Only One More Month...

We jumped right back into the swing of things of class, clinic, and Haven time after our trip to Northern Zambia. I don’t feel there is a whole lot of interesting things that have happened so this will be much shorter than my normal blog posts.

On Friday October 23, our language teacher’s wife and daughter came for a cooking class! She brought three live chickens that our students killed, plucked, and cooked for dinner. We also drank the staple drink called cibwantu. They also call it sweet beer, but there was nothing alcoholic about it. If left for very long, though, we are told it will ferment. It is maize that is soaked in water and then filtered over and over to get the dirt particles out. This is water/maize particle mixture is heated over a fire and then roots that have also been soaking in water are added to it. So in our cup was this chunky maize particle stuff and whitish liquid. The Zambians love it, but it is obviously an acquired taste because I did not. It sort of reminded me of watery down milk with cornbread in it (but I actually like cornbread in my milk...so it’s different)

This past Saturday (October 24) was Zambian Independence Day. Ms. Bingham woke me up around 6:45 because one of the midwives from the clinic had called to let us know there was a woman in labor. She dropped five of the students who were awake and me off at the clinic. This was very exciting and very different from the American birth I had seen in nursing school. The biggest difference was that she had absolutely nothing for pain...not even Tylenol and she did not make a sound! These women are stronger than I can even imagine being! The baby was a healthy boy weighing almost seven pounds. As soon as the mom was finished delivering she got up from the delivery table and two women came in and helped her shower. She got in bed while one of the women helped clean the delivery room. The midwife said on average the moms stay at the clinic for six hours before walking home. The men rarely if ever come for the delivery.

We leave tomorrow after lunch for a weekend trip to Livingstone and Botswana. I will be riding elephants on Friday and we will go on safari in Botswana on Saturday. We will come back on Sunday for our last two weeks here at Namwianga. It is so hard for me to believe, but exactly a month from today we will land in Memphis! I can’t believe how quickly time is passing! As always, thank you for the prayers!

Happy Birthday, Daddy!!!!

Let me first start by saying happy birthday to the greatest man I have ever known. My dad is 55 today and I am sad I missed that! I got to talk to him and my grandpa for a minute this evening (my time). They are in the deer woods so I will get to talk to him more tomorrow! We just got back from our trip to Northern Zambia and what a great blessing and encouragement it was, but it started out a bit on the rough side...

October 7: Day 1: We left around seven in the morning intending to drive to Fringilla (a functioning farm that also serves as a very nice hotel, but I’ll get back to that in a minute) on the big yellow bus whose name is Gospel Chariot. This should have taken around six hours to get there so we were planning to stop at a Bible School outside of Lusaka and at a grocery store inside Lusaka for snacks for the trip. As you probably guessed, things did not go as planned. The Gregersons (some of the missionaries here at Namwianga) were driving separately from the bus so that we could have more room for luggage and other necessities...one of these being sleeping bags which we forgot to load. Fortunately, they realized this only an hour and a half into our journey. The yellow school bus also had a flat on the side of the road about two hours into the trip. Our driver and our cook and some of our guys changed the flat which took about an hour. Now, I also must mention that the rubber part around the bottom of the gear shift in this bus has a hole so some exhaust leaks into the bus while we are driving. I have learned through experience that this unfortunately makes me pretty sick so I was feeling a little queasy (this is really frustrating to me). We stopped in another town in order to repair the flat tire for a spare (this becomes very important in a little bit). We got off the bus and ate lunch. By this time the Gregersons had caught up with us. We finally arrived at Fringilla around 5:30. They had a great buffet, so I heard. I didn’t eat any of it. I went on to bed so grateful for fresh air and solid ground!

October 8: Day 2: We awoke to another flat on the bus...a different tire this time. Fortunately it was in the parking lot at the hotel and so we still left around 8. Ross took great care of me and my continued nausea and insisted I ride in the Land Cruiser with the Gregersons who were gracious enough to let me. I took some medicine and so the whole day is a bit of a blur. I do remember stopping in this one town to repair the tire. We stayed there about an hour I’m told. I was awake for the last two hours of the trip and we were following the bus. Apparently a big yellow school bus full of white people is a strange sight here because everyone we passed would stop whatever they were doing (women with huge loads on their heads, people on bicycles, kids would run out to the road) and do a double take. I wish I had a video of it. It became so predictable that it also became very funny to the three of us. It may have also been some delirium from such a long car ride because we arrived at Mumena at 7:30 that night.

October 9: Day 3: We had classes with one of the missionaries there, which were phenomenal! We toured the mission there before lunch. They are a fairly new church planting team (2005), but the missionary who taught our classes and his wife have a long history of mission work in Africa between them. That night, we went out to one of the churches they have planted and sang around the fire with the congregation there. It was uplifting.

