travel plans for coming home.

• Pray for our health. We continue to get hit with a series of painful and annoying stomach ailments. 

• Pray for Isaac as he’s teaching and mentoring students at ACU.