What Chanda Did In School

So, interesting day in school. We had a big adventure with little Chanda. We were outside doing 'bowling' on the grass. Emmanuel and Chanda decided to go kick over some of the pins, so they were told to come stand with me on the side. So Emmanuel comes over nicely and holds my hand as told. Chanda, on the other hand, decides to run around and be goofy. So I try to get Chanda to hold my hand, and he takes off running away from me. I figure he will stop soon so I just kind of walk after him. When it becomes clear that he is going to keep on running, I start running after him.
He got about 25 yards when he falls down on his face right as I am about to catch up with him. So I picked him up off the ground and he starts crying and crying. Then he proceeds to start scratching my neck with one hand, and pulling my hair out with the other hand. So I try to hold him in a way that prevents that and take him to Teacher Vicky's room.
I moderately succeed in getting him to Teacher Vicky, and she heard us coming since Chanda is screaming at the top of his lungs. She comes out and meets us at the porch where she tries to take him from me. He grabs at her glasses hanging from her neck and we had to pry him off of her glasses to try to prevent them from breaking. We manage to get him in the classroom and Teacher Vicky takes him to the time out chair. I sit down, exhausted at this point and kind of frazzled. Teacher Vicky comes out and I tell her what happened. I tell her that I do not think he should be at school anymore. She agrees and goes and gets him to come to apologize with me before he goes home. Needless to say, he does not stop crying long enough to apologize to me.
So Teacher Vicky has him by the hand and she starts walking him home. I walk behind her to go back to my class, which is still outside. When Chanda realizes that he is not going back to class, but indeed going home, he releases himself from Teacher Vicky and starts crying even louder. He tries to run away again but we both grab him. Teacher Vicky picks him up and Chanda proceeds to scratch her neck and grab her hair. So she puts him down and we each take one hand and try to get him to walk, which really resulted in us dragging him down the path, which is not wide enough for two adults and one child to walk across. We get about halfway home when trying to get him to walk is no longer an option. Teacher Vicky picks him up and he proceeds to grab at her again. I take one of his hands in each of my hands to try to stop this, which results in Chanda biting my hand. The rest of the way home, Teacher Vicky is holding his body at an awkward angle and I am holding his hands out away from his body to prevent further biting incidents from occurring. This was a moderately successful event.
Nonetheless, we got him home to his momma, where he screamed even more, probably out of fear of getting a spanking. Teacher Vicky tried to explain the situation to Momma Margaret and she took him in with apologies for his behavior, but he was still unable to apologize for himself. I could not help but laugh with Teacher Vicky on the way back to school and the silliness of the situation. Just the day before she commented on how sweet he looked walking home from school. He really is super precious and always smiling, so who knows what happened today.
He proceeded to avoid me later in the dining hall when he saw me which was even funnier for this little three year old to be doing.
Anyways, all is well and I thought the situation was funny, but it was interesting to say the least.
I hope everyone had a slightly less eventful day than that, but really great days for sure.
Peace and love.

One Little Pig

A taste of my day:

Song we sang in free play- A Song About Pigs

One little, two little, three little pigs
Four little, five little, six little pigs
Seven little, eight little, nine little pigs
Ten little pigs rolling in the mud

Song relating to our Bible story-Fishers of Men

I will make you fishers of men,
Fishers of men, fishers of men.
I will make you fishers of men,
If you follow me.

New song of the day-Climb up Sunshine Mountain

Climb, climb up sunshine mountain
Heavenly breezes blow
Climb, climb up sunshine mountain
Faces all aglow

Turn, turn from sin and sorrow
Look to God on high
Climb, climb up sunshine mountain
You and I

There was also much coloring involved, and the celebrating of the Passover Feast with unleavened bread and bitter herbs to eat. Hoorah. The kids were all pretty good today which was nice. The weather is starting to get warmer too which is always good.

Peace and love.

Philippians 3:14

As we drive in to town, we drive by the main hospital in Lusaka, University Teaching Hospital. This is not a hospital you would ever want to have to go to (even though I almost did!) and it is the reason our president is in France in a hospital and not in his own country. It is part of the college, hence the name. On one side of the hospital is the mortuary. There are always a lot of cars lined up outside the mortuary waiting to collect bodies. Saturday when we passed, there were atleast 30 cars waiting to collect bodies. They have funerals here by the hundreds daily. The cemeteries are so full. It is really sad and breaks my heart every time. AIDS and malaria are so prevelant, and are preventable with training and medication. Really sad. Really really.

My second group of housemates left today. That was also pretty sad! They were so great. There were five of them from Kentucky. They had been at Livingstone Saturday - yesterday so I had not seen them in a few days, and then they got back late last night and left this morning while I was at school, so I had to say goodbye to them before I went to school. Now I am all alone again. I guess I am getting to be a professional at living alone. It is not too bad anymore. I will definitely miss playing charades, worshipping, planning scavenger hunts, and just being goofy with them. They wrote me an awesome card that I found when I got home from school so that was fun.

Today is my 19 3/4 birthday! But more importantly it is Nancy Writebol's birthday, the childcare director of the village. She is really great. We are celebrating tonight so that will be really fun! And I am pretty sure there will even be cake :)

I am learning so much here and I can not wait for real life to resume so I can put it in to practice. But I know I am not done learning and that the Lord still has much to teach me in my days here. I long to be here but also to be home. I guess that is kind of how real life is anyways, we long to be with our Father in heaven, but we are on earth for a reason and until the Lord is finished teaching us, he will surely keep us here! He is so great and so faithful.