October 10: Day 4: Today we went to a Gospel Meeting at a Congolese Refugee Camp. These people have been there for over 40 years so many of them have never seen their homeland. I am not sure why I was surprised by this but there were brick buildings and things were spacious. We sang songs (our group probably sang nine...my favorite one we sang was Father Abraham...seeing the old men laughing and moving their arms around was great!) and had prayers and different speakers. We broke for lunch near the end. We ate beans, greens, rice (which we found out later they usually only eat once a year at Christmas time), and goat meat (which several of the men had done peace work the day before to have money for the goat). That was a very humbling meal full of love from people who don’t know us but knew the common love of a crucified Savior! We went back to the Mumena mission and after dinner had trick-or-treat a little early for the missionary kids. Our students stayed in dorms there and so the kids went door to door. We didn’t think they would dress up so we were shocked as we went to their dorms! One of the guys had covered himself in charcoal and dressed up as a caveman, one of the girls was an African woman who had an African baby (another one of our students) on her back, two students were Joseph and Mary (they had a sign on their window that said no vacancy and we sang Silent Night outside of their room), and there were many more equally as creative! It was wonderful! Afterwards, we sang songs around the campfire with the missionaries! It was a great night!

Day 5: October 11: This morning we divided up and went to various congregations around the Mumena area. I helped teach Sunday school where I went. After church several of the girls came to the missionary house I was staying in and we cooked brownies and made these caramel chunk muffins with her. She has three small children (four, two, and six months). We sang around the campfire and then the missionaries shared their stories of how they ended up where they are. It was most meaningful for me to hear Saundra Davis talk. She began her life as a missionary as a single woman in Kenya. She met and married Brian while on the mission field and they now have two children. She has been through all of those phases of life on the mission field and spoke of the pros and cons to each phase. It was very encouraging to me because (as cheesy as this sounds) all of my life I have wanted to be a wife and a mom, but I am seeing that none of what I am doing right now would be possible if that were so. To hear it out of her mouth that she longed for a family too, but looking back saw that her singleness had its place because at that point her whole life could be about her ministry meant so much to me.

Day 6: October 12: After some very sad good-byes (even though we had only known them three days we felt so very close...they were exceptionally great people) we took a rented bus (our Gospel Chariot was DEAD) to Chimfunshi (the chimpanzee orphanage). We listened to a lecture about the place and the chimps and just hung out for the rest of the afternoon. Chimfunshi has a website if you are interested in more information. It is www.chimfunshi.org.za/

Day 7: October 13: Today we actually got to see the chimpanzees. The first place we went to was Shelia Siddle’s house. We saw Billy the Hippo who is 17 years old. I had seen her on TV on some special about World’s Largest House Pets so that was neat. Billy was found as a less than one week old baby and was brought to the Siddles at Chimfunshi. They began feeding her out of bottles and she lived in their house, but she grew up. She ended up breaking their sofa one time when she sat on it. She now lives outside but still gets two bottles of warm milk every morning! She stays on the property during the day and then goes to the Kafue river (which is adjacent to the property) at night. She stayed in her garden pool the whole time we were there. There was a little vervet (or something like that) monkey there named Jocko. He would run up to us and sit on their shoulders but he also liked to show his teeth so I was a little scared of him. It was actually surprising to me how nervous he made me since I have always wanted a pet monkey haha, but I did finally get some good pictures of me holding him. He also got into one of the girls purses, found a tampon, opened it, and started playing with it. It was quite hilarious and a little disruptive to the lecture she was giving us about the chimpanzees! We saw a group of bachelor chimps that live in an enclosure near her house. We watched a movie about one of the bachelor chimps later that night. His name is Toto. He was rescued from a circus in Chile where he was taught to smoke cigarettes and drink beer as part of his act. He was kept in a travel size pen all day every day except for five minutes before the show when he was allowed to sit on top of the trailer, but even then he was attached to a chain which was attached to a metal collar around his neck. We also saw four other enclosures full of chimps, each with their own story. It was feeding time when we went to seem them which was pretty entertaining. They each got a bag of chips, some nsima (I found out I’ve been spelling shima wrong haha) packed with protein, and some fruit and cabbage. The produce is donated by the Shop Rite (it donates its bruised and almost spoiled fruit because the chimps don’t care) and is also bought from the local farmers. The females and babies were fed in one part and the males in another. It was a very neat and unique experience but set against the backdrop of what is going on with the human population in Africa (malnutrition and starving children, HIV/AIDS epidemic, dehydration killing people, etc) it did stir up some questions (could this money be put to better use for example).

Day 8: October 14: After breakfast we drove back to Fringilla. Through a long chain of events the little bus (named Zacchaeus) was driven up to Chimfunshi from Namwianga so we could go back. It was a much shorter trip not being sick from the awful smell and all! At Fringilla we looked at their farm animals: goats, pigs, ducks, geese, turkeys, and cows. We ate dinner and jumped on their in-ground trampolines!!!!

