Catching Up

Jacob, Josh & girls crossing handmade bridge

It has been a bit over a month (or maybe two, sorry) since our last update and although the time is not that long, chronologically we are much further behind letting you all know what we have been up to and what God has been doing in our life’s. So for this update I will make a bit of a summery of the major blessings the Lord has given us over the past months, but not to take away from the daily love we feel from Him.

In late June we took a trip to the northern region of Malawi to spend the last few days with our Friends Josh and Doressa before brining them back here to Lilongwe so they could fly back to the good ‘ol US of A. We had an awesome time with them. They showed us so much hospitality taking us to a game reserve, lake Malawi, among many other things all the while packing up their life here in Malawi, at least for the time being. God brought them into our lives for many reasons and to Him we are eternally grateful. We pray that the states are treating them well and look forward to their return to this part of the world.

Playing in the waves of Northern Lake Malawi

Shortly after seeing Josh and Doressa off, we received the best gift we have had since our arrival here, Meg. Meg (Tonya’s mom for those that don’t know) gave us the biggest spiritual, emotional, and physical lift imaginable. It is one thing to write and talk to the one’s you love but getting to hug, spend time and have their presence when you have so longed for it is like nothing else. We spent her time here showing her our life. Taking her around the town, introducing her to our Comboni Family, to our friends and to the number of organizations we are involved in. We cherished every moment she was with us and even though she was here for almost two weeks it seemed like it was only a day or two. We thank God for her time here and look forward to our future embrace.

Josie and Grandma Meg in the market

While Meg was here, Lily was able to receive the Sacrament of First Communion. We had been preparing Lily for this most joyous day during our time and thankfully the Fathers were gracious enough to hold a small mass for this celebration at their chapel. We were joined by a number of Sisters from various communities along with Father Somanje celebrating mass and Father Kanyike attending. Watching Lily grow in knowledge and faith in our Father has been a wonderful experience in itself and to celebrate this sacrament here in Malawi is a gift from God that she will never forget.

Some of the other fun things we have done is taking most of our preschoolers on a field trip to

Lilyanna's First Holy Communion Mass

the Lilongwe Wildlife Center about 100 kids. Most of these children have never been out of the village and just to be able to go into town was a joyful event. We all took the tours, ate lunch, and then played on probably the most dangerous playgrounds on earth. Seriously, the slide was almost straight up and down, the raised levels on a “tree house had no rails and most of the equipment was either broke or just plain had razor sharp edges. I paint a grim picture but only as a parent and caretaker of the kids. They all had a great time and were talking about it for weeks. 

Our preschool field trip

   In July we had the pleasure to meet and spend time with one of father Somanje’s friends Valentina. She is now working in Zambia and had come to see father and we were lucky enough to also share in her time. Josie took right to her because of her playfulness and gentle way. They quickly became best buds and Valentina was all Josie could talk about. While she was here we were also fortunate enough to be witness to and involved in the meeting of AMECEA here in Lilongwe. Basically it is a huge meeting of an organization that includes the leaders of the Catholic church in seven different countries of this part of Africa. 

AMECEA

During the first Sunday mass of this meeting we were in church expecting to greet members from one of the countries as guests, and I looked up and thought I was dreaming. There in front of me was Sister Huwet, a Comboni Sister we had met and grown to love very much in Chicago! We were all so filled with joy to see an old friend that we never knew if we would get to see again. We were blessed to spend time with Sister Huwet and other Sisters from her area in Eritrea. During our time spent with Sister Huwet  she gave us reassurance that the life of a missionary is not measured in the “things” you have accomplished but in the love of Him and from Him that you give each and every day.

Tili tonse, First Holy Communion

One of our main ministries here has been to assist in tili tonse, which is basically the catechism of the youth in preparing them for the sacraments.  Most of the youth speak very little English and with a limit on our Chichewa it is a challenging ministry, but with the help of other teachers to interpret where our language skills lack, it has also been very rewarding.  To be able to share the word of God to these children who in many cases have very little else in life is a humbling experience. They come in the hundreds every Saturday, many dressed in what we would call in the states rags, some with shoes, some not. None of that matters though. We all come as children of God.  I was privileged to facilitate the receiving of the sacraments of First Holy Communion and Confirmation for well over 300 beautiful children of the Lord. To see the excitement and joy on their faces filled my heart with joy. We have now started a new year of tili tonse and we are excited to continue to share His love to the youth.

Josephine's 1st day of Reception/4K

Lilyanna and Josie have both started school at ABC Academy. Lily is in the fourth grade and Josie is reception (4k). Both are doing very well and we are thankful for the opportunity for them to receive a quality Christian education. Lily is on the swim team this year and Josie will be starting lessons soon. Both are building strong friendships with children from Malawi and many other parts of the world and we are happy to see them growing as beautiful young ladies of the Lord.

