I am home. my soul is home. Livingstone, Zambia. 8 days ago I left my home in the states and went to Gainesville, Georgia. training camp 2.0. but instead of 10 days in the hot Georgia sun, I spent 4 days in the chilly Georgia winter. I met my new family- FINALLY. i heard jesus. i felt the holy spirit. monday morning I woke up at 4am, went to the Atlanta airport and sat for a fat 11 hours. THEN I hopped on a plane to LONDON! yup, I got to spent half a day exploring London. we rode the tube (DOPE), ate at a cute cute café, & saw Buckingham palace. but when we got to the London airport, we had to say a bittersweet goodbye. we had to say goodbye to one of our teammates, bailey. her health took a turn for the worst and she decided it was best to head back to the states where she could recover. at the airport we prayed as a team and had an unexplainable peace in our hearts as we sent her off on her flight back to the states. we’re praying hard for a speedy recovery for her so that she can (hopefully!!) meet us on the field later! but we must keep fighting—so we got on another 10 hour flight to Johannesburg, south Africa. in the midst of our 6 hour layover there in the south African airport, I got to have an awesome conversation with a deaf south African in American sign language for a solid 20 minutes (god works in some cool ways). after about 40 hours of travel, we finally boarded our last flight for the next 3 months, Lusaka, Zambia here we come 🙂
we spent the night at a sweet lodge in Lusaka, the first time sleeping in a bed after 7 long days- 3 of them being in airports and airplanes. not gonna lie- best sleep of my life. OH and a glorious shower! the next morning, thursday, we started our 7ish hour bus drive to livingstone, Zambia. now here I am. Sitting on the porch of my new home in Namatama (the neighborhood we live in). in awe of where god has me right now. Next Monday we start our scheduled ministry. teaching, sports, street evangelism. & everything in between.
sooooo- after wandering the streets for a couple hours today we figured some important stuff out…
Wifi is a solid 30 min walk away- wowza.
a $0.50 soda is a 5 min walk away.
i wonder which one I’ll spend more time at this month.
i live in a home with 15 other people. In a room with 7 other girls (we have BUNKBEDS- HALLELUGIAH!) 10 from my team, 1 local, & 3 other volunteers from brazil, uk, & france. 5 countries smushed into 1 house- how cool. Jesus is good.
my final realization so far… living is community has its moments y’all. i’ve “extroverted” more these last 8 days more than I have in the last 3 months. wow. but truly, there isn’t any other group of people I’d rather spend 25/8 with.
see you in another week, give or take a week 🙂
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love, hallie