Day 9: October 15: We left Fringilla this morning and set out for Lusaka to go to Zambikes and Manda Hill to shop. We ended up staying so long at Zambikes and eating lunch there that we didn’t go to Lusaka, but instead straight back to Namwianga for dinner. Zambikes was a very cool example of a successful development project! One of the American founders was there and he showed us around. He’s our age so that was something we could relate to easily. He saw the need for a good quality bike here in Zambia and thus (through a much lengthier process than I am giving justice) came up with Zambikes. Their frames are guaranteed for life, which is nice. Two of their newer projects are Zambulances (carts with a mattress on them and a canopy over them that can be attached to the Zambike and used to cart sick people to clinics or hospitals) and a bamboo bicycle. I didn’t hear much about those, but I know they are new. They have a website, if you are interested in more information. It’s www.zambikes.org. I got a really neat experience while we were there when I got to help make the nsima we were ate for lunch!!!! When we left there we drove back to Namwianga. This drive seemed even shorter because four of us girls played cards most of the way back.

October 16: We jumped right back into the swing of things here with classes and clinic today! This morning Ms. Bingham and I were at the orphanage when this mom came up. She gave birth to triplets last year and could only keep one at home with her so she had to leave the other two at the orphanage. One of the babies passed away soon after last year’s group left, but one is still here. It was the mom’s first time to see her baby since giving birth. This was such a precious and memorable moment to be a part of. October 16 is also my cousin’s birthday...happy birthday, Amy! And it is day that holds a tender place in my heart because I lost a friend five years ago today.

October 17: Today we had a pretty relaxed day. I spent most of it writing about this past week and researching some stuff. We also have a 20 month old baby right now (one of the newer ones) who is very underweight. He is staying with Meg right now and he came over to our house for a little while. I got to hold him and love on him for a couple of hours and it was bittersweet. I don’t understand why his life is starting out this way, but I spent a lot of time thinking about it and all I came up with is that I serve a Sovereign God in whom I place my trust and it is not for me to understand the “why” right now. Please keep him in your prayers! He is so precious! Tonight at dinner we celebrated with Ms. Bingham. During this year's Lectureship at Harding she was awarded the distinguished service award for all of her time spent in Africa. She was obviously unable to be there for it so we had a small recognition time for her. It is truly an honor and a blessing to work alongside her and get to soak in all of her experience. She is unbelievable!

Well, that’s it for now. Here are our two upcoming events: Nita and Hannah and Anna get here on October 24 (yay!!! we’re so glad to have Nita back) and then we go on safari in Botswana and adventure day at Livingstone on October 29-November 1. As our time here is nearing an end, the reality that awaits me when I get home is becoming more and more stressful for me. I would like to ask that you remember me in your prayers because I have no idea what it is God wants me to do next. I have found a couple of ideas, but have no clear direction. I am having a bit of a problem finding my passion that really drives me to want to do something. I just know I want to live in a way that makes a difference, I just don’t know how God wants that to happen. Thank you so much for following along my journey and for keeping me in your prayers. It means so much more than you will ever know!!!!

It’s all because of Him!

"Now You Are Tongas"

Well, it has been quite some time and for that I am sorry! We are having some Internet difficulties and so that is partly to blame but we have been so busy lately! I was flipping through my journal today and realized I have written 34 pages since my last blog update! Since it covers so much time, I will try to hit the highlights over the past two and a half weeks. The title for this post is courtesy of our African language professor. He gets so tickled at our accents and how we say certain Tonga words, but every now and then, after we've repeated one enough, he will grin and say "Now you are Tongas". :)

September 21: We left at 6:00 this morning and didn’t get back until 7:30. We went to Livingstone to see Victoria Falls! The roads were AWFUL!!! They are under construction, but to make matters worse, there was one section where we were driving on these awful roads while the beautiful smooth pavement was right next to us! Once inside the gate, a small group of us hiked down to the “boiling pot” of the falls. It is so named this because when you look out it looks like it is a boiling pot. We stuck our feet in and the water felt wonderful! We hiked back up and over to see the falls which were BEAUTIFUL even in dry season! However, I can only imagine how stunning they are during rainy season!!! We ate brick oven pizza and chocolate milkshakes at a little restaurant called Funky Munky!

September 22-24 were relatively “normal” days (if there is such a thing here in Africa) :) filled with classes and clinic

September 25: Besides being my Grandma Marcille’s birthday, it also rained for the first time! It was just a few sprinkles at first, but then it rained pretty heavy (for September in Africa at least!). Dinner was quite chilly (I don’t know if I’ve told this part or not, but we eat al of our meals and have all of our classes outside on the veranda). So this cooler weather was very welcomed by all of us!

September 26: The chief came and spoke to us this morning. There were these pesky birds yelling at each other right behind us and he was very soft spoken so it was a bit difficult to fully understand everything, but it was still interesting. We learned about his chiefdom and its culture including funeral rites (chiefs are buried sitting up on a throne), traditional ceremonies (including rain ceremonies, but as a result of Westernization most of these have died), and different types of love/marriage (arranged by the parents, arranged by the couple, and eloping). That night, our neighbor’s house caught on fire (he had a thatched roof). It was a horrifying sight! And very frustrating because we were told when some of our students went to help, there was nothing we could do except watch it die out. The flames were HUGE! Nobody was hurt and he was able to get all of his belongings out. He is now living with his uncle.

