It has been a long time coming

Well, it has been a long time since I have had power and enough time to sit down and write. One of our cooks is out with the chicken pox, so I have been doing a lot in the kitchen the past few days.

Back to the weekend though. Saturday was a day of rest and I got to hang out with the children some and do my own thing for a while. Sunday I went to church with the mommas and children. That sure was an adventure. I had seen the church on Saturday when I went on a walk down the road, but I failed to look at the inside. Oops, should have done that. So I get to the church on Sunday and realize that the pews are no more than rocks. Granted, they are rocks cut in the shape of benches. No backs. No glass in the windows. No doors. No lights. No AC. Just a pulpit and some rock pews. A good number of people showed up, maybe 75 including our kids and mommas. There were a lot of kids running around during the service. This church also does not have a pastor. The speakers were this elderly man and one of our mommas. Somehow I got volounteered to pray at the end. That was awkward.

Another big thing happening at our village is the construction of our new school building. This is a slow process mainly due to a lack of being able to obtain concrete. This is not because there is not enough concrete is Africa, but due to the World Cup 2010. As many of you probably do not know, as neither did I, the World Cup is being played in South Africa in 2010. There are massive construction projects going on in South Africa to prepare for this event. The stadium must be built, hotels are popping up all over the place, new roads, new restaurants, the whole works. So, they get priority on concrete, and the rest of everyone else gets hardly any. So that is making our building projects go kind of slowly. But on a good note, the walls on the school started going up today! It is wonderful to see. We had a slab of concrete for a while, and now there are the start of walls! Hallelujah.

On Monday we celebrated Africa Freedom Day (I am not sure what this is exactly) and there was no school. I helped out in the kitchen and the laundry room, and I sure felt like I was back at Rockbridge on work crew! It was a good day.

There sure is a lot going on here in my village and around us. It is the time of harvest for the maize. The teacher I work for spent her long weekend harvesting corn, I felt bad that she could not get a break from work. She also told me today about how she washes her own clothes by hand. I am so grateful to have machines to do that for me! I am still learning a lot about the culture here and it is making so grateful to live in America.

Some of you might have seen news about Zimbabwe recently. Since March, there have been huge political battles and oppression. The ruling party for the last many years got overthrown and ever since the parties that are involved in the run off in June have been oppressing their opponent's supporters. Many people have fled to South Africa, but there have also been riots in Johannesburg because of the South Africans not wanting the Zimbabwens in their country. Oh man. I am 38 miles from the border and in no danger from this but it is so sad to hear about it happening.

I am still loving opening my letters and occasionally getting to talk to some of my friends online when I have power and internet and a break from work! I have finished sewing all of the serviettes and am waiting on further instruction to start carving out pumpkins to freeze the pumpkin meat until next year! I can not wait to do that. Tomorrow we will prepare for next week's unit on body parts. Four more weeks of school until we get a four week holiday.

Well I need to get back to cleaning this place up. I love you all very much! Thanks for the prayers and support!

Waiting for Meeshack and Abednagoh

The new kids started school this week! In the three year old class we have Joseph and Chanda. Joseph is either a really old three year old or a four year old, but he is really with the program and usually knows what is going on. Chanda is a really young three year old and he does not really know what is going on and is kind of off in his own little world a lot of times.

In the four year old class we have Richard. The first two days he was fine, then, as people around here like to say, the honeymoon was over. He started acting out in class and had to have some time outs. He got talked to this morning before class by two of the teachers and two of the mommas and then today he acted really well! The three year olds were also really well behaved today.

The kindergarteners got three new kids, Mirriam, Zawady, and Shadreck! Hence the title of this blog. I do not know much about them except that they know zero English, like our new kids, and sometimes Zawady can get overwhelmed with all of the new things going on around him when he does not understand any of it.

We went to the new school building to pray over it again today and that was a nice treat. The weather was pretty chilly in the beginning of the week but yesterday and today are beautiful!

I have been really encouraged by the staff here and by the teacher I work under, Teacher Maureen, and by all my friends at home and my family, and all the letters that I have with me here. Thank you to everyone who is doing such an awesome job of encouraging me as I do get lonely here being the only teenager. I will get new roommates on June 7th I believe.

