I love Zambia.
This country has been strangely enchanting — definitely among my favorite months. Here are some of my favorite things so you can kind of get a feel for what has been so great.
Meeting people in their own homes. It has been so awesome & humbling to be invited into complete strangers’ homes & have them be interested in what I have to say. If they didn’t have us inside, they’d pull up mats or stools or whatever they could find so we didn’t have to sit on the dusty ground outside their home. These people are so wonderful, hospitable, & open — it’s truly just been a privilege.
One of THE cutest little old ladies in all of Zambia
Sharing from God’s Word
& we have met all sorts of people. Often women doing laundry would pause to invite us to sit with them. We’ve met shop owners & gardeners. We’ve met teenagers & unemployed men. We even met a practicing witch doctor — how ’bout that? But what all these people had in common was how very kind & open they were. We didn’t have a single encounter that didn’t leave us smiling.
Once a woman invited us into her home & we shared God’s Word with her & she was just the sweetest thing. She said she was very encouraged & then gave us drinks, stating she remembered a verse about entertaining angels without knowing they were angels. I laughed & told her we definitely weren’t angels — just sisters in Christ — but that we gratefully accepted her gift. We really feel blessed every single day we go out.
& then there’s the kids. Oh, how I love my Sunday morning crowd! The first Sunday I helped with the kids during the service & there were 120 of them! Some of my friends who are teachers are cringing a little bit, but the truth is that they are nothing like kids in the US — they were extremely orderly & relatively quiet throughout the entirety of our time together.
The first Sunday with the kiddos…
The second week we were outside…
Our final week
I taught them 3 different Sundays so there were 3 lessons, 3 songs, & 3 times I fell in love with those adorable smiles & sweet spirits. These kids loved to sing & they could quote some serious scripture! It was really such a sweet point in my week to get to be with them & especially to teach them new songs…they had a blast 🙂
& truthfully, it’s not just my Sunday kiddos, though I love them very much. It’s kids everywhere in this country. They can’t wait to give high fives & even the littlest of them yell out “mazoongoo!” as you pass, hoping you’ll take a look toward them. I stopped & high fives as many as possible every single day because they are the cutest ever & are so happy with that simple action. Some of the real little ones would even look at their hands to make sure none of my white got on them — pretty adorable 😉
Check out this guy wearing the Eagles jersey all the way in Zambia!!!!
Our hosts were also such a great part of our time here. I kind of introduced you to them in the last blog — Pastor & Mama Zulu. Pastor Zulu is a really great guy who loves his people very much & was very thoughtful to us. Mama Zulu served us tirelessly & fed us some great traditional food. We raised money for them to be able to get a new vehicle (almost the entire time we were there, they had to borrow vehicles so that they could transport us) & when we gave it to them, Pastor Zulu’s immediate response was to pray & thank God. It was awesome.
We really loved them & their hearts. Pastor Zulu is a passionate preacher & Mama Zulu led a ladies group that was just the sweetest. When we attended that ladies group we also got to see Mama Zulu be an enthusiastic leader in singing & welcoming people — she’s pretty cool 🙂 They also generously gave our team custom made dresses that are apparently really high class in Zambian culture — we got all kinds of compliments on them & the necklaces they gave us that were made by locals. These people are truly full of generosity & we were so often the grateful recipients.
& then there are our translators. They spend time with us daily as we go throughout the neighborhoods & meet people. They work tirelessly with us to make it all happen & we are so grateful for their help.
More specifically, there’s Joy & Becky who were our constant translators. We love those girls so so much. We taught them how to play Dutch Blitz so they felt like they were really part of us…
We met Becky first & she’s kind of a firecracker. From the very beginning Becky had us laughing. She knows exactly who she is & doesn’t apologize for it. She is a pretty strong personality but a great one. There’s never a dull moment with Becky around & there was always a lot of teasing with her, especially over how hungry she always feels at lunch 🙂 Becky is so bold & doesn’t care if she’s the only one who wants to do what she know she has to do — she makes things happen & is a pretty tough chick. We’re pretty grateful for her.
This is us praying on our last Sunday together…
& then there’s Joy, whose name so accurately fits her. From the first day we met her we could all feel a calm & joy-filled presence just being around her. She’s younger than me but I started referring to her as the big sister because that’s exactly how she is. She’s sweet & will smile & laugh with us, but she’s also the mature one, so I definitely joked around with her quite a bit. She’s an excellent translator & so passionate about God’s Word. She also is one of the people who helps with the kids on Sundays & she has such a gift with them! I love working with Joy & I also love the peace that just permeates everything in her immediate surroundings.
This is Joy with her Mom at their store…
I know my blogs are always wicked long so I’ll stop here, but if I can get all my pictures to load (wifi’s been pretty sketchy so we’ll see) I’ll also write about my final favorite part of Zambia — our safari!! It was relatively cheap & we even got to walk cheetahs — so cool! But as amazing as that was, my love is for the people here, so thanks for catching a glimpse into this amazing place & the people who have made my heart smile every single day 🙂