September 27: We went by and checked on the house on Sunday after church and it is surprisingly intact because the walls were mud bricks...they don’t frame their houses with wood. After church, I watched Hotel Rwanda (it was the first time I’d seen it). Wow! It’s very hard to fathom that was only 15 years ago and that the rest of the world just stood by and did absolutely nothing to help.

September 28: A normal day of class in the morning and clinic in the afternoon.

September 29: Today we traveled to Choma to a special school there called St. Mulumba. This school is 24 years old, has grades 1-7, and has 210 students (106 are deaf, 39 are blind, and 65 and mentally handicapped). It is also a boarding school. They have a 99-100% pass rate on their Grade 7 exams and these students take the same tests everyone else does! In addition to academic training, they receive vocational training in gardening, basket weaving, and leather making for example. Oh what a splendid day and what joy we found in these students!!!

September 30: Ms. Bingham and I took our first group of students to a nearby hospital today at Zimba. The students were busy observing in different areas and so the two of us spent our afternoon rounding in the wards. The male ward had probably 20 beds in one long hallway (two rows of ten almost all full). The female ward was very similar. The pediatric ward had probably 10 beds but was only about half way full. There was a maternity ward that had one or two patients in it. For all of my nursing friends...there was ONE nurse for two wards!!!! She was very busy and because of this the families do all of the bedside care (feeding, bathing, toileting, etc). There was this one little girl who had been there for over a month after breaking her femur! She was about 13 I would say. Ms. Bingham took her some Crayons and paper the next day and she drew such beautiful pictures. It was a very stark contrast to the XBoxes that are found in each room at ACH...

October 1: It’s Thursday so I went on Outreach again today!!! Ross and four students also came along. This is always an exciting day because the students give their first shots!

October 2: This was my second trip to Zimba (Ms. Bingham’s third...she took a group on October 1 while I was with a group on Outreach). It was neat to see what a difference some crayons and paper made to the children’s ward! :) I realize that HIPPA is not really as predominant here as it is back home, but I still try to provide privacy for these patients and not reveal too many of their stories because they are people, but there was a new man today in the men’s ward who had horrible gangrene of his foot. It was the worse open sore I have ever seen. The smell was awful and probably the only way to “fix” this would be to amputate his foot. I could not help but think of when Jesus healed people. As we were walking around talking to them he asked if there was anything we could do to help his foot. It’s probably hard without the mental image that is forever burned in my mind, but can you imagine what it must have been like to be one of Jesus’ disciples and witness such a miracle?!?!

October 3: Today we took a field trip out to Sinazongwe (from where we are we made a backwards kinda sideways C...if that makes sense). We had been invited to a dilwe (or funeral...it was a memorial service...his body was not there) of a very respected man in the village there. Every July 29 through August 3 there is a festival called Lwiindi. (A little history: There were villages in this valley along the Zambezi River. They decided to build a dam for hydroelectric power. When they built the dam it formed Lake Kariba, which is apparently one of the biggest man-made lakes in the world. Also when the lake formed the shrines for these people’s ancestors were covered. Lwiindi is a festival held in honor of these shrines and as a prayer for rain.) This man happened to die right before Lwiindi and so this event was a bit of a combination of Lwiindi and his dilwe. It was very interesting. There were prayers for rain, songs of mourning, and then some songs of public rebuke about people in the village. I have very mixed emotions about this experience. While I do greatly appreciate the cultural experience of being with the people in what one of our African professors described as “untainted (meaning by Westerners) Tonga culture” I hope what our presence there didn’t reflect negatively the name of Christ. We went to the lake for lunch and there I had an “I’m really in Africa” moment...in the trees across from where we were having our picnic were dozens of monkeys! :)

October 4-today have been “normal” days of church and class. We found out today that one of the babies at the Havens went back to be with her family in the village. She’s about three. It’s going to be an adjustment for everyone and is a very bittersweet experience. Keep her in your prayers :)

We leave tomorrow for our nine day trip to Northern Zambia. We leave early tomorrow morning (6:30) on the yellow school bus and drive about seven hours to a place called Fringilla. We will spend the night there and leave about the same time on Thursday morning to travel all day to our final destination of Mumena. We will spend Friday, Saturday, and Sunday with a missionary team there learning from them and worshipping with village churches. On Monday we leave Mumena for Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage Trust at Chingola. This is a refuge where chimpanzee orphans are rescued and cared for! If you Google it, they have a decent website of information :) We stay there until Wednesday when we travel back to Fringilla for the night. Thursday we travel into Lusaka for some shopping. We will stay until around lunch and then be back to Namwianga in time for dinner. We are all really looking forward to this trip and your prayers for our safety will be greatly appreciated as we travel! I would also like to make a special prayer request: I have really been having problems with being carsick on our longer bus rides and am a little nervous about this long trip. I’d appreciate your prayers for my health as we travel especially! Thanks!

As always, thank you so much for the continued prayers! It's Because of Him!

