Livingstone!

        This past weekend looked a little different than most. And by a little, I mean it was unlike any weekend I have experienced thus far. Since the busyness and preparations for Camp Hope and the short term mission teams have not set in yet, we got to take a few days off of work and spend a long weekend in Livingstone. We left early Friday morning, took a 6 hour bus ride, and began our weekend adventure. As soon as we arrived in Livingstone, an old EOH friend and partner picked us up from the bus station and took care of us for the weekend. Sanderson and his wife, Lwendo welcomed us into their home for the weekend, along with their two precious baby girls Cheyenne and Shannon.

     The weekend was jam-packed full of fun and crazy adventures, some of which included an early morning game drive where we saw all kinds of wild African animals, an elephant-back safari ride, and walking and petting lions and cheetahs. Yes, you read that right. We got up close and personal with some of the most dangerous wild animals in the world and enjoyed every second of it. After our time in the wilderness, we were able to visit Victoria Falls, and I was blown away with how beautiful it was. I have always loved and appreciated nature and God’s creation, but seeing Victoria Falls gave me an even greater appreciation and awestricken view of how Great our God is. How Big and How Vast He is that He could create something so marvelous. There are literally no words that can describe the beauty of what I saw, and the way God’s presence is so known in a place like that.

      Beyond our semi-dangerous encounters with wild animals and visiting Victoria Falls, we got to spend some precious time with Sanderson and his beautiful family. From the way they welcomed us into their home and their unexplainable joy in serving us for the weekend to the way they couldn’t help but speak about the Lord in nearly every conversation, their love and passion was extremely contagious. I was challenged and encouraged so much by them, just in the short time we spent together, and they are doing amazing things for the Kingdom and for the people in Zambia who they clearly have such big hearts for. They are trusting in the Lord’s plan for them and following His call for them to start the first Christian youth camp in Zambia, and are in the initial stages of waiting on funds to build on their newly purchased land. If you remember to, please lift up a quick prayer for this family as they follow the Lord’s call to be His hands and feet to the Zambian community through Camp J-Zone.

Our not so uneventful morning

     Yesterday morning started out as uneventful and a pretty slow day at the office. We are quickly learning the extent of the event orientation lifestyle here in Zambia. Some days we will show up to the office, ready to roll and end up waiting for several hours only to find out that there is not much for us to do besides catch up on blog posts and emails before the kids get out of school at 4:00. Yesterday was one of those days. After refreshing our email pages for a few hours and waiting to find out there was nothing more for us to do in the office, we decided to get out of the office for a little and go to the internet café to grab some lunch and relax for a few hours before the kids got home from school. A pretty low key afternoon right? Right. No wait….Wrong.

     Just as we were getting ready to meet our taxi driver out front Shelby realized her bag that was just in front of her minutes ago was now gone. Okay, no big deal it’s probably in this pile of stuff somewhere. No wait. Huge deal. It is nowhere to be found in the pile of our stuff and inside the bag is her passport, drivers license, some personal cash, and the key to her room with the address of where we are staying on it. We all tried to remain calm, double checking everywhere around us and retracing our steps from the day, but after awhile of searching and our taxi driver waiting on us we decided to call it quits and leave our number with the security guard in case it was turned in.

     As soon as we got back to the office and informed Maretta and Caison about the missing bag scenario they were certain it had been stolen. Apparently this is not the first time Mzungos have run into this problem at Arcades. After conversing with them and making a few phone calls we came up with a game plan and put it into action. We will head back to Justo Mwale (where we are staying) to figure out the key situation –hopefully there is a spare key, and or they can change the lock so that whoever has Shelby’s bag cannot access the room and the rest of their belongings, and then go back into town to file a police report. Side note: on the way to Justo Mwale there was a huge traffic jam due to a Mzungo driver running into a kid carrying dozens of eggs on his head. The kid was fine, but the eggs were not. This day just keeps getting weirder.

     Once we got back to Justo Mwale and spent some time finding out that the key person would be back later in the evening, we decided to split up. Christina and I would stay back in the room that we still had a key to while Kate and Shelby would go with Maretta and Caison to talk to the police. As Christina and I waited patiently in the room for the gatekeeper to bring us a spare key, we hit another small bump along the way. The electricity went out. Did I mention it gets pitch dark here by 6pm? After another couple of hours of waiting while Kate and Shelby were talking to the police we finally got news. And the verdict is: there is no spare key. Alas, the four of us crammed into one tiny room and had a sleepover after scrounging to fin an extra mattress to use for the night. A bonding experience to say the least.

     Our not so eventful morning turned into quite the afternoon –thankful that we are all safe and trusting that all will be well despite the chaos of the day. And today we are off to conquer the Embassy! Prayers that all will run smoothly from here on out and we can get Shelby a new passport.