Well I am off to sort shoes. I have sorted a lot of things lately I feel like. I guess I am a professional sorter as well. Definitely good skills to have. Well I love ya'll. See you soon! Go make God famous!

Vitamin A

In Zambia, it is a law that all sugar has to have vitamin A added. This is because people drink a lot of sugar in their tea and such, and vitamin A helps prevent blindness.

This is for Rachel

Well, today I got up at 4:15 AM. That was pretty early. The group from Kentucky is headed to Livingstone today so they had to get up really early to go catch the bus for that so I woke up with them. I decided not to go back to sleep after they left at 5:30 so that at 7:00 I can go over and help make pancakes for the kid's breakfast. That should be good times making 70 or so pancakes with Kennedy.
I downloaded some David Crowder the other day. Definitely really good.
So I only have three weeks left here which is so crazy. I have been gone for ten weeks! It seems like so much shorter looking back on it. GAMES is officially over and we start school back on Monday. For a while I have been wanting to go home but now that there are only three weeks left, it is kind of real that I do actually leave soon. I can handle three weeks. I have done that before. So hopefully I can enjoy my last weeks here and gather everything the Lord has for me.
Yesterday the teachers had Bible study for the first time in a long time since school is starting again. That was good to get back in the swing of things and get back studying the word with others. We are back in Numbers which is an interesting book. Studying the Old Testament is interesting since I have never really done that before.
Yesterday at GAMES I helped with the obstacle course. That was really fun. First, they crawled under a table, then through a box, then walked over some chairs, then jumped onto a mattress, then had to do a sumersault, then log rolled on the carpet, then got this horse thing and ran with it around another chair, and then went through some tires, then had to pick up eight balloons and put them in a bucket, then crawl under another table, then take a spoon with a ball in it from one chair to the bowl on the other chair, then step through a ladder that was laid on the ground and then finally hit the table to finish. It was pretty awesome and there were no real injuries, praise God.
On Monday we get two new girls in the four year old class at school, Lisa and Gladys! It will be awesome. They are both so sweet. They have been here about six weeks now but have not been to school.
Today, we get two new kids at the village!! Their names are Gershan and Mpallo, but I probably spelled both of those wrong. Anyways, they will probably be starting school in a week or so and that should be great. I can not wait to meet them later.
Yesterday, the other mini-missionaries and I planned this big scavenger hunt that we took all the kids on. We divided them up, and Susan and I took the blue team. It was a lot of fun and at the end the kids all got sweeties (lollipops).
Well, that is all I can come up with now. I will try to be a better blogger, especially for Rachel. Hopefully I will not be too lonely with all of my housemates gone!
I love you all! Peace and love from across the sea.

Brrrrr

It is weird being in Africa and being so cold. Yesterday it was mighty cold out, probably the coldest since I got here. Fortunately we have plenty to keep us warm, especially at night.
GAMES is still going really well. Today I did music with the kids. One of the mini-missionaries Michael can play the guitar and he played it for the kids today and we sang a bunch of songs. We taught them a new one, Happy All the Time. It was a lot of fun seeing them learn it and do the motions with it.
This afternoon I started painting ceilings, which will be a several day job. I have a lot of skills to put on my resume. Some of them I had before and some I have obtained since I have been here. I have sorted beans, chopped up and cooked pumpkins, taught pre-school, made nshima, cooked many vegetables and other foods, painted walls, put putty on holes in ceilings, painted ceilings, made curtains, sewed serviettes, washed millions of dishes, set dozens of place settings, swept floors, painted murals, made tons of art projects, sorted and hole punched manuals, made play-dough, bargained in markets, gone to a church service in another language, learned some words in Nyanja, been a part of a team serving the Lord, met lots of new people, said good-bye to many people, had my heart broken by many children. That is only what I can think of now. It has been a busy and great time of learning and engaging people and seeing what the Lord has for my life and what He can teach me.
We have had a lot of power outages lately. The past few days it has been off a majority of the day. Two weeks ago we had power for a week straight! That was crazy.
I am still loving opening a letter every day. It is definitely a highlight to my days to get some encouragement from my friends back home. I got asked about my Zac Efron love today because of a post-it note I put up that has Zac on it saying I Love Sara. Good times right there. Gotta keep it real with Zac.
Pitt County is at Sharp Top Cove YoungLife camp right now! So exciting. So many of the kids from North Pitt are there learning about Jesus! That is the best thing ever. I pray they all fall in love with him and never let go.
I love you all and I will see you soon! Thanks for the prayers and the love. You are all so great. I can't wait to be home but it will break my heart to leave. Peace and love.

Lisa

Have you ever watched someone learn how to smile? This girl did not know how to smile three weeks before this picture was taken. This is Lisa. She has changed so drastically in her time here. She is absolutely beautiful. Her story is long and heartbreaking, as is every child's here.
We have children from so many different backgrounds. Many of them would be on the street begging right now if not for the Lord's provision of Rafiki and this village for them to come to and learn what love is and how to smile. God is awesome.
Go make Him famous.