It's My Birthday (Well technically it was about twenty minutes ago...)

***This was written on September 17, but I didn’t have internet access last night so it’s technically now 20 minutes past my birthday, but I’m post as is. So read this as if you were reading it on Thursday September 17***

First things first, I’m spending my 24th birthday in AFRICA!!!! While I am missing my family on this first birthday away from home, I cannot help but be excited that I am in Africa! And it has been a wonderful day!!!! (More about that later)

Now that that is out of the way, I sat down to write in my journal a couple days ago and realized it had been since September 7 that I had written anything! So I spent that morning updating because I don’t want to forget how I’m feeling about all that is happening.

Monday September 7 was our first morning of classes. This is our typical schedule for the day: We started with chitonga (the language here) lessons at 6:30. This is followed by our Zambian class of the day (this varies Monday through Thursday and includes African history, African literature, African anthropology, and one other that is escaping me right now). We eat breakfast around eight and have chapel at nine. On Monday Wednesday Friday we come back here for class at 10 (health care missions) and 11 (Gospel of John). We eat lunch at noon and then have class again at 1 (culture of poverty). The students then go to either the havens (orphanage) or the clinic (if they’re on the schedule) or can use that time to study and do homework. On Tuesdays and Thursdays after chapel they have free time to go to the havens, clinic, or homework until dinner. Dinner is always at 5:30 and then on Tuesdays and Thursdays we have class right after. Most nights we are in bed early because our days start at 6:30. (Wow that was a lot of information and if you stuck with that and understood it...kuddos to you!)

I have been spending my afternoons in the clinic on MWF but am really looking forward to changing that next week. I’m going to start spending my time in the orphanages on those afternoons. Tuesdays are a full clinic day for me. Ms. Bingham is a nurse practitioner and she spends her time seeing the patients then I help if they need a wound cleaned or an IV started (which if I’m honest here, I’ve been unsuccessful at and that is REALLY frustrating me!) or whatever it is I need to do (for example, last week I irrigated a man’s ears). The students are always eager to help and learn so this has been interesting (and challenging) transitioning from the student to the teacher because I am still so new at nursing as well! On Thursday in addition to the clinic, some of the nurses go on outreach to surrounding villages for well child weights and immunizations. (Let me add in here, that we were scheduled to leave at 9 and didn’t actually leave until around noon...again speaking to the importance being placed on relationship and not on time) Here in Africa, each child is given a pamphlet shaped card which plots their weights based on age for each month (this growth chart is similar to the one in the US but has been adjusted for African size kiddos). This card goes with them until their fifth birthday. The family keeps it and brings it to doctor’s appointments or to outreaches like this one. So we first weigh the babies and plot that then we check to see what their immunization status is (which is also on the card). If they need any updates or boosters for the immunizations, we give those as well. So Thursday September 10 was my first experience with this. At our first location there were around 60 children. Not all of these needed immunizations, but most of them did. Two of the students also came with me. This was a really neat experience as they gave their first shots ever that day! On this day after the first location we went to, we were served shima (which is kinda doughy and one of their main food dishes...they eat it literally at every meal), chicken in some tomato juice, and cabbage. The shima (pronounced she-ma) you kinda roll into a ball, press your finger into it and make an indentation and then use that as a scoop to dip up the liquid. It was our first experience with traditional African food and I must say I LOVED IT!!! After lunch, we went to our next stop which is another orphanage in this area. There were only around 20 babies at this one (and less than half needed shots).

I’ll back up now to Wednesday September 9. One of the missionaries here (Mr. Gregorson) needed to take one of our maintenance men (Andrew) into Choma (a town approximately 45 minutes away. Nita and I decided to join. We stopped at the soda shop (Here you have to rent the glass bottles and you bring them back and get new ones. They clean those and then re-use them). We bought several cases of them (and we had rent some of the bottles which cost as much to rent as to re-fill). We also went to the grocery store where we met a family from Wynne, Arkansas here doing some work about two and a half hours from where we are...what a small world! I was able to exchange money at the hardware store because it was one of Mr. Gregorson’s friends. It was neat to see the inside of the hardware store. You just walk in the front lobby (that’s the easiest thing I can think of to compare it to) and tell them what you need and they go get it. After church that night (which was held in the waiting room of the clinic...it’s outside and covered...all of the hallways and waiting areas are actually because they don’t have air conditioning), we went to this remote area of the mission (in our cars) and looked at the stars. We saw part of the southern cross and then a really bright star which we presumed to be Venus. It is so very humbling to think that God created each one of these stars and yet still knows and cares about the desires of my heart!

The weekend here was different than a typical weekend in the states. (Sara, we can’t really count ours as typical weekends since those were the only two days/nights we worked!) Friday night we went to Meg’s and had singing and cookies. The electricity had gone out and so it was by candlelight. A few of the babies from the orphanage were up there and one of the girls sat in my lap and we looked at the pictures of an Eric Carle book. Saturday was filled with classes (this is not the norm, but rather we were making up days for next week when we are going to Victoria Falls!!!). I got to call home which was so nice to talk to mom and dad!

