So much change has happened so quickly, and I am excited to introduce you to my new teammates, Team Hallelujah and tell you about my travels and my first night sleeping in Africa (spoiler alert, half my squad tented and the other half slept overnight on the bus) oh and we traveled to 3 continents in 24 hours then hopped on a bus that was filled with about 1 1/2 as many people as it was actually designed for!
My new team name, Hallelujah, is so fitting for this season of the World Race, because it is a universal word, with the same meaning in every language-Praise God. My new team is Gracie: The sweet soul who spent the majority of her childhood as an MK (missionary kid) in Istanbul, Turkey. McCrea: From the Pacific Northwest, who is a retired college soccer player and plans on pursuing medical school post World Race. Vivian: who grew up in Hong Kong, and might be an elf-as before the World Race she worked as a packaging engineer in the Empire State Building. Clare: from the UK, so she says things like head torch and happy as Larry, and she loves her tea, she’s also a nurse! Molly: who has already been a missionary for a year in Ireland, and loves children, and Emily who just graduated with an early education degree with a focus on english as a second language, who’s goofy and joyful and full of life.
They’re great, and I am excited to live life with them in this new chapter.
My travel to Zambia went a little like this
left for the Skopje, Macedonia airport at 3:30 am on December 2nd
slept at the airport until our flight at 9:15
arrived in Instanbul, Turkey at noon
7 hour layover
left for Dubai at 8 pm
arrived at 1:30 in the morning
8 hour layover
8:30 am left for Lusaka, Zambia
2:40 arrived in Lusaka
whew
we got our visas, luggage and packed our sweaty bodies onto a bus where at least 5 people didn’t have a seat, so we squeezed.
5 hours later we could go no further in the bus, because of certain laws, and we hadn’t made it to the church we were supposed to sleep in so we slept in option B, which was someones front yard, option A was a corner of grass on the same road the Zambian Prison was on, so really, we took the win on our sleeping arrangement. Some of us pitched our tents, and the others snuggled up inside the bus.
5 am came, early, but we took our hot shower (baby wipes) and squeezed back on the bus to drive another 6 hours to Livingstone.
Now, I’m home at the YWAM (Youth With a Mission) base in Livingstone!
I’m drinking water pumped from a well outside, the power was out, there are spiders the size of my palm, and my shower was out of a bucket.
But, Hallelujah, we arrived safety, we have a roof over our heads, food to eat, and a bed to sleep on (our hosts even provided mosquito nets for us)
I’ve had a desire to do pursue mission work in Africa for almost a decade now, I’m so glad that God kept that desire going and brought it to completion by allowing me the privilege of calling Africa home for 3 entire months! I’m so happy, so humbled and so excited to see what is in store in this new phase of the World Race!
peace and blessins’
Elizabeth