Ednah

After playing a round of uno on the front porch with a few of the girls, Ednah disappeared for a few minutes, and returned with a picture album full of different important people in her life. I flipped through the album with her page by page, and she had a comment for each of the photos. It was such a sweet time of learning more about her and through that also experiencing how hilarious and goofy she can be. Although some of the things that came out of this girl’s mouth when explaining the pictures to me were hilarious and so out of control, there were also several sweet tender moments that I hope to remember forever like the way she explained and showed me who her best friends were, her cousins, her classmates, her prayer partner from China, and maybe the sweetest one of all –a picture of her sponsors.


I could continue telling more stories about all of my sweet new friends, and I am sure I will as my time here continues, but here is just a glimpse to show you truly how different each one of these kids are and how big their hearts and personalities are.

Helen

Sweet Helen. From the moment I met Helen she had the sweetest little smile on her face and was immediately interested not only who I was but what I liked to do, and all of my favorites. She spent several minutes firing me with question after question to learn more about me, which of course, like any typical teenage girl included boys and music. After finding some common interests, (Chris Brown, Justin Bieber, and Shakira to name a few) her and a few other girls decided it would be in my best interest to learn the dance to Shakira’s “Waka Waka.” As I struggled to make my body move like these girls, Helen just sat and quietly giggled in the corner. She is definitely one of the more reserved ones in the group, but she has the sweetest, most tender little heart and cares so deeply for everyone around her.

Choolwe

As I was sitting on the porch playing cards with some of the girls, out of the corner of my eye I see Choolwe doing something at the gate, so I decided to fixate my eyes for just a moment. I watched him for a minute struggle to get into the gate and the next thing I knew he was holding a dog that clearly did not want anything to do with him. The dog was squirming out of his hands, but determined as he is, Choolwe didn’t give up and pinned the dog down against his will, shielding himself from the dog snapping and biting at him. Finally after a few minutes of this he gave up and let the dog run away from under the gate. After watching this scene play out, he walked past casually and I asked him what he was doing to that dog, and he just gave me a little smirk while the girls replied, “He likes to play with dogs.”

Lusaka Friends

Today we finally got to meet our new friends who live in the Lusaka My Father’s House homes 1-4, just a few blocks away from the office. Immediately after stepping into the homes and meeting our friends for the first time, I could feel a drastic difference between the Lusaka and Chongwe kids. I have been trying to process and pin point what exactly that difference is, but the truth is I just can’t seem to figure it out. The Lusaka kids are overall a little bit older and have been established in these homes a little bit longer, but there is more to it than that. These kids –both in Lusaka and Chongwe each have such different personalities that make up who they are and it is so neat to be able to see that already. I wish I could explain myself a little bit better, but I hope to give you a little glimpse of what drastic personality differences I am talking about through the stories in these next few posts.  

Let the Poor say I am Rich

     The past two days have been pretty low key since the office closes and we do not have work on the weekends. At first I was a little bummed about the time away from my new friends after just meeting them, but it has turned out to be a great time of adjusting to the culture and lifestyle while bonding with my fellow interns.

     We spent several hours journaling and getting organized at a local internet café while people watching in the marketplace all around us. As we were sitting there taking it all in it was so fun to examine and mentally note all the differences in the culture. But probably one of the biggest things I have noticed in my time here is how relational the people are here. As I sat and watched people’s interactions with one another and even their interactions with us, I couldn’t help but notice how people just simply want to get to know you and are all super friendly. It has been interesting to truly immerse ourselves in the culture and see across the board the similarities and differences with regards to the American culture we are all used to.

     One thing that I did not expect when coming to Zambia though was the drastic demographic differences we have seen between the wealthy and poor. Today we spent some time at the internet café and then walked over to Mandahill, the local mall in Lusaka and I was honestly shocked when I saw how nice it was. Maybe it is totally arrogant and western of me to think this way, but coming into Africa I knew I would be exposed to extreme poverty, having the perception that would be the only thing I saw for the next two months. Clearly, after today that is not the case. As we walked around and saw all the expensive stores and restaurants, surrounded by the same materialistic world we live in every day in America, my heart broke even more for the kids living in Chongwe. How is it possible that just a few miles down the road there are kids running around the dirt roads, living off of one meal a day, without mothers and fathers, doing everything they can to not only take care of themselves, but also their brothers and sisters while these people enjoy the luxuries we so often take for granted every day? How is this fair? Why do these kids have so little while the people that surround me in this mall have so much? As I continued to wrestle with these thoughts, the Lord reminded me of these sweet words that have truly taken on a new meaning and truth in my heart.

 "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich."

2 Corinthians 8:9

“And now, Let the weak say I am strong. Let the poor say I am rich. Because of what the Lord has done for us.”

These kids may not have the materialistic luxuries and lifestyles we saw these other Zambian families at the mall enjoying. They may have never even seen a place like that before. But I do know this: these kids are rich in God’s love and mercy and are all the more blessed because of it.