Sunday morning right after breakfast we noticed a lot of Zambians gathering in our side yard. We were told that they were the people from early service who had gathered for a baptism (there is a trough next to our house which collects water and this is used as the baptistry). This was such a beautiful start to our week with the addition of a sister in Christ! We went to church and then the wedding was scheduled to start at noon. (As I type this story including the times, I don’t want to portray that I am annoyed at the times. It is quite the opposite actually as I am realizing I need to become more relational and less time-restrained, but I think there is probably a happy medium somewhere between our two cultures.) We went over to the auditorium around 1 and the wedding started around 2. The ceremony was fairly westernized (he was from town and she from the mission) but there were parts that were not. One of the biggest parts of their culture that stood out was that the bride and groom remain solemn-faced as a symbol of their sadness for leaving their families. The rest of the family and guests though have quite a party! The reception started immediately after the wedding in Kalomo. We stayed until around 6:00. It was really neat to get to be a part of their special day! It was a great time!

Monday and Tuesday have been two fairly typical days of class (except that I got a bit of the stomach virus that was being passed around...I’ve made a full recovery since then!) Tuesday we also celebrated three of the students birthdays (they all share the same birthday of the same year...they all turned 20).

Wednesday we had an herbalist come and speak to us. We went on a tour around the mission and he talked about the different uses of different plants and roots here. It was really educational and really interesting. There are these fruit bats that sleep in this tree (it’s dry season so there are no leaves on this tree so we can see them really well) and tonight at dusk I went out there and as it turned dark the bats all took off flying over my head. It was so neat to see them wake up and start moving and then fly away. Their wing spans make them as big as birds. It really reminded me of Stellaluna for those of you familiar with that children’s book. After church, we went to the Gregorsons and they served Ms. Bingham and me some chocolate covered strawberries from their garden...what a treat! :)

Today I got to go on outreach again! We took three students this time in addition to Ross, myself, and some of the staff from the clinic. We left for the clinic around 8:50 so we’d be there by 9:00 (our tentative departure time). No surprise to us, they weren’t quite ready to leave so we began organizing some of the supplies that are in the clinic (those of you who know me well know that I LOVED this!). We left around 11 from the clinic and headed to Kalomo (the town nearby) to fill up on gas and grab some cold water. We (the students, Ross, Nita, and I) took the HIZ vehicle and the clinic workers took their car because there were so many people that went with us in addition to our supplies. We drove 45 minutes out into the bush! This is the furthest out we have been and it was so wonderful to see God’s creation and made it that much more real that we are in Africa. So at our first stop we saw quite a few children for their immunizations and at the second stop we saw even more (275 children came today...not all of them received immunizations but they were all weighed and they all stayed around the entire time we were there). It was a very busy and productive day and I really don’t think words can do it justice! And what a great way to spend my birthday serving God’s wonderful people! We arrived back to the mission around 7 (that’s a full 8 hour day mind you!) we ate some leftovers (dinner is at 5:30) and then just hung around for a bit because it was birthday cake time at 7:30!!!! The OCU girls and Meg came over as well! They all sang happy birthday to me (Ms. Bingham brought candles so I got to blow them out) and had a couple of cards and one of the girls had made presents (leather bracelets that say HIZ ’09 on them...it’s really cool!). Ross had such kind words to say about me after we had cake. And then we all sang for about thirty minutes. Two of the Zambians had come for fellowship (one of whom is the choral director) and they taught us some chitonga (the language here) songs. I mean, what a GREAT way to spend my birthday...serving God’s people, fellowshipping with such amazing Christian brothers and sisters, and then singing songs of praise to an awesome God! Life is good!

Tomorrow I am going with two of the students to Zimba (an eye clinic which has some American doctors at it right now for a short-term trip) to take two of the babies from the orphanage. I’ll let you know more about that in my next update.

As always, thanks for the prayers. It is because of Him that all this is possible!

Mrs. Carol, the weather is the same :) If there are there any specific questions you or your students have I'd love for you to e-mail them to me and I can check into them!!!

We Made It!!!!

Let me first start by saying I am so sorry I am just now able to post this! I know I originally said it would probably be once or twice a week and that some of you were worried about us, but do not fear....we are here!!!! This is going to be long. The flights were so very long. We flew from Memphis to Boston and then overnighted from Boston to Amsterdam. I did this all with no sleep. On the flight to Amsterdam I sat next to a guy that was about my age and he was headed to Edinborough for a semester abroad (brought back fond memories of my semester in Italy). Anyway in Amsterdam we got on a plane to Nairobi, Kenya. I slept for about three hours on that eight hour ride. Finally, we flew to Lusaka, Zambia. We arrived at 11:15pm Zambia time (seven hours ahead of Arkansas) on September 3 after leaving Memphis at 2:15pm on September 2. What a trip! We then took a school bus on September 4 for 7 hours to Namwianga!