We have been without power a lot lately, and many times when the power is out so is the internet, so I have not had time to sit and write a post in a while due to those things.

We will get ready for next week this afternoon at the school. Next week our unit is on colors! This week we learned about shapes. Most of the kids can identify oval, circle, heart, square, rectangle and triangle pretty well now. I think we might have Monday off of school due to a holiday, but I am not sure yet.

I will not get to go in to town this weekend, I will be here with the kids! Hopefully we can do something fun on Saturday. Sunday I get to go to church with the kids and the mommas, but the service will not be in English so I will not really know what is going on. Oh well.

Back to work :) All my love from Zambia!

Happy Birthday Rachel Marie Jennings!

Happy 21st birthday Rachel! I hope you made many good choices ;) Linda and I ate ice cream today to celebrate from across the ocean.

A big shout-out to all my wonderful sisters and friends who wrote me so many encouraging letters to read while I was here. I am having a hard time spreading them out over three months but hopefully I can make it happen. They are so fun to open! A huge thank you to the lovely Ms. Sandy Urko who gave me so many envelopes filled with really awesome Bible verses and quotes and such. That is so great and I love them very much.

Somethings I read today:

"Every day we are called to small things with great love" Mother Teresa

Love...fears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

So sweet. New kids start school tomorrow! Oh man... Good thing Teacher Maureen knows Bemba because I sure do not!

I now have Zambian currency, Kwacha. 1 US dollar is about 3,500 kwacha, so I feel very rich. It is fun trying to convert everything to compare prices and figure out what you are really spending. Today, I bought two pairs of earrings for 12,000 kwacha! I felt like I was spending a whole lot, but really it was really cheep.

Much love from Zambia. Thanks for reading and for your support and prayer and love!

Trolleys and Tills

So I am learning new words every day! Today the words were "till" and "trolley." In Zambia, these mean "cash register" and "shopping cart." And yes, I got to go to Lusaka today to shop! It was quite an adventure.

Starting off our journey down our long dirt/rock road, we encountered many goats, pigs, and chickens. (On the way back we saw some oxen as well!) The driver sits on the right side of the car, so I felt as though I should be driving as I sat on the left side of the car! That was interesting to get used to.

We went to several different shopping centers and stores. Some were more Western and some were more Zambian. There is a store here called "Game" which is kind of like Wal-mart, but it does not sell clothes, and everything is way more expensive. We went to two grocery stores, Melisa's and Shop-rite. Shop-rite was a lot like Harris Teeter or Food Lion. I got many good fruits and yogurts and cereal and pasta so I am excited about my new foods. I also got a "flat" of eggs, which is a flat unit with 36 eggs in it. The milk and juices here come in boxes, so that is a fun adventure. The missionaries shop for usually two weeks at a time since the shopping is so far away, unlike in America where there is a grocery store on every corner.

We also went to a "boot sale" which was essentially a yard sale. We got many crayons and stickers and paint for the school at very good prices. It was nice to get out and see what was going on around this country I am now living in.

My heart breaks a little more every day as I find out more about the children and where they come from. It is so hard to look at them as orphans. Here, they have Mommas, Uncles, Aunties, Ami and Papa, and Teachers that love on them. It is hard to see them as any different, as coming from awful situations and living on the streets. Many children are orphaned due to AIDS, as is the common perception. There are also 100,000 people that die every year from Malaria. Many people are dying from very curable and preventable diseases. In many cases, if the mom dies, there is a good chance the father is long gone or has never really been around. We have one little boy in kindergarten (he is five) who used to make gravel for a living before he came here. Make gravel you might ask? Yes. By that I mean, sitting on a rock all day, holding a hammer, pounding on more rocks to make them in to smaller rocks, gravel. I saw people doing this today. To imagine a four-year-old doing this is unthinkable. To think that this is the only way that he would eat is unfathomable.

The smiles on these children's faces would melt your heart, as it does mine every time I get flashed a smile. I am so glad that Rafiki has come to take these children in, provide a home for them, feed them (as many of them used to fight for food or not get many meals) and give them an education and teach them the love of Christ.

Pray for the children of Zambia. They are beyond adorable and they are so loving and so smart. I wish I could take them all with me!

