2 Visitors, One Welcome and One Not

Janeece had just come from 110 degree temperatures in India, so our 45-75 degree days were a welcome change for her.

As you know, Yolanda and I will be back in the US from this August to January 2019. While we are away from Zim, Janeece is the one who fills in for us and takes care of things at our house. She is quite an amazing woman who does this fulltime, filling in for missionaries during their returns to the US. She is from Indiana, but has had a very busy 2018. She was on assignment in India for a few months and flew straight to Harare last week. We picked her up and she visited us for 4 days, before flying to South Africa yesterday for an assignment there for almost 3 months. Then she will come back to Zim, to fill in for us. This will be her fourth time on assignment for us, but it will be the first time that there will be a gap of a couple weeks between our departure and her arrival. So we are grateful she was willing to take a few days with us to get reacquainted with life in Chinhoyi since her last time here two years ago and so much has changed since then.

In addition to paying bills, managing Western and Elizabeth, and maintain a presence on the premises, she will be running both of our women's groups. This past week while Janeece was here, she got to meet everyone

in the Tuesday and Wednesday groups and the children who come with them. When she comes back in September, she will pick up with the Bible studies, manage the sewing and beading, and will do everything to keep the groups moving forward. Of course there is much more involved than just doing a Bible study and some beads/sewing and Janeece is certainly up to the task.

Below, you can see the Wednesday women giving Janeece a lesson in rolling paper beads.

Janeece arrived last Wednesday and that night, the house alarm went off at 2:30am. A motion sensor in the garage triggered it, which isn't unusual. Every once in awhile, a bug or spider will walk across the sensor and set it off. When the alarm sounded, I looked out our bathroom window, which faces the garage, and didn't see anyone. But I heard a noise so I asked the security company to come out and check the grounds to make sure there wasn't anyone. They arrived with loaded weapons and flashlights a couple minutes later. They did a complete search and no one was here. If that happens in the night, even though they didn't find anyone, they drive up our street every hour until morning just to make sure all is ok.

When we woke up in the morning, we found that someone had been there because they had taken apart a piece of the chain link on one of the garage doors. Nothing was missing from the garage and we have no doubt that once the alarm sounded he ran away immediately. We contacted the security company just to let them know the guards had neglected to notice the gap in the chain link the night before and we were told that they think they know who it was. This guy has been stealing gas from homes in the area, so that's probably what he was after. Even though we have a sign on the gate that indicates we have an alarm, he obviously didn't think we had it hooked up to the garage.

What a blessing that nothing was taken, nothing was broken, and that it was an easy fix to repair the chain link. God is our ultimate protector and He has blessed us with the ability to have an alarm system and a great security company that is so close to us.

We will be having a special two-week seminar starting next week for all of the women in our groups and we'll let you know more about that and how it goes in our next blog.