We had a welcome reception a couple of nights ago (my days are all running together) with the people here at the Mission. They are such a loving and gentle people. We also toured the mission (it's 7000 acres!) including all three Havens (orphanages), the clinic, and saw the schools from afar. The third Haven is not quite ready for babies yet but hopefully will be in a month.

On Saturday we went to market right after breakfast and I bought three chitange materials. Chitanges (pronounced just like it is spelled but with a long e sound at the end so ch-tang-ees) are huge pieces of fabric that the women wear here as skirts. They are very informal and they often wrap them around their nicer clothes so they can take them off and sit on the them without getting themselves dirty) There is a lady (Ms. Mono) that lives here whose son goes to college and she uses the money she makes from sewing this material into chitanges with strings to tie or even into purses or bags or dresses or skirts or whatever really to put her son through college. So I think I might wear them until I am about to come home and then change them right before leaving. Market was fun. We did some bargaining. The currency here is called kwacha and is also pronounced as spelled. The exchange rate is 1 US dollar for 4540 kwacha. So I spent 320,000 kwacha or roughly 8 dollars. Sad isn't it? But not as bad as Zimbabwe who has a 10 trillion dollar bill! Unbelievable what their president has done to their economy.

That afternoon we went to a funeral of one of the boys here at the mission. He was in a car accident. The entire community came out and it's actually this boy's aunt who is a nurse at the clinic. But his entire family is well loved and highly regarded here in Namwianga. We just went to the burial where we actually saw them lower the casket into the ground, make the concrete to make the crypt and then cover it with dirt. Then people came up in groups (his mom, his dad, one of the boys that survived, the church choir, the elders and deacons of the church, his classmates, etc) and placed flowers into the mound of dirt. They do something very interesting here also. They put his plate and cup on the mound of dirt and then smack it with one of the trowels to break it. We are not sure but are assuming as a sign that he is no longer coming home. We are going to ask our language teacher Monday morning. The women and men separate. The women all sat down and the men stood up. Together we formed a giant circle around the grave. Africans do their grieving out loud. Lots of them wail and fall out. But I think that's healthier. It doesn't build up. Though they did almost all of this at the church at the funeral so we didn't witness it. It was very sad and my heart aches for this family.

We went out into the bush for church this morning. Not far out in the bush, but out in it none the less. I imagined the building to be like the church at Poteau in Haiti. We drove down (maybe I should specify here that we are all in three SUVs...the kind that has seats along the side windows in the back so we can fit 12 students and three faculty in one vehicle comfortably) sandy dirt roads. As we have been driving, I've wondered how they give directions. Anyway, we got to the church which is made of concrete bricks with a tin roof. There were windows on each side which provided a wonderful breeze. The church was called Tumango church of Christ. The name is pronounced two-mango and is so named because of the numerous mango trees. Services in this church were fairly westernized. A few songs, a prayer, a couple more songs, a sermon, a song, communion, a song and a prayer. After the closing prayer, a group of four teenagers stood up and sang a couple of songs and then they invited our group to do the same. This is pretty typical and we expected it. We sang two songs. During We Shall Assemble, I got a little choked up. Singing in churches where they speak another language, whether I am in Haiti or here, always gives me chills. I always feel like it is the closest thing to singing with the angels in heaven when we will all get there. I mean how cool that it is because of Christ that we are in this place together despite our language and cultural differences we share the most important thing of all! After the two songs we sang, we returned to our seat where they did announcements of sorts. After that one of the men started a final song about perseverance in spreading the Good News. The women walked out first and as we left the church building they began forming a circle in the outside courtyard. This is a little confusing to write and try to explain, so sorry! :) But as I walked out the door of the church I turned to the left and immediately began shaking the hands of the women who had gone out before me until I got to the end of the line and then I took my spot. This continued until all the members of the church were in the circle. The song kept repeating until we ended as well. It was really neat to feel the sense of community and love these people have.

We went to the Johnson auditorium tonight (the auditorium of the students here at the mission...similar to the Benson at Harding) for worship. It too was very westernized, but the sermon was wonderful and the people so loving. We sang Because He Lives tonight and it brought tears to my eyes during the chorus (because He lives I can face tomorrow, because He lives all fear is gone. Because I know He holds the future and life is worth the living just because He lives)... (I don't know why I'm so emotional haha) because it was if God was speaking right to me to not worry about back home and that He is in control through all the beautiful voices of His children.

Classes start tomorrow...at 6:30 in the morning! We start with language lessons and then another class (I don't really remember what it is) but it's with a Zambian teacher as well. They come and teach us before they teach their classes on the mission (I can't remember if they are high school or college professors but we have heard so many wonderful things about them). We then eat breakfast. And then chapel and two more classes (this time taught by Ross and Ms. Bingham). Then lunch then the students go to either the Havens (the orphanages) or the clinic. I think I'll be spending my time this week at the clinic. We are going to see how that goes. Then dinner and a couple of evening classes. The schedule is different on Tuesday (less class).

