Learning to Chill:
Day one in Zambia and we just set our bags down in our room. This room wasn’t small but it became small when you put 7 mattresses on the ground in it. Our thoughts didn’t go to that it went to the fact that we had a mattress. Once I set my bag down I walked up to our new host Alick. He is a tall man, I looked up at him and said what are we doing today? He laughed with a deep laugh and said chill you just got here. Zambia is chill, they say 9 in the morning it is really 10 in the morning before things happen. You feel like something is suppose to be done by a certain time, they take their time. Now these people are not lazy they get work down they just don’t run all the time. If they are going and see a cousin or an old time friend they will stop and talk. They are relational people who want to chat with each other when they see each other. If they have an appointment at 8 o’clock but don’t make it tell 8:45 am it is alright they just got delayed talking to a person that they thought was more important then the appointment. After Alick told me to chill that first day I knew that Zambia was where I was going to learn how to really chill. My senior year of high school, even my junior year if you told me to chill I might have laughed at you because I knew there were things that had to get done. Now I love to chill and I love to chill with team members, local friends, and strangers that I am just getting to know. Life is short and so was my junior and senior year, I don’t want to miss out on life and the great relationships in it like I missed out on a lot of those two years. Now I am not going to chill all the time but Zambia has shown me there can be a balance of “getting the job done” and chilling.
This is Alick he is like my dad and my grandpa in one! He has taught me how chilling is good, laughing is valuable, smiles say more then I am happy, respect changes the game, and so much more.
Blind to real relationships:
Month one of Zambia we found a shopping center and coffee shop a mile or so from the house but still close enough to walk to. So when we would have short days of ministry and or have a day off we would walk there. Let me help you get a mental picture of the walk. Walk out the front gate turn right , take the dirt road(runs north to south) to the paved road (runs east and west), when at the paved road turn left (east), walk tell you can’t go straight anymore and turn right(south), then you keep walking and you will see the shopping center on the side of the street. Now on the paved road that runs east to west just before the right turn. This road goes for at least a mile and there are at least three intersections before the right turn. On the intersection that is just before the right turn there are about six street vendors on the right side of the street selling fruit, vegetables, nuts, fish, and other things. Once you pass them there are some small shacks that are used for different business. There is two small restraints then a bar with a pool table with then another small half “inside” half outside bar after the bars there are some random tires that guys sit on while having their drinks. At the very end just before the right turn is a big storage container that is used as a shop that sells concrete. That is all on the right side of the street on the left side there is a strip of buildings like actuarial buildings that are either bars, storage, covenant stores, then at the very end of this strip is a parking lot to a club that has some fun music playing sometimes. I hope that gives you a mental picture of this one location that has become a special place.
As a group of six, white foreigners, all females, no matter what we do we get ever eye on this part of our walk, along with the comments, embarrassed laughs, points, whistles, hoots and hollers, and the men who just freeze and stare God bless them. We learned fast that using discernment on this part of our walk is important, along with being extra aware, and fast walkers are all benefits for us. At this part in our walk we naturally picked up our pace but for some weird reason we never thought about talking to the women who own the shops on right side of the street just before all the bars. Until one day I was walking by with one of the girls and I heard a ladies voice say hello. When I turned my head I new we had been walking past something really great and not even knowing it. Sure enough long story short we had been walking past some of the most amazing women. We call them our Mama’s and they call us their daughters. These ladies invited us into their space with welcoming smiles, hugs, stories, advice, and good laughs. They have great items at their little shops that are fresher then fresh. They have given us lunch, breakfast, we have brought have taken them lunch (breakfast burritos) they thought it was amazing and ate every last bite. We love to buy from them but they always insisted on giving us a little extra for no cost. We had a Bible study with them and talked about life. These women are mothers, grandmothers, providers, good friends, and they call us their daughters. We were playing it so safe on this side of the road that in the end we weren’t playing it safe at all. These women have yelled, laughed at and told men to get away saying many things to them in another language but always going back to these are my daughters. My team and I all have Mama’s from Zambia now and we know that they always have our back. They have little and work to provide for their kids to go to school, eat, have a place to stay, have cloths and everything else and they do it buy working every day at their shops. May God bless these women and their families as much as they have blessed us and others.
This is 4 out of 6 of the women!
**This blog post was wrote in April. There will be more blog post from Zambia to come. Internet has not worked the best for me on the Race so I am sorry I haven’t posted those pictures from India either. I will continue to work on getting things posted and out there to you all.**