We thank God daily in our prayers for the love and support that all of you have given us during our time here in Malawi so far. Without your prayers, your support and the love and mercy of Jesus Christ we know that none of this is possible. Please continue to pray for us, as we will do the same. 

We're Alive!!!

Since our last post we have received many blessing and have encountered a lot of change. Some of our closest neighbors have moved out, we celebrated the death and resurrection of our Savior, climbed some trees, met and had lunch with the new Arch Bishop, delivered much needed goods to a family in a nearby village, built a wall fence and said goodbye to good friends, just to name a few of these blessings.

Lily and her good friend Monica who moved away

Our neighbors, who we have had a very good relationship with and of whom Lily had been building a strong friendship with their daughter, suddenly said, “we are leaving tomorrow”. We responded with “what, for how long”.  They had been building a house for a while, about a half hour walk from here and were now ready to move in. Our family was first sad that we would not be able to see and spend time with them anymore but soon realized that this was a great day for them. They had worked hard, doing their job and spending every available moment building their own house literally from the ground up by hand and could now have their own space and adequate room for their growing family. We spent the evening with them, playing and laughing and made them a bit to eat after their transport was VERY late. We will miss them very much but are proud of their accomplishments and pray that God will continue to bless them.

Tonya and our friend Mary

Giving our blessings to the lady to the right of Tonya

We’ve become actively involved with CFM (Christian Family Movement) in our church. The group has been wonderful to us; ensuring translation during meetings when we don’t understand, inviting us to participate and treating us like members rather than strictly “missionary providers for various projects.” We organized a charity effort to provide various items to the most needing and vulnerable in one of our outstations. The outstations are located in the villages outside of Lilongwe. Items our group donated included chimanga (corn), sugar, soap, salt, clothing, and money. On Easter Monday, we spilt up into 4 groups and set out to visit and deliver the items our group gathered. It was a blessing to see the smiles of appreciation and gratitude on the faces of the families who we were helping. We hope to be able to do more of these works of charity in the near future.

Easter celebrations were no less wonderful this year as they were last year. The members of our parish came out in the thousands for the 4 mile way of the cross and the rest of the weekend celebrating the death and resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ was a strong reminder of why we are here.

Easter celebrations with the Bishop, there has to be a goat

Our new Arch Bishop, nice guy

The biggest change in our daily life is the new wall fence we now have around our property. The security of our family has been issue since we arrived and through the understanding and generosity of the Comboni Fathers both here and especially from the North American province, we now have sufficient security for our home. A big thanks to you our Comboni family!

Saying goodbye to our good friends Nicky and Travis and fam

Something that we have come to realize that is a great blessing and also a difficult challenge in mission life is, we get the pleasure to meet and get to know different people from many parts of the world. Unfortunately, many times the time is short and goodbyes are a common occurrence. At the end of the school year, we said goodbye to many people and families that we had built strong friendships with. Although this is a difficult thing to do, we are thankful to God for bringing them into our lives however short the time may have been.

We are sorry for the long time between entries. We all had hit spiritual, emotional and some physical low points in recent months. Through prayer, reflection, and the support of all of you, we are once again sturdy and strong.  May Almighty God send His Grace and Blessings on all of you. 

Jacob and his ladies.

Dirty face girls after having our first campfire
 and as close to smores as we can get

Cutting down a big tree with a machete, top down,
yes, those are the power wires

Wham

How about a spiritual and emotional kick right in the teeth…. That is about what we received this past week. After a short stretch of feeling like we were making the tiniest bit of difference, we were asked from some, what have you been doing…, and then to add salt to the wound, “we expected more from you.”  The questions and comments weren’t made from a curiosity point of view, because if that were the case, we could have made some sort of answer back. Instead they came from people in which we thought supported us and if they had some specific goal in mind, then they could have easily asked for assistance or given some sort of direction much earlier.

We never expected this journey to be easy, but through the numerous struggles we have had, we have contemplated, is this where we are supposed to be, and what on GOD’S green earth are we doing here? After some time of reflection, we have realized that all of this is just a test of our fortitude and faith.

The love that Christ has put in our hearts is something that must be shared and that is the main goal of our mission here. There are councils, groups and programs that want our involvment and of course financial assistance but we will not succumb to just the wants from some of these groups. We have come to give something that is much more real. That is the knowledge and the true love of all the people on earth that our Savior Jesus Christ has given us.

