I have less than a month left to raise $1560. This is the last of the $15,500 is takes to get me around the world, spreading the love of Jesus. It covers my food, lodging, transportation, and healthcare. It’s hard to believe that I’m so close to being funded! This week, would you be willing to donate some or all of the rest of it to keep me on the field? Thank you for reading and being part of my story! Oh, my story. Well, here’s how that’s going…
On Friday, I was in Albania.
On Saturday, I was in Rome.
On Sunday, I was in Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, and finally, Zambia.
And it only took, like, 36 hours or something! Half the time of that massive, 76-hour ordeal that was getting to Europe.
I have never been to Africa before and it’s shocking to realize that we’re actually here. Central America and Europe were one thing, but Africa? I know so little about it. It’s so far from home. I’ve never been in those cultures. It’s in the Southern Hemisphere. It’s winter in June (which is what Washington’s summers in June [a.k.a. “June-uaries”] should aspire to be).
There’s a lot to say after only two days. The people we met, our living conditions, the food, the fashion, the work… but let me start by saying that I loved it here immediately. I don’t know if I expected to dislike Zambia. I don’t know what I expected; I didn’t think about it too much. I knew I was scared of malaria and being forced to evangelize and preach all the time. I’ll get to that later.
When we landed in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, my team and another team were met by Kebby and Brian, local pastors who are arranging our ministry this month. Kebby led the 15 of us out of the small airport into the sunny, dusty, tree-lined parking lot. He made us stand in a circle and close our eyes because something was going to happen. We closed our eyes for a long time, and I thought he was going to start preaching at us, or do some crazy welcome-to-Africa thing.
“You may open your eyes,” he finally said. We looked and in the middle of the circle was this American guy about our age. He was looking at Arden (my team leader). Then Arden got excited and they hugged and started talking. I had no idea what was going on, but I knew it was a happy moment. It was something good.
Turns out, this guy is Matt, Arden’s friend. Matt has been squad leading for another group of Racers, and they just finished their Race in Malawi. So Matt was in the area visiting other ministries and figured he’d come hang out with us for a few days and surprise Arden!
After the reunion, Kebby and some other men loaded our packs into the bed of a pickup truck and asked one or two guys to ride in the back. They seemed surprised when a bunch of us volunteered, including me. And so my first car ride in Africa was on top of a pile of bags, in the late afternoon, on June 1, with my good friends, marveling at the rugged wind-blown trees and just how flat the land was, and how big the blue sky.
Our two teams are staying at two different houses. My team (team Oak) is with Pastor Brian, out of Lusaka a little way. Michelle’s team (team Ari) is in town with Maria, a woman who goes to Kebby’s church. Our first night there we decided to cook spaghetti all together and Maria taught me how to get the fire going. We put new coals in a metal bucket and I swung it back and forth in the front yard to feed the fire. Then we sat outside and cooked four packages of spaghetti, which was enough to feed maybe 30 people and left us really, really full. It took a while, but there’s a checkers board out front and lots of people stopping by to say hello. The pieces are beer bottle lids and the board is drawn onto a plank of wood, along with a warning: “Do not cheat in order to win.”
After dinner team Oak settled in at Brian’s place and met his children and wife, Dora. Dora just had a baby last week. His name is Andrew, after the team leader of the World Race team that was here in April.
“Really?” we said. “You named your baby after a Racer?”
“Yes, he asked me to,” she said.
We were exhausted (I was running on three hours of sleep in the last 48 hours), but we stayed up to talk with his family and watch TV and mention that we hadn’t eaten n’shima before, which Maria said was her favorite food. And so, at about 10:30 that night, Brian and Dora had prepared us a second dinner of n’shima, watermelon, and the best-seasoned chicken I’ve had in a while. I mentioned ugali in my training camp blog, and n’shima’s sort of the same idea: But this was delicious. We were forbidden from doing dishes and sent to bed–we girls have our own spacious, freshly-painted, mosquito-proof room, and the guys have their own–and slept in late the next morning.
I’d feel shocked by the newness of it all, but everyone is so nice and smiling and hospitable that I forget to feel out of place. For example, we don’t have to do our own laundry this month. Someone from Brian’s church is going to pick up our clothes and wash them every week. That’s a wonderful, unexpected blessing. It’s one of the things making me feel strangely comfortable here in Dead-of-Winter Zambia.
Last month we worked hard physically. This month my team is going to be working hard with people. This month will be filled with preaching, teaching, Bible studies, school and prison visits, children’s ministry, and prayer. It sounds like a lot. I don’t know what to think of it. I mean, I know it will be good and very challenging. But, well… it will be very challenging. Maybe the most challenging ministry of the Race yet. I’ll talk about it in my next blog.