I'll leave you with a quote I heard from an African at the bank while exchanging money today. We were talking to him and he asked us how long we were going to be here...1 year or 2? And we told him only until November. He looked at us and said three months? Just three months? Oh, you'll be back...Africa is contagious :)

I hope to eventually figure out how to post pictures on my Mac. I don't know how to shrink them down and must do that in order to keep with the guidelines here.

Please keep us all in your prayers! Thank you for keeping up with me...it truly is an honor!

For those of you reading, you may wonder what this bottom section is about. A dear friend of mine teaches seventh grade science and weather is part of that so the bottom of the blog is the weather update :)

Mrs. Carol, I think I'll put the weather updates at the bottom and in a different color :) The weather has surprised me! It is the end of their winter. It is a very dry heat during the day (which I expected), but at night it is a little chilly! I haven't found a temperature gauge to know the exact numbers. They have not had rainfall since April. So everything is dusty and not in bloom. Except for the Jackaranda tree (I have no idea if that's how you spell it but it's how it is pronounced) :) It blooms towards the end of winter these beautiful purple flowers. I hope your school year is starting out well! Love you!

Am I Really Leaving for this Adventure TOMORROW?!?!

Wow! I have very mixed emotions right now. Here's where I am at...I just got my debit card in the mail, I am not packed (I started, but got kinda overwhelmed), I still have a few errands to run, and I leave TOMORROW!!! That's right folks! My sweet mom is taking off work tomorrow afternoon and then we are picking my dad up at 4 and they are driving me out to HUT where I will meet up with the rest of the group. We will spend the next several days in fellowship and orientation. The Harding bus takes us to Memphis on Tuesday where we will begin our 33 hour flight process to Zambia. I don't think reality has set in that I am actually going. This has been so theoretical for so long it just has not become reality to me. I remember very similar feelings before leaving for Italy. One of the most frequently asked questions right now is "are you nervous?". I was asked this the other day by one of my mom's close friends. When I said yes, she took it a step further and asked me what specifically I was nervous about. I think I shocked her with my answer. This may sound morbid but the thing that makes me most nervous is that something will happen to someone in my family back here and I won't be here. Now long before this ever became reality, I got my entire family's blessing to go, but it still scares me. My family means more to me than anything else and I just can't imagine it. But at the same time, I CANNOT WAIT to get over there!!! I really am so excited to see what good the Lord is going to do through us, His servants. I am truly blessed that this is an opportunity for me and am so thankful! I want you all to know on the front end how much it means to me that you're reading this and would like to ask for your prayers for our group. That this trip will be a success through Him and because of Him.

On a completely different note, I went to my grandparents house the other night for what I thought was a going away dinner, but they surprised me with a birthday party since I won't be here for mine this year (that's weird to me because it will be the first one ever...I mean I even scheduled myself to go to Italy in the spring so I wouldn't miss it...you see birthdays are holidays in my family) But how cool that I'll get to spend it in Africa! I also went and ate with my grandma before leaving. They had the most awesome cake made for me! Here it is. Pay special attention to the "S". It's supposed to be a black mamba. The same friend of my mom's that I was talking about earlier, watched a documentary on them and was sweet enough to tell my mom about them...I haven't stopped hearing about them since haha. :) I really do adore this friend of hers! Here's the cake:

All of that to say, here are a few pictures for those of you who don't know this supportive, loving, selfless, precious family that I was so blessed to be born into!!!

Natalie, Dad, Me, and Mom

Papa Sherrill, Me, Grandma Marcille

(my mom's parents)

Grandma Jimmie (dad's mom)

My mom's side of the family

Part of dad's side at my sister's graduation party

Some may not consider pets to be part of the family, but this is Abner and he'll be 13 in September and is a huge part of our family! :)

And this sweet face is Claude. He stays in trouble but those big eyes keep him nice and spoiled! :) I'll miss all of the funny Claude stories that happen while I'm gone, though I'm sure I'll get e-mails about them.

Wow, this post was long! Thank you so much for following my journey. I have so many emotions right now but am very excited. I better get some sleep so I can finish packing! :)

Because of Him,

Sara Kathryn

It's Official!!!

So it's official. In exactly 67 days from tomorrow I will be on my way to Zambia. For those of you who don't know...I am going as an adjunct professor to Harding's newest international program: Harding in Zambia or HIZ. My role is a new one so I am not sure of what I will be doing exactly. Though I will be helping Ross and Nita Cochran as well as one of my nursing professors, Janice Bingham. There are about 20 students going as well. I hope to spend most of my time in the orphanages. Many of you know that one of the reasons I am going is to see if long term mission work really is for me. I would like to ask for you to remember me in your prayers as I prepare to leave and especially while I am there. I will be there definitely until November 30. Upon my return, I will decide (let me rephrase that...) I plan on doing a lot of listening to see what God has in store for me next. It's a bit surreal but I have a strange sense of peace about whatever is next. For those of you know me well, you know I am a big planner. God clearly laughs at my plans because never in my wildest dreams would I imagine God would want to use me in Africa.

Sara Kathryn
Micah 6:8