Entering into Zambia, we were put onto new teams and had raised up squad leaders from our squad (shoutout to the amazing John, Claire, and Abby aka Jac-Jac). I was put on the co-ed team with three guys and three girls. We quickly became F R I E N D S and eventually like family. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed being apart of this time and walking alongside both brothers and sisters in Christ on three different continents together. We had a blast.
Our first month together, we were paried up with an all girls team at a ministry called Africa 4 Jesus. The entire squad was based in Livingstone, Zambia which is where you can find the natural wonder of the world, Victoria Falls. We visited Vic falls at the beginning of the month as a squad, and although it was their dry season and the falls weren’t rushing like we expected them to be, it was still breathe taking seeing their height and width and I even got the opportunity to swim in a “pool” on the edge of the falls with my squad mates Elsie and Katie, which was incredible and terrifying at the same time as we sat in a bowl of water, hanging over the edge of the 355 ft drop.
Our main ministry at Africa 4 Jesus was door-to-door evangelism, but our goal was quality over quantity. Our hosts (Ken, Bright, Isaac, and Charles) emphasized the importance of creating genuine relationships with the families we visited and enouraged us to visit the same families throughout the entire month. We were split into three times and assigned one our hosts as a translator. Our group visited a few families, who already claimed to be Christians, so we got to enccourage them and disciple them during our time there. We discussed what the bible says about being born again, baptism and the power of the Holy Spirit. At the end of the month we had a Christmas dinner party that we invited our families to and gave gifts to any children that came, broke bread together, and put on a skit about the virign mary and Jesus being born. We were also able to gift bibles to families who did not own one. They accepted them with tears in their eyes, holding onto the bibles they now considered a precious asset to them. How quickly we forget how blessed we are to have the access we do to scripture in the states until moments like these.
We also did a kids ministry event every Friday. We would walk through the villahes singing and dancing and children of all ages would begin following us back to the building where we would hold a program. The program included playing games, more singing and dancing, a bible story and memory verse and then snack time. There was also a lot of time for us to just hang out and play with the kids. This often turned into many of the girls grabbing our hair and starting to braid it. We had so much fun getting to love on these kiddos and some of my favorite memories from this month are just hanging with the kids out in the blazing heat making a fool of myself dancing trying to make them smile.
Outside of scheduled ministry, we also got to go into town and do some street evangelism where we met many interesting people from shop owners, to sellers at the market, to taxi drivers, to tourists, to homeless people roaming the streets. People in Zambia were so friendly and open, and wanted to talk with foreigners. It made it so easy to share our faith and ask about theirs.
All 18 of us, lived in three bedroom house and slept in bunk beds, with bug nets covering the windows to prevent being eaten alive by mosquitos in the middle of the night and slept nearly naked to keep from sweating buckets all night long, even though both scenarios ended up happening anyways.
Often the electricity and running water would cut out in the middle of the day. We also didn’t have shower heads, so bathing looked like sitting in a bath tub and taking what we called “bird baths” using the tub spicket and splashing it on ourselves to get clean. It’s funny to think now how normal that became for us. You do what you have to do, and you adapt. You become so grateful for normal plumbing, consistent electricty and running water, and even shower heads.
We washed our clothes by hand in the same bath tubs, and hung them up on the line to dry, which took no time in the African heat. We paid for Wifi by the week until we eventually figured out that buying local SIM cards was a much more convienant, and cheaper route to go. (In Romania, I got 36gb of data for a month, for 7$…. America is bankrupting us y’all.)
I celebrated by 25th birthday this month and we celebrated Christmas and New Years by hanging by a pool at a resort and getting wifi to call friends and family to wish them a Merry Christmas. We also decorated the house we lived in with snowflakes cut out of paper and played Christmas music all month long.
On our off days, we would taxi in to town to get coffee, milkshakes and wifi. Me and three of my teammates, Christian, Shelby, and Ashley, splurged on an animal adventure experience where we got to walk freely with lions and pet them, walk Cheetah’s on a leash, and ride elephants through the jungle. It was incredible, and not as inhumane as you might be thinking, it’ a conservatory for animals who were injured, abandoned or abused and the precautions that take to take care of them are for the best interest of the animals and not the people.
. . .
I’ll miss the kids coming to our gate in the afternoons asking for “Auntie Shelby and Auntie Lauren”
I’ll miss sitting in the shade of a tree, with our bibles open, discussing scripture with the families we established relationships with.
I’ll miss hanging with my buddies, Grace and Francis, at Friday kids ministry.
I’ll miss trips to town to see Vincent, our friends at the market, or trips to ShopRite for a coconut-cashew chocolate bar.
I’ll miss making zambian fritters over the fire in the backyard with our hosts.
Song that remind me of this month are:
- Waymaker by Sinach
- Doxology by Anthem Lights (ft. Selah)
- All the Christmas music
- Remembrance by Hillsong Worship
Want to know more? Ask me about:
- How I spent my 25th birthday
- How my team and I celebrated Christmas
- A man named Vincent
- My adventure day at Makuni Big 5