Jersey Day

Today, the kids wore their jerseys to school. Now, you must understand that our children wear uniforms to school. So when I heard they were wearing their jerseys, I was confused. Then I was informed that jerseys were what we in America call sweaters. Then I understood!

Today was a bit chilly out, with a high of only seventy, and the first clouds I have seen since arriving here. It is very dry here, so seventy is rather cool.

The children behaved better today than they did yesterday which was good. We have new kids coming to school next week! This afternoon we will prepare for that to happen. Thank God it is Friday though! Yay for the weekend! I get to go to the market tomorrow which is exciting.

Two of the missionaries leave tomorrow on furlough, where they will spend time with their family (including THE fattest grand-baby on record) and travel around America telling folks about the kids in Zambia! They will be gone for about eight weeks though which is sad.

Today, we went out to pray over the new school building, which is currently a cement slab, but it is growing rapidly! The kids all got their picture taken standing on the building. Then the kids sang Praise the Lord. Seventeen children ages 3-6 standing there in nice rows in their uniforms singing to the Lord. It was beautiful.

Back to work to get the school ready for the new children and the new unit next week!

Much love from Zambia!

He is Like The Light of Morning at Sunrise

sun in the morning!
a pretty gazebo in the village!
my classroom building
an insufficient image of the gorgeousness of the sunsets here. also, this is the view out my front window.

the sun setting - taken off my front porch

Sometimes I do not think it is fair that I am surrounded by this much of God's beauty. But I enjoy it anyways!

Power Outages

Mark 10:29-31 "'Truly I tell you,' Jesus replied, 'no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and fields - along with persecutions- and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.'"

How encouraging is that??

I am here in my second night, of what promises to be many to come, of power outages. Essentially now, I wait. I have candles and a torch. The power will be out for about three hours before returning. To me, turning the power off from 18 hours to 21 hours when the sun is not out seems silly, but oh well. The power company is called Zesco, so everyone refers to the outages as Zesco and it makes it kind of fun.

I figured out that I do have a roommate afterall! It is a salamander that I saw crawl under my refrigerator earlier, and that I learned lives in this house. How fun.

Some of the new children will start school next week! We will get two new 3 year olds and two new 4 year olds. That will be challenging for sure.

Last night I had dinner with one of the missionaries here, and it was good to get to know her some. We played Phase 10, and I forgot to warn her that I happen to be a very good card game player, oops!

Well I am off to roam in the dark! Hopefully I will not fall asleep too early, but the early wake up call makes it tempting.

Much love from Zambia.

Toilets and Torches, Grace and Happy

Hello from Zambia! This is my second full day here. I arrived in Lusaka on Sunday afternoon after having to spend the night in Ethiopia due to a plane delay, and the missing of a connecting flight. I had dinner with the six long term missionaries that live here and was welcomed with open arms in to their village. The next morning, after trying to get rid of my jet lag, I started work! I met the teacher I will be assisting, Teacher Maureen. Teacher Maureen is a Zambian. She teaches the three and four year olds. At seven, the teachers all arrive to start preparing for the day. At seven thirty, we have teacher devotions. At eight, the four year olds and kindergarteners come to school. The four year olds (Grace, Purity, Luka, Lemmy, and Happy) come to school from eight until ten in the mornings. Not that I am playing favorites, but since grace is my favorite word, and Grace happens to be adorable she might just be my favorite girl here. And who can resist loving a child named Happy?! At ten fifteen, the three year olds (Mubiana, Emmanuel, Ben, and Salvio) come until twelve hours. There are twenty-four children at the village right now, with plans to bring more in soon! By the way, a lot of things are more European here, so time is in 24 hours, bathrooms are called toilets, and flashlights are called torches. The torches come in handy when the power gets cut off for a few hours in the evening a few days a week. The bugs and critters are not too bad, and the village has very few mosquitoes, especially it is the dry season, and it will not rain here again until October. I have been learning a lot about the culture in Zambia and the people here. It is great to be here serving the Lord and I can tell that I will be of great help to the staff here. They will be rotating in and out going back to the states for a few weeks so I will help fill in where needed! Thank you all for your prayers and support!