If He had not given us this love, then we wouldn’t put up with the challenge of learning a new language, security of the family, driving in a place where evidently human life doesn’t matter when you are behind a wheel, unsafe water and the million other things that our family accepts and deals with on a daily basis.

We are here to share the salvation of the gospels just as our founder St. Daniel Comboni had done so long ago. This past week has reminded us that as much as it is an awesome work of the Holy Spirit to share in His love, it often come with a price. That price comes with sacrifice, humility, humbleness, and acceptance of things that we do not fully understand.

With a Patient Heart,

Jacob

Our First Year

After spending our first year here in Malawi, we have asked ourselves what have we done? On the surface, no we haven’t built any schools, dug any wells, started huge projects or any of the like. What we have done this past year is demonstrated the life of a loving Christian family that is willing to put all trust in Him and spread His love in a land that very much needs it.

Our neighborhood crew

We have developed many strong relationships with our neighbors, teachers that we work with and the parish family in which we now pray with.  This has been the main part of our work and we are grateful to God for the success in which we have achieved in these newfound friendships.

Over the past months our family (mainly Tonya) 

has become the neighborhood doctor. We have treated massive infected burns, transported children and adults to the hospital, sometimes in the middle of the night, mended cuts, scrapes, and even some pretty awesome foot fungus. The reason this all started is not because we have more medicine, money or resources than the people around us. Although all of that is true, it started because we showed compassion and concern when we saw that our friends were suffering.

Suffering to many around us is not something new. Many suffer from malaria multiple times a year. Also many suffer from hunger when their pay runs out and they can’t afford to bath or feed their family after working 6 days a week. Although we can’t fully support all the needs of the people around us, we do what we can do. We give a little work to the neighbors that need a little cash to scrape by. We give a few eggs to the family has nothing but nsima for dinner. However little it may be, we show those around us the love that Christ has put in our hearts.

Jacob, Andrew and Charles, the first
No Regrets mens  group in Malawi

Jacob just finished his first bible study with a couple of great guys. Starting the study seemed to be great idea with some of the young men here from St. Johns. After a few weeks of some of the guys showing up and some not, it ended up being a group of only three including Jacob. At first this was a bit discouraging, but in Proverbs we read: "He that winneth souls is wise." If any man, women, or child by a godly life and example can win one soul to God, his life will not have been a failure. He will have outshone all the mighty men of his day, because he will have set a stream in motion that will flow on and on forever and ever.
-Dwight L. Moody. The whole experience has been very fuitful and he looks forward to the next opportunity to start a new group. 

We continue to assist the nursery schools, mostly on an administrative level. We plan to take a trip soon to the CTC to purchase wooden chairs and table to replace the plastic chairs that keep breaking and introduce new styles of learning to the existing program. Which right now mostly consists of “parrot” learning, where the student memorizes the words or statements without really knowing what they mean or understanding the context of the information. The tables and chairs will provide a space where the students can learn more with manipulative action and artistic practice.  The funding for these tables and chairs is coming from St. Ann school in Stoughton. We cannot thank you enough for this wonderful gift.

Farewell party for Fr. Dario.
Malungu akudalitseni abambo Dario

A couple weeks ago we said goodbye to our friend and previous Provincial Superior Fr. Dario. He will be on holiday for the next couple months back in his home province, Portugal. His next assignment after that is not yet known. We wish him all the best during his holiday and pray that we will again meet soon.

Jacob also made a little video of shots from our first year here. Although we have many other pics and God has shown His face in many other ways, it is a good snap shot of the past year. Click here to see the video. 

Lily playing hard in her basketball program

We thank all of you for your continued support through prayer, emails, Skype, and all the other ways we feel your love and presence in our lives.  We ask that you please consider supporting the Comboni Lay Missionary Program directly here. God Bless each and everyone of you.  Jacob, Tonya, Lily and Josie 

One of the tili tonse  groups Jacob
 has been participating in on Saturdays

Josie and her babies

Ministry of Presence

Christmas Mass at St. John the Baptist

I’d like to begin with thanking you for your continued prayers and support! And for being patient as it’s been several months since we’ve last written in our blog. Quite honestly, it has felt like we haven’t “accomplished” much or had anything fun to share. That’s what it felt like anyway but thinking back, we have so much to share it’ll take more than one entry to get you updated!

Ministry of Presence – we learned about presence being a ministry in our formation training. I remember Paul, our Program Director, saying more than once that we’d need to learn to be okay with just being and not always doing. For most American’s this is not an easy task. We focus on productivity, accomplishments or to simply put it – getting things done. 

