Ostrander Family Update: 2024-2025
Greetings from the Ostranders!
It's been a crazy year and we apologize for the lack of updates. We will give a quick timeline of 2024 through Spring 2025:
- We rented and remodeled a house in Bukeye, Burundi.
Sophia, Bella, Aimee, Ruthie, and Kassy enjoying their "new" house.
After remodeling the house, Miles started welding again, which has been a blessing for us, as well as the small jobs he was able to do for our team members.
- We did "spurts" of language study, but took a couple of breaks due to Miles helping finish a building project, him getting malaria, and some other factors.
- Miles helped Cornerstone Clinic with many major and minor maintenance jobs. Repairing medical equipment, the classic weekly toilet repairs, creating maintenance repair charts for future use, etc. Miles was also able to participate in and occasionally lead the staff devotion that happened twice a week, which was neat because the staff would then do devotionals for the patients two other days a week. You could really see the trickle down effect.
Installing EG4 batteries at the Cornerstone Clinic; the batteries were donated by Signature Solar.
In July, Miles went to Nundu Hospital in the DR Congo with a team from I-TEC to fix issues with the solar and backup generator. Check out this great ministry: http://www.itec.org
We participate in a local church, whose name translates to “The Good Shepherd” (it is a church plant of a small Burundian denomination). Miles has done Jesus Film showings in the local language for the children, the women, and the men. We have been in discussion with the church on how we can use this tool as an outreach to the community. Our hope is that we will be able to rent a neutral space to show the film where no one would be discouraged because of their not wanting to enter a church building.
They have begun asking Miles to preach occasionally, including asking him to give the sermon on Easter Sunday. The local couple responsible for the church wrote Miles and said they just had too much on their plates and they needed to remove something, saying it would be extremely helpful if he would be willing to preach. Miles realized that he ironically had three days and three nights to prepare, but God was faithful!
Aimee in Sunday School
- The hardest moment of last year was the loss of our baby nephew (Miles’ sister’s son), several days after birth due to birth complications. It was so hard being away from family, not being there to support and grieve together, and processing it all from afar.
We are excited that they will be having another baby in June; they asked Emilee to come assist as their doula for the birth of another baby boy! There is also another niece expected to arrive on the same due date, so we are overjoyed to be able to be with family, and we pray this season will be a healing one.
- In October, one of the happiest moments of last year was the birth of another Ostrander cousin! We are so excited to meet her! So many Ostrander cousins now, thankfully Miles' siblings are doing their part filling up the cousin roster!
- Also in October, Miles’ 2nd cousin Julia (also a MK/TCK) came for seven months to help us with homeschooling!!! She was an indescribable blessing to the whole family and an amazing house mate for us adults! God knew we needed her upbeat spirit and love of deep conversation mixed in with fun talks on every topic under the sun. God is so good and provides in ways we can never imagine.
- We bought a van from Dubai and, after many trials and tribulations, it is FINALLY here! After an especially complicated import story, it then took three months to diagnose (for you car geeks, the TCM was smashed) and then to order an extremely uncommon replacement part that had to be specially manufactured by Toyota in Japan and then sent via Japan, South Africa, and finally Kenya to Burundi. Many thanks to Dr. Lazare for taking the time in Kenya to help us get the part and the many other ways he and his family have helped us! We are grateful to finally have everyone in a seatbelt and a car seat!
- Miles had a bad case of malaria in January, which pretty much stole the whole month from us. He had only two classic malaria symptoms throughout—a high fever and chills— and his other symptoms were all the signs of a bad cold, which just added to the confusion. He went five days undiagnosed. Thankfully we had already put Miles on saline IV, but by that time he had signs of kidney failure and he was delirious a few times... which was actually both quite funny and extremely disconcerting. He got retested, got on meds, and took several weeks to recover his strength. He says he has finally earned his place as a true African missionary by gaining his "Malaria Badge" + dramatic tale.
- The Girls are doing well and, thanks to Julia, are caught up school-wise. They are using a full curriculum (Math, Language Arts, Science) for the first time this year from the “The Good and the Beautiful.” Julia also worked through two history books and found some awesome Youtube Videos (thanks to Starlink for good internet!) to help cement the information. So many online educational resources these days, we feel very blessed.
Julia teaching history when the power is out; phone flashlights are always handy in Burundi.
The older two girls have three close girlfriends here in Bukeye and four more down in Bujumbura. The younger ones have a couple friends in Bujumbura their age. Sadly, several of our friends are leaving the country permanently or the kids are going to boarding school. Grateful that our girls play well together as sisters and that they do in fact view each other as close friends.
Future News:
We have reached the end of our volunteer time with the local ministry we were volunteering with here in Bukeye, so we are praying about what the future holds for us next fall and onwards.
We are making a trip to the USA at the end of May until September. We will be setting aside time to do a retreat which specializes in debriefing. We are doing well as a couple/family, but we know many missionaries who have or are experiencing burnout. We want to make sure we don't get to that point and want to take preventive measures.
Looking forward to quality family time and also visiting with many of you while we're in the States!
Love,
The Ost Clan