Typical kitchen scene, Ruthie 10yrs old

Looking back to mid-November it started getting difficult for us to be content “just being present.” Our daily life was becoming a bit more routine; we spend quite a bit of time at the 2 preschools we work with and attended various meetings at church.  In our spare time, we typically play with the neighborhood children or the children who come to the church property on the weekends for tilitonse (Sunday School, but on Saturday’s—all morning!). Life was beginning to feel “smooth”. But it also felt like we weren’t doing anything different and didn’t have anything to share in our blog. And quite honestly, homesickness hit me pretty hard around the holidays. Writing a blog update forces me to think of my family and friends, so not writing was just easier than getting sad. (I’ll return to homesickness in a bit)

Laundry time

Many of the Comboni Fathers we work with in the Malawi/Zambia Province have told us the importance and huge impact the ministry of presence is especially with us being a family with two small children. We are still struggling with the language. Unfortunately the 50 or so hours of language training we received early on was only enough for greetings and very basic communication. Because we are not even close to fluent in Chichewa, we get discouraged and feel we’re not able to be as involved as we’d like to be.

Lily, Josie and their friend Febe

To impact the feeling of being discouraged and not comfortable with the ministry of presence, after Mass on Sunday I had a woman tell me I should know the language by now and she was disappointed in me. This comment made me feel bad for about five minutes. It only took about five minutes for me to receive 4 comments regarding our presence being so impacting and beautiful to our church community. The Treasurer of the church told me with a huge smile, “you do good work, we are so blessed to have you and your family here.” Then a preschool teacher we work with came up and introduced me to his friend. He told the friend how wonderful it has been having us at the preschools and he spoke of all the “great changes and contributions” we’ve made. One woman stopped me as I was leaving to ask if we were leaving for America soon (in Chichewa and I understood her!). I told her no, we’d be here for at least two more years. You should have seen her smile; she shook my hand and thanked me many times for not leaving! 

Tonya & Febe

My point isn’t to tell you all the great compliments I received in this 10 minute timespan one Sunday after Mass. Rather its to demonstrate how in only 11 short months, with only knowing a little of the local language our family was able to make connections, to build relationships, to show others we care and we love them. Yes, I’m confident there is more than one person here who is disappointed or frustrated that we still struggle with Chichewa. But, clearly for each person who is disappointed in our lack of language skills there are 4 more who are touched at our mere presence among this community.

God sure knew what I needed on this particular Sunday. I was feeling stale and after the first woman’s comment about her disappointment I was feeling downright bad. Then, these people just started saying things to me about our ministry and most were referring to our ministry of presence. I will continue to pray for peace and acceptance that I am right where God wants me to be. I pray for an open heart, calmness, and patience everyday. I am humbled to be reminded of our training session as well as what the Comboni Fathers have told us – Ministry of Presence is important, we need to embrace and accept it.

Lilyanna & her wonderful personality

Don’t let me mislead you; we have plenty going on though it’s the things we’ve basically already told you about. We’re still overseeing the two Comboni Preschools, I’m helping in the Comboni Provincial Finance Office and Jacob has been extremely busy launching a new café at Lilyanna’s school. Plus we attend various church meetings, assist Fr Somanje, our Comboni Parish Priest, in grant writing requests and have most recently become the neighborhood First Aid Nurse, ambulance driver and human jungle gym. (next blog update we’ll elaborate!)

Josephine learning to balance

I mentioned being homesick around the holidays, I’d like to return to this thought. I’ve never lived more than 45 miles from my parents, until moving to Malawi at 35 years old. The holidays were a bit tough though we made it through and our family enjoyed them. Right around Christmas, we began receiving emails, MANY OF THEM, from our St. Ann’s and HMC Church Community. Every time I’d open my email, there would be 5 or 10 more messages. These messages continued to come for a few weeks after Christmas. 

Jacob after a morning run

I can’t even express how beautiful it was for our family to hear from so many of you! The messages were touching, we didn’t feel forgotten, and instead we felt love and support! And most of all, it helped cure the homesickness! Technology sure has made being a missionary much easier than it must have been before the internet was widely available! Thank you so much for your Christmas wishes, each and every one of them means so much to us! We didn’t delete a single one, they have their own email folder. When one of us is feeling a bit homesick or lonely, we simply open up the emails and begin reading.Thank you so much for the beautiful blessings so many of you gave us this holiday season! 

Please know you are always in our prayers, multiple times each day! We love praying on specific prayer requests so please include us when you have something specific you’d like us to be praying for. Why not have prayers being said from literally all over the worldJ Thanks again for being patient as this blog update is long overdue! We’ll write again shortly with some specifics of our encounters over the past few months.

In Christ’s Peace,

Tonya, Jacob, Lilyanna and Josephine

Kleven Family, Christmas morning